2002 LOCAL NEWS: UNSCRIPTED? BLAKE MURDER CASE LACKS AN ENDING.Byline: Daily News In a case that could have come out of his detective show but was a real-life drama, Emmy Award-winning actor Robert Blake Robert Blake may be:
The 69-year-old star of the 1970s TV cop series ``Baretta'' has been in custody without bail since his arrest April 18, on charges of first-degree murder, with the special circumstance of lying in wait, soliciting murder and conspiracy. His handyman-bodyguard, Earle Caldwell of Burbank, was charged with conspiracy to commit murder. He has been free since Blake posted his $1 million bail on April 26. Both men have pleaded not guilty to the charges. They are accused in the fatal shooting of Bonny Bonny (bŏn`ē), town, SE Nigeria, in the Niger River delta, on the Bight of Biafra. In the 18th and 19th cent., Bonny was the center of a powerful trading state, and in the 19th cent. it became the leading site for slave exportation in W Africa. Lee Bakley, 44, on May 4, 2001, outside Vitello's restaurant in Studio City. Blake had married Bakley six months earlier after a paternity test paternity test n. A test using blood group identification of a mother, child, and putative father to establish the probability of paternity. paternity test, n determined he was the father of the couple's baby daughter. ``Robert Blake shot Bonny Bakley,'' Capt. Jim Tatreau said during a news conference the night the actor was arrested. ``We believe the motive is Robert Blake had contempt for Bonny Bakley. He felt he was trapped in a marriage he wanted no part of.'' ``It was a hit by a husband,'' he said. The arrests culminated an intensive investigation in which the one-time child star was regarded as a suspect almost from the night of the slaying, when he told police he left his wife in a car while he went back to the restaurant to retrieve the gun he had forgotten in the booth where they had dined. He returned to the car to find his wife shot in the head. The couple's peculiar relationship and Bakley's questionable background added intrigue to the case. The defense had claimed that many men might have wanted Bakley dead because she ran a ``lonely-hearts'' business out of her home, soliciting money from lonely men who answered her ads in magazines and newspapers. But authorities say Blake solicited two stuntmen with whom Blake had worked to kill his wife to get him out of his troubled marriage. The actor also asked Caldwell to murder Bakley, but the Burbank man was unable to go through with it, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. court documents. The couple got married after Bakley got pregnant, and a paternity test determined that Blake - not Christian Brando Christian Brando (born 11 May, 1958 in Los Angeles, California, U.S.) is the eldest of the offspring of the late actor Marlon Brando. He was convicted of the voluntary manslaughter of his half-sister Cheyenne's boyfriend on 16 May 1990 at Marlon Brando's residence on Mulholland , son of actor Marlon Brando Marlon Brando, Jr. (April 3 1924 – July 1 2004) was an Academy Award-winning American actor whose body of work spanned over half a century. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential actors of all time. , as Bakley had suspected - was the baby's father. Blake's initial defense attorney, Harland Braun, withdrew from the case in October because the defendant had agreed to a jailhouse interview with ABC's Diane Sawyer  This article or section is written like an .Please help [ rewrite this article] from a neutral point of view. Mark blatant advertising for , using . . Although the interview never took place, Braun was replaced by high-profile attorneys Thomas Mesereau Thomas Arthur Mesereau, Jr. is an American trial attorney and former amateur boxer best known for successfully defending Michael Jackson in the 2005 child molestation trial. Jr. and Jennifer Keller Jennifer Keller is a fictional character in the science fiction television series Stargate Atlantis, played by Canadian actress Jewel Staite. She first appeared in the episode "First Strike". . The change in attorneys delayed the start of Blake's preliminary hearing to determine if there enough evidence to require him to stand trial. That hearing is now scheduled for Feb. 26. CAPTION(S): photo Photo: Actor Robert Blake, was arrested on April 18, 2002, on suspicion of murdering his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, in May 2001. Nick Ut/Associated Press |
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