Transcripts For KGO 2020 20240714

She was a professional con artist. Robbing lonely men of money with the promise of sex. Someone said you should put a bullet through her head. Many people think he is in jail, he is convicted. Im still here, you bastards. A witness in the case thinks he knows who the killer really is. Smoke that let me tell you about hollywood. When something bad has to happen, like a husband or a wife has to be eliminated, or an executive has to be eliminated and believe me, show business, theres a lot of strange things that happen. But the way they happen is like, i would talk to my lawyer, now thats confidential. He talks to somebody else, who talks to somebody else, who talks to somebody else. And then the word comes back to me. Robert, get out of here, with your family. Thats all you have to do. And somehow or other, something happens. And nobody can trace it back to anybody. Thats what hollywood is about. Thats what high end stuff is about. Thats why millionaires never get arrested for anything. Millionaires dont commit crimes. Things happen. So its los angeles, 2001. Theres no twitter. Theres no netflix. Theres no facebook. Theres no real internet for that matter. George w. Bush is the president. Its before 9 11, and its a couple years after the o. J. Trial, so things are going along in the culture rather quietly. And thats when the robert blake murder case happens. The wife of Actor Robert Blake was killed friday as she sat in the couples car. The victim, blakes wife of less than a year, lee Bonnie Bakley, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head last friday night. Actor robert blake, star of the 1970 tv series baretta, finds himself in the middle of a reallife mystery. It was a big, big story in a very slow news month. Here we go, its like o. J. Echoing in every mind were two letters o. J. It was huge. Monumental. This was a true hollywood story. In los angeles today, police have acknowledged that the Actor Robert Blake is considered a possible suspect in the murder of his wife. It sounds like a madefortv murder mystery, but this whodunnit is all too real. Who was robert blake . Robert blake was a star. He had been a child star. He had had a successful series called baretta. This is someone who had been famous for decades. So many generations of people knew him. The public found out almost immediately that blake and his wife did not have an ordinary marriage. And that she was a lifelong con artist. He was a figure that hollywood was familiar with. She was like a figure out of a Raymond Chandler novel. She was a woman with a past. Like someone out of a film noir from the 1930s or 40s. The circumstances surrounding the shooting of his wife were unusual. Mr. Blake and ms. Bakley went to mr. Blakes favorite restaurant for a meal. And they were chatting, laughing, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They had walked down the re, car. Then blake realized he had forgotten something in the restaurant his gun. So he left his wife in the car and went back to vitellos to pick up his handgun. And he came back and bonnie was dying. She had been shot. Blake had run to a nearby house and asked a man to please call 911. Address and emergency. My name is sean stanek. I heard a loud banging on the door. I open the door, i see him and i go, robert blake . I was stunned. I had no idea what was going on. He was just yelling, you gotta help me he was manic. Is she conscious, robert . No shes not conscious. Is she breathing . Is she breathing . Yeah, theyre coming, theyre coming. Is the gentleman there who reported it . Its Robert Blakes wife. New wife. Movie star, carrying a gun on the same night. Yonastt rso for both, to try to figure out, did he have a motive, was he involved in her death . The police were very suspicious. Who forgets a gun in a restaurant . Blake said bonnie, his wife, was afraid she was being followed. Blake has a concealed weapons permit and was carrying a weapon because his wife feared for her life. But the explanation for his gun just raised more questions. If he was worried for his wifes safety, why did he park a block and half away on a dark street . And that was something that did raise a red flag. Police suspected blake from the very beginning. Whave not r as a suspect in this case. They thought it was likely that he shot his wife himself or hired someone to shoot her. I was worth 40 million. I would hire somebody to shoot my wife in a car while i was out taking a pee or some [ bleep ] thing like that . Ive been in hollywood all my life. This investigation lasted over a year. The police said it was the most extensive investigation in lapd history. It seemed like he must have done it, right . The wife was dead and he had a gun. He must have done it. Well, it wasnt that gun. The murder weapon wasnt the gun blake was carrying on the night of the killing. And they could not trace the gun that was used back to blake. But two retired stuntmen had come forward and they said that blake had tried to hire them to kill his wife. And the police thought that would be enough to nail blake. This is robert blake under arrest. This is the bodyguard of robert blake now being arrested here in the burbank area. Were here today to announce that the Bonnie Lee Bakley case is solved. He was booked on two counts of soliciting murder with special circumstances. In california, if youre charged with a homicide with special circumstances, potentially youre not going to get bail. I think the l. A. D. A. s office would prefer that a high profile client would be in custody than be out arguing, pleading his case in public. We return to the top story, the arrest of Actor Robert Blake. Hell be put in isolation, and Authorities Say thats Standard Operating Procedure for high profile arrests. When we had celebrities in jail, we had to keep them out of the general population for their safety and the safety of other inmates. Everybody wants to be a star, and all it would take is, is one inmate to think, hey, if i beat that celebrity up, ill be in the National Enquirer or some other publication. And we couldnt take that chance. Months went by. Blake is behind bars. And he really wants to talk to the press. Hes an actor. He figures he can sway public opinion. But his lawyers wouldnt let him do it. Roberts too volatile. He might have said something could have hurt him or maybe misinterpreted. For some reason that i dont understand, he feels that he wants to talk to america. Blake kept trying to set up an interview while he was in jail awaiting trial. I ended my relationship when he made a deal behind my back to go on a television interview. I thought that was just a breach of trust. So i said, you better get yourself another lawyer. And he got a very good lawyer. He got tom mesereau. I was against mr. Blake giving any public interviews. This was the interview to get. Everyone wanted it. Barbara walters landed the interview with robert blake, of course. What did he have to say and what would happen when a highly skilled interviewer would confront him, as so many people wanted him to be confronted on what this relationship was and where he was at the time of the killing. Im glad to see you. Hi. Im okay. Good. What had you been doing today until i came . I used to do this for a living. I know you used to do this for a living. Im going to sit here, and youre going to sit there. And were going to have to put a microphone on you. Lets start, gentlemen. Boy, youre a boss. No question youre the boss. Well, theyre used to me by now. Robert, youve been in jail now for almost a year, how are you doing . Im a prisoner. Im in a cement box in a jail. When you came back to the car and found your wife shot to death what did you think . What did you feel . Te in a storm devastated area. A family pulled up. It was a mom and her kids. Everything they had had been washed away. The only thing that brought any kind of solace was the ability to hand her a device so she could call her family and let them know that she was okay. vo there for you when it matters most. Join us and get up to 650 when you switch. Thats verizon. Marie could only imagine enjoying freshly squeezed orange juice. Now no fruit is forbidden. Nexium 24hr stops acid before it starts for allday, allnight protection. Can you imagine 24 hours without heartburn . For allday, allnight protection. New crest gum and sensitivity. And then i jump on the trampoline. Ahh brain freeze no, its my teeth. Your teeth hurt . Sensitivity. I should do something about it. 80 of sensitivity starts at the gum line, so treat sensitivity at the source. 