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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. On May 4th, 2001, Hollywood actor Robert Blake and his newly wedded wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, dined together at a popular Italian restaurant in Los Angeles.
But behind the glitz and glamour lies a haunting tale. Bonnie wanted fame and found herself in the limelight with a true Hollywood star. However, that fateful night took a dark turn. As Robert dashed back to the restaurant, two gunshots shattered the quiet of the night. What began as a fairy tale romance for Bonnie ended in a chilling act of murder.
This is Forensic Tales, episode number 205. The murder of Bonnie Lee Bakley. ♪♪ ♪♪
Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola. Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.
As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new compelling cases, conduct in-depth fact-based research, and produce and edit this weekly show. You can support my work in two simple ways. Become a valued patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales and leave a positive review. Before we get to this week's episode, we've got a new Patreon supporter that I want to thank. Thank you so much, Tiffany W., for supporting the show.
Now, let's get to this week's episode. On the evening of May 4th, 2001, television and movie star Robert Blake and his new wife, Bonnie Lee Bakley, went on a dinner date. The two ate at Robert's favorite restaurant in Studio City, California, Vitello's, an Italian restaurant that Robert was said to like and go to so much that the restaurant named a pasta dish after him.
So Robert ordered his favorite pasta dish, and the couple sat in their regular booth in the back corner of the restaurant. Situated off Tujunga Avenue in Studio City, Vitello's is a popular Italian spot about 12 miles north of downtown Los Angeles and right near Hollywood. Vitello's is known to see its fair share of celebrities, especially Robert Blake.
an actor who's been in over 90 movies and television shows throughout his career, including In Cold Blood and Beretta. After Robert and Bonnie finished eating dinner around 9.30 p.m., they walked back to Robert's car, which was parked about a block and a half away from the restaurant on a dark street near a construction site. Normally, Robert parked his car at the restaurant using their valet service. But for some reason, on that particular night...
Robert decided to park about a block and a half away on a quiet and dark street. But before they got to the car, Robert told Bonnie to wait. He forgot his gun at the restaurant. He thought he left it sitting in their booth. So he told Bonnie to wait in the car for a couple of minutes. After that, Robert said he walked back to Vitello's and Bonnie got inside the car, where she sat in the passenger seat with the windows rolled down.
By the time Robert said he got back to the car a few minutes later, his wife Bonnie was slumped over the center console, bleeding. The scene was drenched in blood. He wasn't sure what happened, but he knew it was bad. After that, Robert ran across the street and started banging on Sean Stanek's front door. Someone who lived in Studio City, directly across from the alley where Robert had parked his car.
When Sean opened the door, he instantly recognized who it was. Robert Blake, a.k.a. the star from Beretta. Everyone knew Robert, but what did Robert need? Robert, who seemed hysterical, told Sean that he needed to use his phone to call 911. His wife had been attacked while sitting in their car and he needed help. This call was placed at 9.40 p.m., just about 10 minutes after they left the restaurant.
Bonnie was transported to a local hospital but didn't make it, and she was pronounced dead at 10.15 p.m. She was shot twice, once in the right cheek and once in the right shoulder. At only 44 years old, Bonnie Lee Bakley was dead, leaving many people to wonder, including the LAPD, what could have happened in those few minutes?
As detectives started working the scene, neighbors who lived in the nearby houses started to come out and watch what was happening. Not only did the scene draw attention because there was a murder, but you had a celebrity. This wasn't your typical Los Angeles murder. This involved a high-profile celebrity's wife who had been gunned down in cold blood. So everyone in the neighborhood wanted a sneak peek.
Some of the neighbors said later on that Robert acted the part. He looked like a distraught husband who just found his wife shot to death. He was pacing back and forth on the sidewalk next to the car. He threw up. He looked like he even fainted at one point. He looked like a grieving husband. However, other witnesses interpreted Robert's behavior a little differently. He seemed hysterical and upset.
