Michael Bay feels as if he would have remembered running into an alleged murder victim just days before she died.

The Transformers director said Monday that, contrary to what Lana Clarkson's best friend said on the stand, he did not snub the actress at a party back in 2003.

"It never happened," Bay told the Los Angeles Times. "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."

Clarkson's pal, club promoter Punkin Irene Elizabeth Laughlin, testified earlier this month for Phil Spector's defense team that Clarkson had been depressed in the months before she died over the state of her career and finances, and that the encounter with Michael Bay only made her feel worse.

Bay further protested Laughlin's version of events in a posting to his Website's message board.

"What a friggin circus in that Phil Spector murder trial. Some whack job witness who say's she is a friend of the poor murdered girl Lana Clarkson say's [sic] she ended it (meaning suicide) because I did not recognize Lana at a party," the obviously frustrated filmmaker wrote.

"I knew Lana. She worked with me on two commercials. I liked her energy—she had a great personality. I would never forget her face. It would be a big event in someone's life if you saw a woman you knew at a party on Saturday night and she was dead two days later, don't you think? I never saw Lana at this party. This Punkin, witness lady is a liar!"  

Bay also told the Times that he has spoken with prosecutors to contest Laughlin's account.

Meanwhile, the parade of witnesses who say Clarkson had lost that signature energy continued Tuesday, with independent film producer Greg Sims testifying that his late friend told him five days before she died how unhappy and frustrated she was with life and people in the entertainment industry.

The defense maintains that a despondent Clarkson, influenced by alcohol and pills, accidentally shot herself. Vicodin was found in her system at the time.

"I told her I thought she needed to reach out beyond herself to get help for what she was feeling because it was profound," Sims said.

"What was her response?" defense attorney Roger Rosen asked.

"A lot of crying," Sims answered.

The producer, who also testified that Clarkson and Laughlin were best friends and that Laughlin was really broken up by her pal's death, said that the 40-year-old Clarkson seemed similarly distraught over her love life and the fact that she hadn't had children. Their chat took place after an impromptu party in his Century City hotel suite.

"She was having a hard time," Sims said, calling it the kind of conversation as one that if you had it with a guy friend, "you'd slap him. But if it is a girl, you want to be a little more understanding."

Sims conceded under cross-examination, however, that he would generally characterize Clarkson as optimistic and hopeful, which the prosecution has been trying to establish.

"It's a common feeling among actors in Hollywood?" Deputy District Attorney Patrick Dixon asked, referring to Clarkson's career worries.

"Correct," Sims replied.

Dixon also asked why Sims hadn't informed investigators about this alleged conversation, but talked about it with an interviewer from Court TV.

"I wasn't one of the central players" and was only doing a friend who worked at the network a favor, Sims said. He also said that he avoided defense attorneys for months until they ultimately served him with a subpoena to testify.

Forensics expert Werner Smith, like Henry Lee a former witness for O.J. Simpson's murder defense team, is expected to take the stand Wednesday. The defense is in the midst of arguing that the blood spatter found on Spector's jacket indicates that he was at least six feet away from Clarkson when the gun that killed her went off.

As expected, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler denied the defense's motion for an immediate dismissal or reduction of the charges, ruling that the prosecution, which just formally rested its case yesterday, has presented more than enough evidence to merit seeing the case through to a jury verdict.

"I've listened very intently to all the witnesses that have been presented during the people's case in chief," Fidler said. "It's very clear to me…that there's more than enough substantial evidence to support a conviction if there was one."

In an effort to get the murder charge against Spector reduced to manslaughter, defense attorney Roger Rosen argued that prosecutors had failed to prove "implied malice," and therefore second-degree murder, on Spector's part.

Deputy D.A. Alan Jackson countered by saying that merely pointing a gun at someone could imply malice.

"He had the gun in his home, loaded with bullets," Jackson said in court. "Whether he pulled the trigger, whether he sneezed or she slapped his hand away or there was an earthquake—it doesn't matter. It's implied malice."

In documents filed Monday, the prosecution stated that the evidence, including the testimony from four women who say that Spector drunkenly threatened them with guns, "overwhelmingly establishes that the defendant murdered Lana Clarkson."

"He finally made good on his promise," Jackson said Tuesday.

If convicted of second-degree murder, Spector could be facing a sentence of 15 years to life in prison. A manslaughter conviction, meanwhile, could possibly carry a maximum 11-year stretch behind bars.