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Tery because energizer ultimate lithium is the longest lasting aa battery in the world. [confetti cannon popping] energizer. Backed by science. Matched by no one. When we asked robert blake for an interview, he said no, but he invited us over to his home and said that we could interview his friend. And this is what happened. The way that robert blake came into this world is very unusual. He came into the world despite the odds against him. His parents wanted to abort him. They didnt want him to be born because he was the result of an affair that the mother was having with his uncle. Am i getting this right . Hes going to tell you. Hes there. I know hes going to tell you. This is getting too [ bleep ] difficult. Okay. Just keep everything rolling. Okay. Im just going to jump in here. I didnt know that you were going to start getting this heavy. This is the bottom line truth. Lets fix your earplug. The wires sticking out. I thought that was a part of my brain. Because theres about three quarters of my brain that i would be happy to get rid of. Okay, are we good . Okay, nutley, new jersey. My grandmother and grandfather had a bunch of kids. Tony was one of the brothers and jimmy was one of the brothers. And my mother married jimmy, although she was in love with tony. And started sneaking over to see tony and she eventually got pregnant by him and he left. She hated what was in her stomach because it belonged to tony and tony had deserted her. And jimmy hated what was in here because he knew it was tonys. And i knew both of them hated me. So you have this incredibly dysfunctional family. And what do they do . They go to hollywood to try and make it in the movies. Hollywood, california, became the movie capital of the world. Huge movie studios sprang up and began to turn out millions of feet of entertainment a year. I was 4 1 2 years old, and my lunatic father packed up the family with all the possessions and all that junk and we drove for eight days and eight nights across the country. And they start working as extras in the studios. Most notably, at mgm. And thats how blake got discovered. He is really cute. He is really adorable and hes good at what he does because he does lots of little things, and you just sense that he is doing exactly what they want him to do. Blake may have been unwanted in his own family, but the camera loved him and he loved the camera. So very quickly, blake starts getting speaking parts. But first, were going to make some dynamite. If you talked, everybody on the set paid attention to you, which i interpreted as love. At the studio, he was supporting his entire family at home. He says his father was beating him badly. I was his punching bag. I wish i could talk nicely about him. It would be like me trying to talk nicely about the cops that put me in that cement box for a year. To this day i hate them. Im still here, you bastards. Im still here. I didnt die in that box. You got it . Im still here. Im 85 years old, im beat up all to hell and gone, but im still here and youre still pounding a beat. Smoke that. So anyway, they were going to make me a star. Hello, everybody. Mgm saw him as a new star. And proof of that is they change his name from Mickey Gubitosi to bobby blake. We honestly believe that bobby blake is as great a boy actor as Jackie Coogan in the kid. They cast him in his first feature film in the title role as mokey. Good night, son. Now i got my own mother. When donna reed hugged me, that was the first time that i felt loved. In mokey, he showed a range of emotions that impressed the studio. Young bobby is on the brink of stardom, and then his father completely blows it by picking a fight with the head of the studio. And louie b. Mayer had him physically thrown off the lot, and thats the end of the story. So blake leaves mgm and ends up going to make kind of low budget westerns. He gets loaned out though to other studios where he does get to meet hollywood legends. He worked with Humphrey Bogart in the treasure of the sierra madre. Beat it. I aint buying no lottery tickets. Beat it. 1,000 pesos is a good price. Get away from me, you little beggar. And his mentor was John Garfield. When i played John Garfield as a boy in a picture called humoresque, i had this scene where i had to start crying. Well, i was dry as the mojave desert. There was nothing. I just couldnt get going. But garfield came around and he started talking about himself, and while hes talking, he starts crying, and i start crying. And then he said the best line that i ever heard in my life about acting or art or music or anything. He said, life is a rehearsal. Your performance is real. He played cowboys. He played neurotic thugs in b movies like the purple gang. Get out of here, you hear me . Just leave me alone in 1960, robert and i played drug addicts in a play called the connection. And robert played a guy called ernie who was angry about his life and what was going on. His monologue was so real you felt he was going to crack any moment. He married actress sandra kerr and they had two children, noah and delinah. His big break is in 1967 when he plays perry smith in the film version of in cold blood. Blake reached down into himself, into his own experiences to create this character who was vulnerable and also murderous but who you, as a viewer, ended up having mixed feelings about. I guess the only thing im going to miss in this world is a poor old man and his hopeless dreams. His performance was acclaimed, and he was offered everything after that. You would have thought that on the basis of this hed be a star because this is a star making performance. But it doesnt seem to happen that way. He turned down the wild bunch. He turned down midnight cowboy. The same role ate ar out of dustin hoffman. Ngere whats amazin he followed a big success with a string of failures. Sometimes spending years before the next important project. Some of the movies that ive made have been what i consider just fun, a lark. Elliott gould was a big star, he was a giant star. And i didnt have a job and Elliott Gould was going to make this movie called busting about two cops. And robert blake i felt had a lot more experience than me and i thought, he would be a great partner for me. He was funny and he loved to improvise. There was a scene where we both get beat up. I understand that vitamin e will clear this up almost overnight. Thank you. Youre welcome. Thats funny. So by 1975, hes off hollywoods radar. Hes not being thought of for any kind of big roles. Then he was offered the role that fixed him forever in the publics imagination as a tough guy. 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Back, join us for a new favorite today. Thneomfotoon u buy one take one for a limited time. Only at olive garden. Itits crepe dayday for a family traditionys. We started about 22 minutes ago and now we can continue that tradition at home with free dennys delivery. See you at dennys. Com has been excellent. They really appreciate the military family and it really shows. With all that usaa offers why go with anybody else . We know their rates are good, we know that theyre always going to take care of us. It was an instant savings and i should have changed a long time ago. It was funny because when we would call another insurance company, hewod say it was funny because oh we cant beat usaa were the webber family. Were the tenneys were the hayles, and were usaa members for life. Get your usaa Auto Insurance quote today. In the 1970s, the cop show was king and every network had to have its own cop show or shows. You had mannix. Starsky and hutch. The streets of san francisco. Kojak. And of course, there was baretta. Everybody my age, if you say the word baretta, they break into song. Youd watch those promos. So baretta was one of those police shows where the cop breaks the rules to make sure that the bad guys are caught. Ill cut you a little. It was very much in time and in feel with the 1970s, right . This is the new kind of cop. It was a hit. And the winner is robert blake, baretta. The show earned robert blake an emmy award in 1975. Ah, let the good times roll. I saw him in baretta. I watched baretta as a kid. What i liked