Phil Spector's biographer fears the disgraced music mogul will kill again before he is sentenced to serve jail time in May - and this time the victim will be himself.

Writer Scott Raab believes the producer would rather die than spend time behind bars for the murder of actress Lana Clarkson.

The author insists he has spent enough time with Spector and researching his life to know what the mogul's mindset is as he faces an 18-year prison sentence.

Raab tells E Online, "He's (Spector) an old man. (It's) hard to see a guy like that, at his age, surrendering to an 18-year minimum sentence.

"He would kill himself first. He is full of fear, and always was, and he lives with a sense of extreme vulnerability."

And Raab, who reveals Spector's own father committed suicide, feels the judge who presided over the producer's murder trial and retrial was determined to punish the defendant: "I do think Judge Fidler was heavy-handed in both trials. I wish the conviction had been for manslaughter."

After a five-month retrial, which ended earlier this month, Spector was found guilty of pulling the trigger of the gun which killed Clarkson at his home in Alhambra, California in 2003.

Spector and his legal team maintained throughout both trials that the actress shot herself.

Spector will be sentenced on 29 May.

(by Daniel Melia)