Closing Arguments In Blake Trial
In his old days on "Baretta," actor Robert Blake played the good guy. On Wednesday, a prosecutor was ready to tell a jury in closing arguments that Blake crossed the line and became a killer.
Blake, 71, is accused of murdering his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, less than six months after their marriage. Prosecutors have tried to prove that Blake shot her outside a Studio City restaurant after failing to persuade two former stuntmen to do the job.
The alleged motive? Concern that his wife was not a good mother for their infant daughter, Rosie.
After closing arguments, the jury could get the case on Friday. The panel must decide whether the former child actor and star of the movie "In Cold Blood" would commit a real murder to keep Rosie out of the hands of members of the Bakley family, whom he once allegedly called "monsters."
If convicted of murder, two counts of solicitation of murder and a special circumstance of lying in wait, Blake could be sentenced to life in prison. He spent nearly a year in jail before being released on $1.5 million bail.
Prosecutor Shellie Samuels had only a circumstantial case to present. No eyewitnesses, blood or DNA evidence linked Blake to the crime scene. The murder weapon could not be traced to Blake and experts testified the tiny amounts of gunshot residue found on Blake's hands could have come from a different gun he said he carried for protection.
In his closing, defense lawyer M. Gerald Schwartzbach was likely to continue the line he took during trial, attacking the credibility of the two key witnesses:
During the trial, which had testimony from nearly 100 witnesses, a defense expert testified that heavy drug users are subject to hallucinations.
Bakley, 44, was shot as she sat in a car near Blake's favorite restaurant, where they had dined on May 4, 2001. Blake contends he was in the restaurant at the time, retrieving a handgun he carried for protection.
Both sides agree that Blake met Bakley when he was hanging out at jazz clubs looking for companionship. They had sex in his truck and she became pregnant. He married her because of their baby, and then was determined to keep the child away from the mother who sold promises of sex by mail and whom he suspected of using another of her children for pornography. Bakley was on probation for mail fraud when they married.