about it, i liked his style. And he was a fighter. Baretta had a lot of quirks. The man lived with a cockatoo. What was the deal with the cockatoo . I love you. He was brilliant. He was called lala. There were five or six birds, and all of them did something else. But lala was the genius. And he also was a troubled animal, because he was trapped in being a bird. He shouldve been a person. And if he got mad at you, you could see that he had that look in his eye, and he would grab your finger, and hed look at you like, you want to argue with me . Say goodbye. Hello. So he was kind of nuts half of the time. But you could get him to do anything. He understood the camera. Baretta was tough and certainly not afraid to use his fists when required. But he had a good heart and he was almost on the side of the weak and the vulnerable. I designed baretta as my ideal self. It was a lot of things that i wanted to be. But people thought that was me, and they expected to find that when they met me. And it just it wasnt true. In the hierarchy of hollywood, movies are number one. Tv is number two. Blake considered a tv series a big step down for him. But he poured his heart and soul into it. He would come in in the morning knowing his dialogue to a t because he had rewritten it the night before. And it would be better. I never met a man i didnt like and i dont like you. He was a perfectionist. If he read a script and didnt like it, he would come into the office and throw it down on the table and say, who wrote this [ bleep ]. Jimmy garner, who was a dear friend, he said, you cant be a perfectionist on television. Stop trying to make it in cold blood, because youre not going to get that done. But i wasnt built that way. And i drove myself crazy. Every script had to be better. Every direction had to be better. Every casting had to be better. Id hire and fire people right on the spot in front of the camera. It was too much for blake and he ended the show. Blake took several years off. He stayed in the public eye by appearing on the tonight show he was on a total of 150 times. Welcome robert blake. Robert blake. Robert blake on the tonight show was famous for shooting from the lip. It was nobody around to stop me. Wasnt nobody could have stopped me anyway. You killed him. I was going i knew i wasnt going to hit him. I was looking at his throat and i was thinking, wouldnt it be nice if i had his adams apple in my hand. I say, hey, jim, you cant talk no more. I said, look at him. Look at him. They think hes really like that. Hes acting. His image as a troublemaker became cemented thanks to the tonight show. And i did helltown. Helltown was about a priest who saves souls on the gritty urban streets of los angeles. Heavenly father, let us go among them. I wrote it. I produced it. I directed it. And i was responsible for the money and all kinds of things. And it was about a priest. I thought i was doing gods work. It was just i was crazy. And i had a nervous breakdown on camera. And i walked off the set. And i walked off the show. I was always at least 50 selfdestructive but when i wasnt working, i couldnt stand what i felt. Bipolar . I was tripolar. I was quadpoalr. Who the hell knows what kind of polar i was. I had 35 different feelings in 5 minutes. I was nuts when i was away from the camera. Blake went through a messy divorce. And he went back into therapy. He quick acting for eight years and got into politics. Supporting cesar chavez and working against nuclear power. I didnt need a lot of money. I was already a millionaire. But i was lost. I was lost in life. So by the late 90s, blake is acting very, very rarely. He works out. He plays his guitar. He goes to jazz clubs. Hes a figure on the periphery of hollywood. But hes not working at all. So one night, he went to a night club, chadneys, and this blonde woman approached him. And it turns out her name is Bonnie Lee Bakley. It would have been a good night to have stayed home. Bonnie lee bakley. She was a professional con artist. She was involved in pornography. She had over 50 aliases. She had been married countless times. Ten times . 11 times . I heard 8 or 9 times. Six, ten. Bonnie wanted to be famous, or be married to somebody who was famous. The word grifter was always attached to her. This con artist who just moves from place to place, basically robbing lonely men of their money with the promise of romance and sex. Bonnie lee bakley always wanted to be in show business. She tried to sing. She tried to dance. At one point, she went into a studio and made a record. Hello, my name is leebonnie. Id like to tell you my story. Unfortunately, bonnie was not blessed with any noticeable talent. When bonnie found that she was not succeeding in show business, she decided to put ads in swinger magazines. She would use different names and different professions, and come up with a variety of reasons as to why she needed money. There was one ad that said, my name is julia, and im a nursing student, and i need money to pay for tuition. Shed send them sexy pictures of heo come omery meager beginnings anso many well known men . Bonnie grew up in rural new jersey. And actually her mother gave her to her grandmother to raise. My father was an alcoholic. My mother had given up other children for adoption. It just was not a good environment. She said that at just 10 years old, she was already having Sexual Experiences with men. Growing up, bonnie lived near a nudist colony, which one day a week, it was known in the neighborhood, had a day that you could swim with your clothes on. When she was 11, she and her sister margerry went there, only to find out that the day theyd gone was in fact the day they had to take their clothes off. Margerry never went back, but bonnie went back all the time after that. Bonnie was swimming there a lot. Thats where bonnie got her start in the taking of photos. She was under age, people were taking photos of her and selling them. At 21, bonnie married her first cousin, a guy named paul. And they had a daughter holly and a son. Bonnies children didnt mind what she did for a living. Her daughter holly did an interview with Barbara Walters at one point, and of course, barbara asked about it. Describe her as a mother. She was everything to me. She was my best friend. She supported me in anything i wanted to do. She allowed us to grow into anything we wanted to. Your mother was described in the press as a con woman. Yes. Help me with that. She did do things that most people wouldnt approve of. But it wasnt all that she did. She was a shrewd businesswoman. She ran the business. What was the business . Well, for the most part, she sold pictures of naked women, a little bit of pornography. And shed spend time on the phone, asking for plane tickets, or just whatever she wanted. Whatd you think of your mother . I thought she was great. I love her. I will tell you that her kids loved her. She was a hell of a mom. So as bonnie gets older, her cons become more elaborate. She would lure lonely older men into a trap where they would put her on their will, where they would put her on Life Insurance policies. And once she had bilked them of whatever she could get from them, she would disappear. One of her involvements was with a retired lawman. He discovers that theres case after case, man after man of people whove been fleeced and hoodwinked by her from all over the country. The cases fill 400 pages of a manuscript he puts together and that he entitles, ubiquitous bonny mistress of sham, of lust, greed, and deceit. He told his niece that at some point, someone was going to put a bullet in her head. To establish her different aliases, bonnie starts stealing credit cards and forging drivers license. This ends up in her getting charged with fraud in 1998 in arkansas. One of bonnies stranger hobbies was that she would record her telephone conversations. If you were talking to bonnie, you were being recorded. It was an obsession. I dont exactly know why, but she always figured she could use them later. I got three years probation just for having different ids, you know . And it wasnt even like i was really using them for anything totally, you know, too, too illegal, either, you know. In the 1990s, bonnie moved to memphis because she wanted to be Jerry Lee Lewis girlfriend. Jerry lee lewis recorded great balls of fire. He was a killer. He was one of the great rockandrollers of all time. Bonnie lee was