But he's a professional actor after all, isn't he? Could this all just be an act? As soon as LAPD officers arrived on the scene, they began their homicide investigation. One of the first steps was to figure out what type of gun was used to shoot Bonnie. Robert told detectives that the gun he went back to the restaurant to get was a .38 Special Smith & Wesson revolver.
But according to ballistic testing, that wasn't the type of gun used in the murder. So that particular gun could essentially be ruled out. Robert's gun wasn't what was used to kill Bonnie. But here's where the story gets interesting. When the police tested Robert's hands for gunshot residue that night, he reportedly test positive for five consistent particles of gunshot residue.
Now, this is a relatively small amount of particles to be found on someone who might have recently fired a gun. You usually see a lot more. So investigators point blank asked Robert, did you shoot and kill your wife? And not surprisingly, Robert said absolutely not. He said he didn't even fire a gun that night, and he had no idea why he would have a small amount of GSR on his hands.
Still, investigators made note of it. They couldn't exactly say how the GSR got on his hands. They just knew that he had some on him right after Bonnie was killed. LAPD officers headed straight to Vitello's. They wanted to speak with all of the employees who worked that night so they could verify Robert's story about going back to get his gun. But when they spoke to the employees, none of them remembered seeing Robert come back.
They saw them having dinner together, but not even the busboy who cleaned the table right after they left remembered seeing Robert or his gun. So did Robert lie about that part of the story? Or was it possible he did go back inside the restaurant that night and just no one saw him? The day after Bonnie was murdered, the police found the actual murder weapon.
Inside a dumpster about a block and a half away from where Robert's car was parked, they found a German-made PPK pistol. They knew this had to be it because the bullet left inside perfectly matched the two bullets that killed Bonnie. Plus, it was found just a few feet away from where the shooting happened. So it all made sense. But when they tried to run the gun's serial number to see who it belonged to, the number had been burned off.
So it was completely untraceable. On top of that, the gun had also been wiped with oil and dirt, essentially getting rid of any fingerprints. They weren't able to find anything on it. So from a forensic standpoint, the gun was basically useless. In the following weeks and months, people started to learn more about who Robert and Bonnie were and what kind of marriage or relationship they had or didn't have.
Were they just an average couple who went out on a nice dinner date that night? Or was there something more? Robert Blake become one of the rare child stars who had a successful acting career as an adult. Years after playing one of the kids in the popular Our Gang series, also known as The Little Rascals, he starred in several television shows and movies as an adult.
This included his role in the Oscar-nominated film In Cold Blood, where Robert played a career criminal. He also became well-known for his role in Beretta. But as good as an actor he might have been on screen, he wasn't exactly as good off screen. In fact, many people who worked with Robert on different films and TV shows said he was extremely difficult to work with. He had a temper. He was angry all the time.
Robert wasn't a friendly or easygoing person. So when it came to bookings, although he was talented, there was no question about that, producers and filmmakers sometimes passed up on Robert. Bonnie Lee Bakley, on the other hand, wasn't a successful Hollywood actress. In fact, she was the exact opposite.
By the time she met Robert Blake, she was already a mother of three children and had been married nine times, including a marriage to her first cousin. And yes, that means Robert was her tenth husband by the time she was killed. As an adult, Bonnie gained a reputation for being some sort of con artist. She usually supported herself and her family by selling nude photos of herself to lonely old men.
But then she graduated to something else that made even more money, placing ads in swinger magazines using different aliases to lure men into sending her money. If they responded, she would send some photos of herself. Later on, though, her cons became more elaborate. She began stealing credit cards and forging driver's licenses.
and she was eventually convicted of fraud in 1998 and sentenced to three years of probation. Bonnie always had dreams of meeting a Hollywood star and marrying him. This dream became an obsession and one of her biggest goals in life. She finally achieved this when she met Robert Blake at a jazz club in 1999. The two had a one-night stand, and Robert thought he was never going to see her again.
In June 2000, Bonnie gave birth to a baby girl whom she named Christian Shannon Brando, after Christian Brando, the eldest son of the actor Marlon Brando, whom she dated after when he was released from prison. So when Bonnie gave birth in 2000, she initially named Christian as the biological father, but later that fall, things got muddy, and the real father's identity became unclear.
