Director denies snubbing Clarkson before she died - Michael Bay disputes defense testimony in the Spector trial, saying, `It never happened.'

"It never happened," he said in a telephone interview from Japan. "Wouldn't it be a big moment in one's life if you saw someone at a party, and two days later she was killed? Life's made of memories, and that would be a big memory."

Punkin Pie Laughlin, a nightclub promoter who said Clarkson was her closest friend, testified earlier this month that the 40-year-old cult actress was depressed about her faltering acting career, had financial problems and was a heavy drinker.

Clarkson was shot to death Feb. 3, 2003, at the Alhambra mansion of Phil Spector, the legendary producer of music for the Beatles, Righteous Brothers and Ike and Tina Turner. He is on trial for allegedly killing her when she tried to leave his home after a nightcap.

Laughlin testified that Clarkson was so fragile she broke into tears when Bay, whose most recent film is "Transformers," did not recognize her at a party days before her death.

The defense presented Laughlin's testimony to bolster its contention that Clarkson killed herself.

Bay said he spoke to prosecutors to contest Laughlin's televised account. He also posted a detailed denial on his website.

In court Monday, a defense expert testified that bloodstains on Spector's jacket the night of Clarkson's shooting could show that he was standing too far away to have fired the fatal shot.

Stuart James, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., forensic science consultant who specializes in analyzing bloodstains, said his experiments show that airborne blood can travel as far as six feet. The prosecution has claimed that blood sprayed from a gunshot wound can go no farther than three feet because of gravity and air resistance.

But under cross-examination by prosecutor Alan Jackson, James acknowledged that he could not say for certain that Spector was standing too far from Clarkson to have shot her.

Spector's blood-speckled jacket is now at the center of the defense's case for his acquittal. The size, pattern and number of blood spots on the jacket show that Spector was standing farther than an arm's length from Clarkson, who suffered a fatal shot inside her mouth, the defense contends.