very, very determined. She just had her way of working her way in. She was just everywhere. Bonnie lee as far as i know never had a physical intimate relationship with jerry lewis. Bonnie wouldnt have been with him if they werent sleeping together. Bonnie was going around saying she was pregnant with Jerry Lee Lewis love child as they call it. We all laughed because we knew better. It would have been a miracle for it to be his baby. Trust me. He was sterile. He couldnt have any children. A subsequent dna test proved that he was not the father. But she told the world that Jerry Lee Lewis was the father of her baby and, in fact, named the child jeri lee. After Jerry Lee Lewis, bonnie decides to set her sights higher. And she picks up stakes and leaves memphis, and moves to hollywood. She started stalking dean martin. Hes an older guy. Hes 78 years old. He ends up dying before she can actually get close to him. So bonnie focused on someone shed been pursuing for a while, Christian Brando, the troubled son of marlon brando. Bonnie had been interested in Christian Brando since 1991 when hed been convicted of shooting his sisters boyfriend in the face. What she did was, she sent nude photos to him, fedexed them to him while he was in jail. And then they met when they got out, when he got out of jail. And that was it. Thats all it took. So Christian Brando isnt the only person that bonnie has her sights on. She was about to meet robert blake. On that first night, robert blake had no idea who bonnie really was. She will be famous, but not for the reasons that she ever, ever would have wanted. Ever would have wanted. Jamie. Ever would have wanted. Youre going to be seeing a lot more of him now. Im not calling him dad. Oh, nno. Look, [sighs] i get it. Some new guy comes in helping your mom bundle and save with progressive, but hey, were all in this together. Right, champ . Im getting more nuggets. How about some carrots . You dont want to ruin your dinner. Youre not my dad thats fair. Overstepped. Thats fair. Today is the day for doing. Because the home depot has instant savings of up to 600 on appliances with no rebate, and no hassle, so you can fuel your team for less. Save instantly on top appliances like this samsung kitchen package. Only at the home depot. Im not picking it up. You pick it up im not picking it up. Ill pick it up theyre clean cuz my hineys clean. Oh yeah im charmin clean. Charmin ultra strong just cleans better. Enjoy the go with charmin. These women love the scents in this groit smells amazingexhibit luxurious but what are the smelling . Wait, its suave . Wow. Its bodywash. 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Ah, she was pretty. What i used to do, this sounds pathetic, i used to go out at night to jazz clubs, once in a while. I was particularly lonely, i was still italian. I would meet a woman, and we would have sex. And i probably never saw her again. Is this bonnie . Yeah. I didnt know her name, i didnt know anything about her. While she was seeing Christian Brando, she was also seeing robert blake. And she was using an ovulation prediction kit because she wanted to get pregnant. So of course, she did get pregnant. She wrote in a letter to robert blake, i hate to tell you this, but the pill did not work for me. Blake did not want her to have that child. Its just going to make it all so much more difficult. All the way down the line. What about if couldnt i just maybe give, like, temporary custody to my mother or something . I beg your pardon . Couldnt i just have it and give temporary custody to my mother or Something Like that . Have the baby and give it to your mother . Temporarily, yeah. Id rather you didnt have it. She frankly was telling both the men that it was their child. She cant decide whether or not she wants the baby to be Robert Blakes or Christian Brandos. Christian brando is good looking and handsome. But robert blake has more money. Brando, of course, is also someone who went to prison for shooting someone in the face. I wanted to know if the baby was healthy and if the baby was mine. She said, the baby is healthy, and youre the father. Thats all there is to it. Thats what, how come she said later that it was Christian Brandos . Because bonnie said a lot of things at a lot of times. When the baby was born, Bonnie Lee Bakley named the baby Christian Shannon brando. So robert doesnt know if he, in fact, is the father of the child. So he convinces bonnie to bring the baby to los angeles. And thats when he sees the baby for the first time. And thats when his heart, basically, opens up and he falls in love with his child. The first time i touched rosie, she was my daughter. And right then and there i named her. I said you are rosie lenore. You were 66 years old. This is a baby at least, yeah. From a woman that you are not in love with. You had grown children. Why did you want this baby so badly . What did she mean to you . What did she mean to you . Youre not serious. Well, this is a baby that you werent sure was yours. No, this was my baby. You just knew that. This was my daughter, i knew, of course i knew that. Of course i knew that. So you think im a monster, too . No. That i cant pick up my own baby and know that shes mine . No, robert. I knew the second i put my hands on her. And i asked god to take care of her right at that minute. It doesnt matter whatever happens for the rest of my life, ive never asked him for the time of day. She was my baby. You were my daughter. Dna tests proved it was blakes baby. Blake did not want bonnie raising the baby. Who would trust Bonnie Bakley to be the mother of their child . Robert blake didnt trust her at all. They both, like, were highly suspicious of each other. At one point, bonnie taped robert blake in a telephone conversation, where she tries to bait him into saying that he wanted to sell the baby for money. Why . So that, perhaps, she can use it later on to extort money out of him. The following tape is just to prove that robert blake wants to sell my baby. I have no intentions of doing so. Im just trying to prove it in case its necessary. I dont know how to describe it. She just creates fiction out of whole cloth. You told me about those people who wanted to, you know, buy the baby for 100,000. What people . What baby . What are you talking about . Im just telling you, you know, what i know. And, you know, i was like thinking it over and i didnt have time to think. I dont know what the [ bleep ] youre talking about. Well, i was all stressed out and i didnt have time to think about it. I dont know what youre talking about. The baby. You said that the i would never sell my child. What are you, crazy . What are you, [ bleep ] nuts . Why did you ask me then to do it . I never asked you jack [ bleep ] what . Okay, never mind, forget it. Boy, you are really getting weird. Anyone who knows robert would know he would never do that. A little baby girl . Hes going to sell his baby . Robert grew to love the baby very much. And he accepted responsibility as a father. He married bonnie. I think he was fearful of, you know, if he wasnt constantly in rosies life, what might happen to her. He was resigned to the fact that he had to live with her, but she was living in the back house, so she wasnt really involved in his life and he was just doing his own thing. Around this time, blake starts noticing a black pickup truck parked on his block at odd times. Inside is a guy with a crew cut. Blake became concerned that this man was someone who had been victimized by bonnie and was looking to cause harm to bonnie. Bonnie was an agent of chaos. She left a trail of broken hearts and angry men. One of those men was Christian Brando. And she kept telling him the baby was his even though she knew it was blakes. Eventually he found out. Its not my kid, you know that . No, i dont know that for a fact. So why dont you come out and [ bleep ] say it . No, i dont know that for a fact. Why does it all end up in the National Enquirer . Youre making up a bunch of [ bleep ] up that winds up there in the National Enquirer. What the [ bleep ] is the deal with that . It really [ bleep ] bugs me. I dont know. You have no idea what you do to people with this [ bleep ]. No idea. Its you know what . You know what . It kind of it kind of hurt. Think about it. Youre lucky someone doesnt put a bullet in your head. Is it to carry cargo or to carry on a legacy . . 