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Posted on 04/18/2002 6:17:44 PM PDT by Mixer
Breaking On FOX
Broadcasting live RIGHT NOW! "Trueblackman" will be broadcasting his inaugural show on RadioFR! Tonight it's a FREEPFORALL! TBM will be discussing several current issues! Call in with your questions and topics!
| Actor Robert Blake Being Arrested in Wife's Killing |  |
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LOS ANGELES — Actor Robert Blake was being arrested Thursday in the killing of his wife nearly a year ago, his attorney said as police officers converged on the front door of his sister's suburban home.
"They're arresting him in a couple of minutes," said attorney Harland Braun shortly before 6 p.m. "I've told him to come outside." Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney, said she had been unable to comment on the matter earlier in the day because it was a police operation. "We will be reviewing the case tomorrow and over the weekend and we will announce our filing decision on Monday. If there is a filing he will be arraigned in Van Nuys Monday afternoon," Gibbons said. Braun said Blake was to be taken from his sister's home in Hidden Hills to Parker Center police headquarters downtown. Braun said he was en route to Parker Center. Bonny Lee Bakley, 44, was shot to death the night of May 4, 2001, a block from a Studio City restaurant where she and Blake had dined. Blake's story was that they had dinner at his favorite restaurant, Vitello's, and, after walking his wife to the car he remembered that he had left behind a gun he carried to protect her. He went back for it, he said, and when he returned to the car he found his wife shot. The case thrust Blake back into the limelight after years of semiretirement. A former child star, he had his greatest success in the 1970s TV series, Baretta, in which he played a tough-talking cop. He received accolades for his performance as a killer who goes to the gallows in 1967's In Cold Blood, and he won a 1975 Emmy for Baretta, but his career had been stalled for years. As details of the couple's lifestyle emerged, the story became even more bizarre. Theirs was hardly a traditional marriage. They met at a nightclub and began seeing each other and having sex. When Bakley became pregnant, she said she was unsure if the child was fathered by Blake or Christian Brando, son of actor Marlon Brando. But DNA tests eventually showed the little girl was Blake's daughter and his lawyer said the actor felt he had to marry her. For the wedding, the bride had to get permission from a judge to be released from electronic monitoring in her home state of Arkansas where she was under house arrest for possessing fake identifications. After the marriage, she left the baby, Rose Lenore Sophie Blake, in the actor's custody. The pair had signed a temporary custody agreement. Later, she moved into a cottage behind Blake's home and Blake hired a nanny for the baby. Blake's lawyer, who was hired shortly after the killing, investigated the woman's past and quickly came up with the theory that there were many men who might have wanted her dead. Her shady past became an open book. Stacks of letters, pornographic pictures and meticulously detailed records showed that Bakley, using many aliases, ran a business soliciting money from lonely men who answered her ads in magazines and newspapers. The men sought companionship, marriage, and, in many cases, nude photos and pornography. She told them she needed money and they sent it. Braun said his investigation into Bakley's business uncovered a far-flung network of men she wrote to under various names. Most of the letters came from the United States, but she also listed contacts in Budapest, Hungary; India; Pakistan; and Canada. |
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Baretta Busted
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