According to a taped phone call between Bonnie and Christian Brando, he started to deny that he was the father. Now, to be clear, Bonnie was the one secretly recording these phone calls. Christian had no idea they were being recorded. Christian warned Bonnie about her behavior during one of these recorded phone calls. Scamming all of these men was dangerous.
Bonnie was making her living by scamming old rich men and sending nude photos, a business that she even coined Lonely Hearts. Christian Brando even told Bonnie, quote, someone out there might put a bullet in your head, end quote.
Bonnie eventually started calling Robert Blake and told him that he was the father, not Christian Brando. And paternity tests ultimately proved that to be true. Robert Blake was in fact the father. So after that, Bonnie changed the baby's name to Rose Sophia Lenore Blake. And in November 2000, Bonnie and Robert got married.
But was this marriage built on love or a far more sinister foundation? The story of a loveless marriage and a shocking murder thickens in the way you never imagined. We'll be right back. By all accounts, Robert and Bonnie didn't have your ordinary marriage. They weren't in love. They didn't live in the same house or even sleep in the same bed. She was actually living in one of Robert's guest houses.
So it's unclear exactly why they even got married. Maybe it was because of the baby and Robert wanted to do the quote-unquote right thing. But it is clear that when Robert and Bonnie went out to dinner that night, they weren't madly in love. And according to the LAPD, Robert's original story about what happened started to fall apart.
Besides the small traces of gunshot residue, the second biggest problem with Robert's story from that night was his gun. Remember, he said he had to go back to the restaurant to get his gun because he said he left it there. Well, many people questioned his story. Robert told the LAPD that he bought a gun for Bonnie's protection. Remember, she was known for being this con artist who took advantage of old, lonely men.
This meant that she had received her fair share of death threats when they finally figured out that she was only stealing their money. So Robert said he started carrying around the gun in order to protect her. He was protecting his wife. Well, if that's the case, why did he leave Bonnie alone in the car while he jogged back to the restaurant to get it? Why wouldn't she go with him? Why would he leave her alone in the car?
Or why not drive up in front of the restaurant, run in, grab the gun, and go home? It just didn't make any sense. Plus, no witnesses remembered seeing Robert return to the restaurant that night. Not even the busboy who cleaned the table up. He didn't see any gun in the booth. So did he really go back and get it like he said he did? Bonnie's murder quickly became a Hollywood story all on its own.
A television and movie star's new young wife ends up shot to death at the same exact time he said he was going back to the restaurant to get his gun. They're married, but not in your traditional sense. Bonnie, the con artist who might have had a string of guys out there who wanted to put a bullet in her head, a plot stranger than fiction.
Throughout the investigation, the police considered several possible suspects, including Christian Brando, Bonnie's ex-boyfriend, and other men from her Lonely Hearts business. The LAPD worked the case up and down. They reviewed over 900 pieces of evidence, conducted over 150 interviews, and nothing. That is, until they learn of two stuntmen.
According to these two former stuntmen, Robert tried to hire them to kill Bonnie months before it happened. One is a guy named Gary McLarty, and the other is Ronald Hamilton, who went by the nickname Duffy. According to Gary McLarty, Robert had offered him $10,000 to be a hitman and quote, "'pop' Bonnie while she either slept or while at a restaurant."
According to Duffy, he and Robert met at least four different times to talk about killing Bonnie. They even drove around together in the same exact area where Bonnie was eventually shot and killed, right near Vitello's. Records from a prepaid phone card showed that Robert had contacted the two stuntmen dozens of times in the weeks leading up to the murder. He also made a bank withdrawal of $25,000 to pay for the alleged hit.
But before the police could move in and arrest a star like Robert Blake, they needed a motive. Why would Robert Blake want Bonnie Lee Bakley dead? Well, the reason might be pretty straightforward. Robert felt trapped by Bonnie. He didn't want to be married to her. He only did it because of the biological daughter they had together.