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He goes there so often that theres even a dish on the menu named after him. They had a pleasant evening according to him. They pay for their meal and they walk out together. Blake would tell police that he would go back to vitellos, because he forgot something at the restaurant. And he came back and bonnie was dying. She had been shot. She was sitting in the passenger seat with blood on her head. On may 4th, 2001, 9 30 at night, i heard a loud banging on the door. When i opened that door, i was stunned to see robert blake. He starts going into a tirade of youve gotta help me. Youve gotta help me. Youve gotta get an ambulance. You gotta call 911. My name is sean stanek. Do you know who the Actor Robert Blake is . Yes. He walked up here and hes screaming severely. I know him from the neighborhood here. Okay. He was in my house and he was pacing back and forth and his eyes, they looked black and dilated. Get an ambulance here. Is she conscious . Is she conscious, robert . No is she breathing . Is she breathing . Yeah, theyre coming. Theyre coming. I thought we were gonna go out together and try to help and he leaves. And i go, where are you going he says hes gonna go get help. I open the door, i sit in next to her and theres just a massive amount of blood everywhere. Its probably about a minute or two minutes before he came back. When i saw robert blake had a gun, i thought to myself, were in deep [ bleep ]. Wife of Actor Robert Blake. Wife of Actor Robert Blake. Was killed friday as she sat in the couples car. Police had several suspects in the days following bonnies murder. Including Christian Brando, Marlon Brandos son. Who was apparently irate after learning he wasnt the father of bonnies baby. The police zero in immediately on robert blake. Police eliminate brando, and focus on robert blake. Then suddenly word spread that something was happening and he was going to be charged. And the Police Called a press conference. I was there. This morning detectives secured arrest warrants for robert blake. And i raised my hand, and i said, who was the shooter . Who do you believe was the shooter . And he said, without missing a beat robert blake shot Bonnie Bakley. They announced to the world they were going to hidden hills to arrest me and there were thousands of people around. Youre looking at a live picture there. Theyre coming to arrest him. Reporters galore. Cameras galore. That would be mr. Blake being loaded into the car right now. He was booked on two counts of soliciting murder and murder with special circumstances. The lapd had been blamed by many people for the loss of the o. J. Case. They wanted to make up for the Public Perception that they had blown the o. J. Simpson case. Over the strenuous objections of his lawyers, blake decides to do that interview with Barbara Walters. Your hands are okay now, you dont have that yeah. Theres nothing like a televised interview of someone who hasnt spoken before accused of a crime. Because its as if the nation is now the jury. They can look at this guy and say i believe him or i dont. And thats a thrilling television experience. You made almost a dozen movies in which you either played a murderer or somebody in jail. You give me my lawyer, you hear me . Do you think that today there are people who say, he is that tough guy . No. The cops invented that person and shoved it down the press throat and the press loved it. They walked up and down the streets saying 15,000 for anything bad about robert blake. I think the police and the prosecutors were mixing performance and theater and film with reality. No longer a big star, robert blake admits to Barbara Walters that hes effectively a pariah. I moved to hidden hills, a gated community, where i had lived 20 years before and i had lots of friends and i went there and nobody would talk to me. People crossed the street when they saw me coming. The kids next door wouldnt play with rosie. I would go have coffee with her and people would get up from the seats they were sitting in and move someplace else. While blake is in jail, his older daughter delinah takes care of baby rosie. Do you think of killing yourself . No, i think about dying. And i think that it would be better if i was gone. You know what scares me . If i walk out of here, barbara, where do i go . Where do i go . I feel like the people who love me are better off without me. You could see rosie. Yeah, that would be good for me. Im not sure it would be good for her. Heres a little girl thats got a good life now and am i gonna come in and confuse her . When i went to see him, he was quite distraught about being apart from the little girl, who he had become very close to. Rosie had become his life. Robert, you did this interview because you wanted to talk to your daughter. Yes. What do you most want her to know . Talk now to rosie. There is something in me and something in every person, including you, rosie, thats special, that is a gift from god. He does not look like someone who intentionally set out to kill his wife. Robert, are you innocent . Of course, of course im innocent. Of course, im innocent. What if you are found guilty . What are they gonna do to me . What are they gonna do that they havent already done already . They took away my entire past. They took away my entire future. Whats left for them to take . They gonna take my testicles and make earrings out of them . When you think of him, think next time you see me, youre gonna die. And then in the 21st century, the person the person he was fighting was the law. So, when she tried new gain scent blast detergent, she loved it. Her son loves it, and her husband loves it, too. And the delivery woman . Awkward. New gain scent blast. Love it or hate it, its intense. With pink power. 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So eric dubin becomes the lawyer for the bakley family. He files a wrongful death suit. Typically in a criminal case, a defendant is simply trying to get a not guilty verdict. But in this case, robert blake was also facing a civil case. It puts him in a really tricky spot. In a civil trial, you could be deposed. You could be called as a witness. The problem is that prosecutors or other lawyers can twist what you say. This was a disaster. Eric dubin showed up for the deposition. Theres nothing stopping mr. Blake from telling the truth today. They bring this man behind the plexiglas, and it was robert blake. I think my first thought was, oh, my god. Its baretta. As any good attorney would do, tom mesereau was insisting that blake not say a word. I have previously announced in open court in this proceeding that im not going to permit mr. Blake to respond to any questions. I am going, to on behalf of mr. Blake, assert all of mr. Blakes Constitutional Rights and privileges under the United States constitution and wait a minute. And the california constitution. Wait a minute. Blake wanted to testify, because he felt he had nothing to hide. Its my general understanding that i was going to talk, and when there was a question that you didnt like, you were going to object to it. No, mr. Blake. I am not going to permit you to respond to any questions in this deposition. You have blake sort of fighting with his own lawyer, which is just legal bizarro world. Mr. Mesereau, can we just start with the depo before you make your record. Mr. Blake, im not going to allow you to respond to any questions in this deposition, and if plaintiffs counsel keeps interrupting me im going to terminate the deposition. We havent even started the deposition yet. I got rather abusive with mr. Dubin, to put it mildly, and i wouldnt let him speak. Tom mesereau and i got into a huge fight. Mr. Dubin, im not mr. Dubin, dont touch me, im not gonna be lectured by you on the law. At one point, so many people are talking over each other that the Court Reporter cant keep up. Im sorry, i cannot take both of you, you are both speaking at the same time. Im sorry. Mr. Mesereau, you cant keep cutting me off. Mr. Dubin, youre not going to lecture me on the law. I cant, i cant, im sorry. I just i cant get both of you. I cant get what youre saying, sir. What are you so afraid of, tom . Im not afraid of anything. This is a circus and a clown show that youve put on to get publicity. Mr. Blakes lawyers terminated the deposition. Mr. Mesereau would not let him say anything. In the end, the civil case is delayed, and