Police arrested Robert Blake and charged him with murder.
Robert Blake: Accused Killer
Robert Blake met Bonnie Lee Bakley at a jazz club in 1999. He was 66, she was 44, and she’d already been married nine times.
She dropped out of high school at 16 and moved to New York City. She attended the Barbizon School of Modeling in the hopes of becoming a model or an actress.
She met a Greek immigrant who needed to get married to stay in the United States. She married him for a fee but ended the marriage almost immediately, and he was deported.
Six years later she married a first cousin and remained married to him for five years – the longest of her marriages. They had two children before divorcing.
To support herself she ran a mail-order business that sent nude pictures of women, including herself, to men. She also ran “lonely hearts” ads in magazines advertising for a “male companion.” After men responded to her ads she asked for money for rent or travel expenses.
Her business scams afforded her enough money to buy several houses in Memphis and one house outside L.A.
Her friends and relatives described her as being possessed by celebrities. In fact, tapes of her phone calls revealed that she was starstruck and determined to marry someone famous.
While in Memphis she pursued singer Jerry Lee Lewis. She succeeded in meeting him and became close friends with his sister.
When she gave birth to a daughter in 1993, she named her Jeri Lee and claimed that Jerry Lee Lewis was the father. However DNA tests disproved her claim.
While in Memphis her mail-order business resulted in two arrests. One for drug possession and one for attempting to pass bad checks.
She was also arrested in Little Rock for possession of five driver’s licenses and seven social security cards with different names. She used the IDs to open P.O. boxes to run her lonely-hearts scam.
When she moved to California she left her daughter Jeri Lee with her cousin/ex-husband. In Hollywood, she tried acting and singing under the stage name Lee Bonny, but the extent of her career amounted to uncredited appearances in Turk 182 and Radio Days.
While in California she pursued Dean Martin, Frankie Valli, and Gary Busey. She also became interested in Marlon Brando’s son Christian and became a media fixture when he was accused of killing his half-sister’s boyfriend. He pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and went to prison.
While Christian Brando was in prison she began writing and sending pictures to him. After he was released from prison they became romantically involved.
But at the same time she met Robert Blake at a jazz club and they started dating.
She got pregnant and told both Brando and Blake that he was the father. A daughter was born. Even though she named the child Christian Shannon Brando she insisted that Blake was the father.
Blake insisted on a paternity test.
When the test determined that Blake was the father she changed the child’s name to Rose Lenore Sophia Blake.
On November 19, 2000, Blake became her tenth husband, but they never lived together. He put her up in a small guest house next to his house in Studio City. But distrustful of his new wife, he hired a P.I. who caught her still running her lonely-hearts scam.
Just over four months later, on the night of May 4, 2001, they went to dinner at Vitello’s restaurant in Studio City.
Shortly after they left the restaurant someone shot her dead inside Blake’s car parked around the corner on a side street.
Blake claimed he returned to the restaurant to collect something he left inside. He also claimed he hadn’t returned to the car until after the shooting took place. But he was the one who discovered the body and summoned the police.
Police arrested Robert Blake and charged him with one count of murder with special circumstances, which carried the death penalty.
They also charged him with two counts of solicitation of murder and one count of conspiracy to commit murder.
Police also arrested his longtime bodyguard and charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
Blake entered pleas of not guilty to all charges.
On March 13, 2003, after almost a year in jail, a judge granted Blake bail. He posted $1.5 million and went home under house arrest to await trial.
The judge eventually dismissed the conspiracy charges against both Blake and his bodyguard.
On December 20 ,2004, the trial began and lasted for almost three months. The prosecution produced two former stunt doubles who claimed Blake recruited them to kill his wife. But during cross-examination the stuntmen were revealed to be cocaine and meth users and came across as less than credible.
On March 16, 2005, the jury acquitted Blake because the stuntmen sounded unconvincing, because the prosecution failed to put the murder weapon in Blake’s hands, and because there were no witnesses.
Eight months after the murder trial ended, a jury found Robert Blake guilty in a civil trial of “intentionally” causing Bonny Lee Bakley’s death. The court ordered him to pay $30 million to Bakley’s children.
Blake did not take the stand to deny the accusations.
Robert Blake maintained a low profile after his acquittal. He filed for bankruptcy due to debts of $3 million for unpaid legal fees and unpaid state and federal taxes.
As of today Robert Blake is still alive at the age of 87.
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