And he thought his life would be easier for both him and his daughter if Bonnie was out of their lives. And basically, he wanted no part of her life. So if he didn't pull the trigger that night, maybe he had someone else do it. After months and months of investigating, the LAPD finally zeroed in on their prime suspect. Robert Blake was arrested on April 18, 2002.
The police also arrested Robert's part-time bodyguard, Earl Caldwell, who they charged as his co-conspirator in the murder. At first, the police believed that while Robert was plotting the murder, Earl Caldwell supplied him with a gun and a list of other supplies that he would need to commit the murder. This included two shovels, duct tape, and swimming pool acid.
But all of the criminal charges against him were eventually dropped. Now the only one behind bars, Robert was ultimately charged with one count of murder with special circumstances, two counts of solicitation of murder, and one count of conspiracy to commit murder. The one count of murder with special circumstances meant that L.A. prosecutors could seek the death penalty. But early on, prosecutors expressed no interest in the death penalty.
Instead, they wanted to seek life in prison if he was ultimately convicted. Robert would remain in L.A.'s Men's Central Jail facility for the next year, all while maintaining his innocence. Since the judge ordered no bail in the case, he had no choice but to sit in jail and wait.
But in March 2003, the judge finally granted his bail and set it at $1.5 million. And Robert was allowed to go home on house arrest while he awaited his trial. By the time the trial started in December 2004, it had become one of the biggest trials of the century, second only to the O.J. Simpson one back in 1995. The entire thing was a media circus.
But unlike the O.J. Simpson murder trial, the judge only allowed part of the trial to be televised on TV, like the opening and closing statements as well as the verdict. Everything else during the trial wasn't allowed to be televised. But despite the viewing restrictions, the trial was closely followed by millions of people. Everyone wanted to see if someone as big and famous as Robert Blake could be found guilty of murdering his own wife.
The prosecutor's star witnesses were the two stuntmen who said that Robert tried to hire both of them to kill Bonnie. But when neither of them agreed to kill her, the prosecution said Robert decided to pull the trigger himself. Prosecutors pointed to the forensic evidence, which they said proved their case. One key piece of physical evidence at the trial was the gunshot residue particles found on Robert's clothing immediately after the shooting.
Typically, the presence of GSR suggests that someone recently fired a gun. And that's exactly what the prosecution was alleging. The GSR on Robert's clothing that night proved he was the shooter. But was it that simple? The officers who first arrived on the scene only found about four to five particles that were consistent with GSR on Robert's hands, a tiny amount for someone accused of recently firing a gun.
According to an article by CNN, the police also found GSR on Robert's clothing, including a pair of black leather boots, a black cotton t-shirt, Levi's blue jeans, a turquoise belt buckle, and a pair of black socks. The prosecution alleged that Robert had wiped away most of the GSR before the cops got there and did the GSR test about two and a half hours after the shooting.
They said he was wiping his hands on everything, the dirt on the ground, the curb, the seats in the back of the patrol car. So that was plenty of time to clean up, according to the prosecution. And that could explain why there was so little GSR found on him about two and a half hours later. They might have found a lot more if they had done the test earlier, not almost three hours later.
However, according to a defense expert, the gunshot residue doesn't mean that Robert killed Bonnie. Stephen Dowell, a criminalist with the L.A. County Department of Coroner, testified that Robert could have picked up the GSR from guns that weren't the murder weapon, including his own personal gun he had with him that night, or even other guns from his house. Dowell also testified that GSR is sticky.
It can be easily transferred from one surface to another. It can also stick to someone's clothing for years. So it doesn't necessarily mean that someone recently fired a gun. For instance, if Robert had recently been to a shooting range, which we know he probably did because he owned several guns at the time,
GSR might still have been found on his boots, even if he hadn't fired a gun in days or weeks. It could have just been left over from a recent trip to a shooting range. Dowell even testified to the type of particles he found on Roberts' clothing. He said that on Roberts' black leather boots, he found, quote,
only one highly specific particle of gunshot residue on them, along with, quote, several consistent particles, end quote. He testified that the majority of particles contained only one lead and not the other components of gunshot residue and actually could have come from something entirely different, not even a gun.