now robert blake can focus exclusively on the criminal case. Today is the first day the American Public gets to hear about the case in a court of law. The preliminary hearing is the prosecutions effort to demonstrate they have enough evidence to take the case to trial. Part of the prosecutions evidence will be a taperecorded phone conversation between robert blake and Bonnie Lee Bakley. I know who you are and i know what you are. But youre wrong. Yeah, im wrong. You didnt get deliberately pregnant, you didnt lie to me, you didnt double cross me. That was all. Im supposed to forget about that . I didnt think they incriminated mr. Blake at all. I mean, she became pregnant. She was twotiming him with Christian Brando. It was not evidence that somebody was a murderer or had a motive to kill. It was ridiculous. Prosecutions case was that they had two stuntmen. And he wanted them to say he hired them. Gary mclarty was a very respected, successful stuntman in hollywood. Gary mclarty did the stunt of riding up the stairs in animal house. What did he say to you . That somebody at night could come in while she was sleeping, and somebody could go in there and dispose of her. He said he wanted to pay 10,000. The other stuntman is ronald Duffy Hambleton, whose most famous stunt was in a george lucas movie called thx 1138. We wanted to know basically what it would cost for my services. Obviously i had no intention of giving him a figure. Today, blakes attorney Thomas Mesereau continued to try to break the credibility of the witnesses. My strategy was to thoroughly eviscerate them on videotape. We discovered that there was a history of drug abuse with the two stuntmen. Youve used cocaine for years, true . Not years, i have used it. When did you last use it . A few months. Didnt you say this morning you never did any drugs . Ive experimented with drugs, and ive used regular store bought drugs, those prescribed. Is methodrine a Prescription Drug . It possibly could be. I dont know. Did you get it with a prescription . No, i didnt. In these situations, typically, far more likely than not, that it goes to trial. Your motion to dismiss is denied. Not surprisingly, the judge decides that the case is gonna go to trial. The standard is relatively low. But what is surprising is what happens with bail. In a murder case you dont typically get bail. I am going to set bail at a million and a half dollars. All you have to do is look at his facial expression when hes given bail to know how miraculous that this was for him. With those words robert blake looks stunned. It took a few seconds to sink in and then his eyes filled with tears. After almost a year in jail it appears he will be out on bail. Tom mesereau managed something that was almost a miracle which was getting him out of jail on a murder charge on bail. Im going to go sleep for three or four days. I never thought id make 11 months in a cement box, but im here. So this preliminary hearing is televised. It made tom mesereau into a star. Tom mesereau quits and ends up representing michael jackson. Mr. Blake and i had a falling out. 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And he ended up hiring someone who was not particularly well known. The first 25 years at least of my career were representing poor people getting paid next to nothing, but that was meaningful. I never thought i would represent robert blake. Who am i . I believed in his innocence the first time i met him. More than three years after his wife was fatally shot Opening Statements are set for the trial of Actor Robert Blake is finally under way. Blake could face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted of first degree murder in this case. The case was almost entirely circumstantial. It was based on two witnesses, highly unreliable, it was based on very little actual hard evidence. Deputy District Attorney Shelly Samuels told jurors that blake killed his wife Bonnie Lee Bakley because he wanted their baby rosie but he didnt want her. The evidence will show that the defendant became obsessed with the child and with keeping the child away from bonnie. I could have sued her for child custody. I could have done a lot of things. And i would probably have won. I didnt have to marry her. It was the very best thing to do for rosie. The prosecution says blake solicited two stuntmen to murder bakley. Prosecutors introduce evidence that duffy bought a prepaid phone card so he could talk to blake, and the conversations couldnt be traced. There was a calling card that linked him to two of the men with like 30plus calls leading up to the day of the murder. So blake says, yeah, i reached out to the stunt men, but not to kill bonnie. He wanted them to chase away a guy that he thought was stalking him and bonnie. I was getting really worried about what was going on in front of my house. Now its true i had a gate, and it was locked, and all like that, but a truck started showing up regularly. Sometimes during the day, sometimes during the night. It was during the day when i walked out there, they drove away. And i said, whats going on here . I figured it had to do with bonnie because she burned a lot of people. Why not let the pros handle i . I hired them a lot of times, to do a lot of work. Duffy hambleton worked for me a lot. Gary mclarty doubled me on baretta. So why not . And the defense had a witness who could help back it up. Mclartys own son, cole. Cole mclarty gets up on the stand and testifies that gary mclarty comes to him a few days after talking to robert blake and says Robert Blakes gonna pay me 10,000 to rough up this stalker and i want you to help me. So then cole goes and tells his mom, and his mom is like, what . What . Why are you no what are you getting involved in this criminal act for . Thats important because it backs up blakes teams defense that yes, robert blake had contact with mclarty, but no, it wasnt about killing Bonnie Lee Bakley. The other stuntman, Duffy Hambleton, admitted to using a little meth, but the defense dug up a lot more evidence. Duffy lived in a house in the desert in San Bernardino county. He had meth laying all around his house, in a china hutch, in a Kitchen Cabinet and in a bowl beside a bowl of some jellybeans in his dining room. Although he denied it, duffy was using so much meth that he once hallucinated that 20 armed men had invaded his house, and he actually called the police for help. So the witnesses are a problem for the prosecution, but the bigger problem is they cant link blake to the murder weapon. Theres this gun that was found in the dumpster that is the murder weapon. The murder weapon was found in a dumpster right near the car. It was a walther p38. Blake admits he had a gun with him that night, but it was a completely different gun. He had this one for protection. He says he went back into the restaurant to get it, and thats when bonnie gets shot. Two guns, one scene, lots of confusion. Prosecutors didnt believe he ever went back to the restaurant. Nobody saw blake go back into vitellos including the cashiers, and the host that he would have to walk by. But the defense said its possible for blake to have returned to the restaurant and not have been seen. You can see right here the booth that robert had dinner. So if theres not somebody at the front counter, he runs back into the restaurant, grabs the gun and is back out of the restaurant within 15 seconds. Perhaps less. The testimony that youre gonna hear in this case about gunshot residue is gonna indicate that mr. Blake was not the shooter. In this case, the gun residue was a very, very big part. Why . If robert blake is firing that gun, you expect him to have a lot of gun residue on him. If he doesnt, then it stands to reason that he didnt fire the gun. We had our lab, forensic analytical, test fire the murder weapon. When fired twice, there were 737 particles of gunshot residue on the hands of the person who fired the gun. Bonnie was shot twice, robert had no gunshot residue on him. He had minutes to go behind an alley and wash his hands. There was no sink near the car, at the time she was killed. There was no soap available for him to wash his hands. And the entire area was examined. There were no gloves in the vicinity, anywhere. It would have been physically impossible. Conclusion is he never fired that weapon. Then there was the Barbara Walters interview. The prosecution brought up the Barbara Walters interview early in the case and that opened the door for the defense to use it to really humanize robert blake. From the second i touched rosie, it was all about her. What its significance was, was extraordinary because robert was able to sound incredibly honest and emotional. Robert, how are you feeling . Fine, thank you. Robert blake was confident as he walked in with his legal team. With the cast of characters straight out of central casting the people have proven what they have promised. 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With a big crunch and totally different flavors, theyre not really pringles. Just like thats not really daddy. Yes it is. Ok. Pringles wavy. Theyre not, not pringles. Oh thaphenomenal , thats unfair. Thats so unfair. Cmon jaybo. Lets go. Lets go. Woahh try my 4. 99 bbq bacon double cheeseburger combo. Only at jack in the box. Try my 4. 99 barbeque bacon double cheeseburger combo. The robert blake murder trial. A verdict expected any day now. If convicted, he could spend the rest of his life in prison. The most terrifying moment of a trial for me is when the jury comes in to render a verdict. We the jury in the above and entitled action find the defendant, robert blake, not guilty of the crime of first degree murder of Bonnie Lee Bakley. What was it like when they said, not guilty . It was just enormous relief. Robert blake found not guilty. A jury acquitted the Actor Robert Blake in the murder of his wife. The people who werent following the case that closely were shocked. But the people who were watching the trial every day were not that surprised. The lack of physical evidence, the problems with the stuntmens credibility was too difficult for the prosecutors to overcome. Why did you decide robert blake did not kill his wife . They couldnt put the gun in his hand. As the jury foreman said, they couldnt put the gun in his hand. And that was the gunshot residue. L. A. District attorney steve cooley is calling that jury, quote, incredibly stupid. The District Attorney made the mistake of going on camera saying he thought the jury was stupid. You have offended me by even thinking for one second that im stupid. Coming on the heels of the o. J. Verdict, they just couldnt accept it, that they had lost. Barbara walters, god bless you, darling. Id have never gotten out of the joint without you. I promised her in jail. You get the first interview afterward. And so i was acquitted, they put me on a plane and i did barbaras show. Buckle up, folks. Robin roberts with a very special guest host this morning. Have you changed as a result of all of this . People right now either love me or hate me. The other day i went to the Farmers Market and everybody was hugging me and stuff. But there were people on the outside saying, murderer, murderer. But its hard to go from being Saddam Hussein to seabiscuit and try to catch up with it. You do have a way with words. Ive never been a tough guy in my life. My bark was out there to keep people away from me cause i was scared. And what i was really scared of is somebody hugging me. And now . Now its just the opposite. Ill hug people that dont even like me. When you heard the verdict, you said i am blessed. If you could have one blessing, now, just for you. I want the same thing you want. I want a date for new years eve. And she said, happy new year, robert. And i said, happy new year, barbara. And we went out and had breakfast. That great mood didnt last for long because the civil trial then begins within a few months. The 71yearold actor arrived for the beginning of jury selection in his wrongful death lawsuit. I think youve got enough entertainment around here without me. There isnt a pingpong tournament . There isnt a pool game, nothing for you guys to cover on the planet . Attorney eric dubin who represents bakleys heirs turned down an offer from blake to settle the case before trial for about 250,000. Im only thinking a couple of days to pick a jury. It shouldnt be that difficult. The defense lawyer was a guy named peter ezzell who i believe at the time was on super lawyer magazine. And someone told me he hadnt lost a case since 1970. I have confidence in the judge and the system. It should be no problem. For a criminal case, the standard is beyond a reasonable doubt. For a civil case its a preponderance of the evidence, a much lower standard. In the criminal trial he didnt have to testify. In the civil trial he did have to testify. And you could see this from his deposition. This is a guy who can fly off the handle. Dont get cute with me. Im not going to tell you again. I never instructed anybody to harm bonnie in any way. Okay, well get to that. No, we got to it right now. I never instructed anybody to harm bonnie in any way. Isnt it true that you hated bonnie at the time of her murder . Thats a lie. Im asking you. I said thats a lie. When robert blake testifies in the civil trial, he goes off. Colorful and combative exchanges as robert blake told his side of what happened the night his wife was shot and killed. He was baretta on the stand, essentially. The fiery actor frequently raised his own objections to questions and even attempted to take over for the judge by sustaining his own objections. He just dug himself deeper in a hole. Blake was yelling at everybody and threatening everybody and the jury got to see who robert blake was. Jury deliberations are expected to begin in Robert Blakes civil case. The jury deliberated for eight days and returned a verdict which stunned everyone. This is robert blake as he walked into court this morning before the verdict. The first question was did robert blake kill Bonnie Lee Bakley . And they said yes. Blake looked stunned as the juror said his liability is 30 million. Ill take a check, cashiers check, or cash, ill leave it at whatever he wants to do. The numbers were good and the jury got that right. The Appellate Court cut the damages in half. Eventually we settled for a confidential amount. I think what was interesting about this jury is they didnt seem to have unanimous agreement on what actually happened involving robert blake. Did you as a jury believe that he pulled the trigger, or do you just think that he caused her death . To this point, who knows. I mean were not sure. There was outrageous juror misconduct in the civil case. One of them was relying on the bible. There was a juror who had a hearing impairment. He was being told by other jurors what the evidence was. There were some jurors who talked about deciding the case beforehand. A lot of the jurors didnt like blake to begin with. It was, i dont like blake, he left his wife in the car. It was constant before even the testimony began. It was just the way he was acting. I mean, you know, he could have been a lot better. A lot nicer to people. They hear about robert blake and they think about o. J. Simpson, because theres a Public Perception that o. J. Got away with murder. They all agreed that this is sending a message out to the world, just cause youre famous you cant get away with it. I received a telephone call from a lawyer who said he had a client. He gave me significant information that suggested that someone completely unrelated to robert had been involved in the murder. Theres a witness in this case who thinks he knows who the killer really is. But not when to use it. 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Are you ready to taste nirvana . And lemonade. Sir, you can not be in the fountain. Im sorry i cant hear you over the wonderful sounds of nature. Try canada dry ginger ale and lemonade. Now in diet. The happy heart, is a healthy heart. So find a fun way to make your style. Do whatever makes your heart grin and take a spin. And go and do it over again. Honey nut cheerios, good goes round and around. Itits crepe dayday for a family traditionys. We started about 22 minutes ago and now we can continue that tradition at home with free dennys delivery. See you at dennys. Com there had always been two theories of this case. For the prosecution its that robert blake ambushed his wife and killed her. For the defense it was that somebody from bonnies dark past killed her. Bonnie had been scamming men for literally decades. So there were a lot of guys out there who might be pretty angry about the way that theyd been treated. So one of the guys who was angry with bonnie was Marlon Brandos son christian and he was angry because bonnie had told him that he had fathered her daughter rosie but he hadnt. While the defense was preparing for the criminal trial, a woman who knew Christian Brando came forward dianne mattson. The socalled bombshell witness set to testify at blakes trial about a conversation she overheard between Duffy Hambleton and Christian Brando. One where brando allegedly said about Bonnie Bakley, someone ought to put a bullet in that bitchs head. Diane mattson worked for Christian Brando. She was his assistant. And she overheard a lot of his calls because he always used a speakerphone. She was present when Christian Brando was having a phone conversation on speakerphone. They talked about the fact that ms. Bakley had played mr. Brando and at one point mr. Brando said, somebody ought to put a bullet through her head, and everyone agreed. Hes on this phone call with a couple different guys, including a guy named duffy. The same duffy who accused robert blake of soliciting him to kill his wife. But when the police asked christian if he knew duffy, he denied it. Why was Christian Brando denying that he knew a retired stuntman by the name of duffy . Why would he deny it . Unless he thought it was going to incriminate him in the murder. So blakes lawyers are very intrigued by the connection between Christian Brando and duffy. But they dont know exactly what the significance is until some guy named brian allan comes forward and he starts to connect the dots. In my neighborhood of willow glen, in laurel canyon, is a cast of characters, from wealthy behindthescenes movie people, to some celebrities, as well as some people that would be considered undesirable. And they did drugs, they did meth and did whatever. I realized that i had some information that i felt was very relevant to the murder. I knew a man named mark jones who was one of these individuals that there was no question he had a drug abuse problem. Mark jones was a transient who lived on the same street that brian allan lived on. He was a meth addict. He was a very handy guy and brian used to have him do handiwork around his house. In early 2001 i saw mark jones carrying a gun that i later learned was a walther p38 and fit the exact description of the murder weapon used against Bonnie Lee Bakley. In the weeks before bonnies death, brian allen says that he had seen that gun in mark jones hand several times. And he also realized that he had seen duffy hamblton on his block looking for mark jones. Well, once i realized i could identify that mark jones had possession of a weapon that looked, to me, the same as the picture, i could identify duffy hamblton as being part of these cast of characters that visited willow glen. I then realized that there was more to give to the police. So months went by and i was a little surprised to not hear further from the police department, but then i got a call from a private investigator from the defense team. I was excited because i thought brian had credibility. But i thought, my goodness. How are we going to prove this so the defense starts digging and they find that other people have seen a gun that looks like the murder weapon in the possession of Duffy Hambleton. And duffys son had seen some of his fathers guns, and one of them looked exactly like the murder weapon. Duffy hambleton was known to have a gun that looked like the murder weapon. Mark jones was seen with a gun that looked like the murder weapon. And mark and duffy knew Christian Brando. So when you combine all that, its hard not to see how this evidence creates reasonable doubt. It was pieces of a puzzle that fit together. What at first seemed bizarre to me ended up being a very, very credible story that strongly suggested that either Christian Brando or someone associated with Christian Brando had been involved in bonnies murder. The defense put all of this stuff in a motion and brought it before the judge, tried to get it into the criminal trial. So, youve got to bring a motion asking for permission from the court to introduce this evidence. The evidence has to be Strong Enough to create reasonable doubt for the court to admit it. But the judge denied our motion. Brian allan did testify in the civil case but it didnt impact the verdict. We know that Christian Brando used meth, that duffy used methamphetamine. Its certainly possible that the plan to kill ms. Bakley, and it had so many holes in it. It was so flawed that it could have been contrived by people who were tweaking on methamphetamine. Ive come to believe that duffy hired somebody to kill her. He either did it at the instruction of christian, or to gain favor with christian. Im curious about who you think killed Bonnie Bakley. I do believe that mark jones was the shooter. Mark jones became a different person shortly after Bonnie Lee Bakleys murder. He said he was very depressed about some things. And then mark ends up committing suicide after bonnies killed. The suicide happened only four weeks after the murder. Now looking back, i could see somebody who had tremendous remorse, and the fact that he committed suicide seemed to further validate that. In 2009 Christian Brando died of pneumonia. A few years after that Duffy Hambleton died of natural causes. So the people who might know what happened are now dead. And in the end, we may never find out what really happened on that night. The other unanswered question is what happened to that little girl robert blake loved so much, mo dad mhm. For me . 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That is good to know because reggie is very opinionated. Im sure he is. With this one little nexgard chew comes the confidence, youre doing whats right, to protect your dog from fleas and ticks for a full month. And its the only chew, fda approved to prevent infections that cause lyme disease. Nexgard. What one little chew can do. He did it. He was angry and he did it. I think some people if you ask them wheres robert blake, theyd say in jail because they thought he was convicted. Gonna take a Sentimental Journey to leave old memories. After the civil trial, he ended up living in a simple twobedroom apartment in the valley. This i stole from universal. I built that over there. All this [ bleep ] i built. That doesnt mean its anything fancy. It cost him all of his money and he went into bankruptcy. I believe he lives off his pension. His life is a far cry from his glory days. Rosie was adopted by his older daughter delinah and her husband. Shes 18 now and has been brought up out of the public eye. Amazingly, he still makes news. Congratulations on the recent years of your marriage. Tmz tried to interview robert blake after married an old girlfriend, and they divorced after a year. He hasnt worked as an actor in over two decades. Im compulsively creative. You can see this crazy house that i live in because i cant stand for two pieces of furniture to match or a fork and a spoon to match. I cant think for anything to match. I have to invent stuff. Thats what i have to do. Thats the only thing im good at. I could have gone on the road. Everybody out there still knows me and still loves me. Good morning, mr. Blake. How are you doing today . They might be in wheelchairs but theyre still my people. And i can go out there. I can go out there tomorrow. I get offers to go out and do plays. I can go out and do captain queeg anytime i want, but it hurts. It hurts what happened to me. He was innocent, and it is a tragedy that his remarkable career and reputation has been ruined. Even though he was acquitted, for many people, a cloud of guilt still hangs over him. Sometimes peoples exteriors belie who they really are. Who they really, really, under layer, layer, layer are. That little boy that went through all that stuff, with that insidious father, and all the experiences he had at mgm and how he is today. Im not giving up. I aint sticking a gun in my mouth. Im not juicing. I aint taking dope. They say, well, why dont you work . cause im half dead. Its a real tragedy that he hasnt acted all these years. Its hard to tell if thats because of the way the world is or because of the way robert blake is. I keep waiting for god to jump in but he doesnt owe me anything, because ive been paid in full 1,000 times over. If you live to be 1,000, youll never be anybody with more miracles in their life than me. Gonna take a Sentimental Journey, Sentimental Journey home. 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