The defense next examined Robert's personal gun, the .38 Smith & Wesson. They argued that GSR may have been transferred to Robert's hands and clothing simply by handling his own gun. Remember, we're only talking about four to five particles of GSR on Robert's hands, a tiny, tiny amount. So the defense argued the particles could have simply come from handling his own gun or even the holster used to carry it.
There was also talk during the trial that the police might have mishandled the clothes that Robert wore that night. The defense argued that after Robert turned over his clothes to investigators, they were all put together in the same box. They were then driven around in the back of a patrol car inside the trunk for at least two days and were surrounded by firearms before they were taken to the police station and put into evidence.
So the defense said this could have led to contamination. And if the clothes were contaminated, then the GSR found on them couldn't be trusted. So if the defense argued that five particles is a tiny amount for someone who recently fired a gun, what is the typical amount you'd expect to see? Well, the answer to that question might depend on who you ask. According to the state, five is enough to say that Robert is a killer.
But if you ask the defense, they say it isn't. One of their experts testified that if Robert had actually shot and killed Bonnie, he should have had at least 100 GSR particles on his hands, not the four or five the prosecution and defense claimed. So the real answer to that question was left up to the jury to decide. They had to determine which forensic expert they believed more, the state or the defense.
Next was the question of blood on Robert Blake's clothing, or the lack of blood. One expert at the trial testified that they couldn't find a single drop of blood on Robert's clothing that night. Even when luminol was sprayed on the clothes, they found nothing.
But the prosecution's key blood expert, Rod Englert, a crime scene reconstructionist, said there wouldn't be any blood on Robert's clothing. The lack of blood simply didn't mean anything, and Robert was still the likely shooter. According to the prosecution's expert, for blood to get on Robert's clothing, he would have had to be standing right over her when she was shot.
But based on the autopsy, the medical examiner believed Bonnie was shot from one to two feet away. That was based on the two gunshot wounds themselves and the blood that was found inside the car and on Bonnie's clothing. The medical examiner believed that Bonnie raised one of her arms when she was being shot and the blood found on the passenger side door and the window was consistent with the shooter being at least one to two feet away.
The blood patterns also showed where the shooter was standing when he shot Bonnie. He was likely standing outside of the car and shot through the open window. Bonnie likely saw her killer pointing the gun at her and leaned to her left towards the driver's side in a classic defensive position. Based on how her body was found, she was probably shot in the head first and in the shoulder second.
The prosecution's expert also testified that when Bonnie was shot, the blood spatter only traveled about eight and a half inches away from her body. According to the expert, this type of high velocity mist is very light and fine. So it usually never travels more than four feet away from the bullet's point of entry.
This, again, explains why the prosecution believes the shooter wouldn't have gotten any blood on him and why Robert didn't have a speck of blood on him. But the defense also used this point to support their own case. They had their own set of experts testify that if he was in fact the shooter, he should have gotten at least some of Bonnie's blood on him.
If the shooter was standing right outside the passenger side window, as the medical examiner has stated, he should have gotten at least a drop of blood on him. But again, there was nothing. The murder weapon was also front and center at trial. The day after Bonnie was killed, the LAPD found the gun in a dumpster about a block and a half away. They knew it was the gun used in the shooting because it still had one bullet left.
So when the bullet was compared to the two bullets used to kill Bonnie, they were a match. However, investigators were never able to find any forensic or physical evidence on the gun. The serial number had been burned off, making it impossible to trace the gun's origin or even find out who owned it. Oil and dirt had been rubbed all over it, destroying any possible fingerprints, and
So the gun was essentially useless for the prosecution. But for the defense, the murder weapon was really important. It was yet another piece of physical evidence linked to the murder that didn't have any connection to Robert Blake. His fingerprints weren't on it. He didn't own that type of gun or have any similar weapons registered under his name. So there was absolutely no connection there.
If Robert had used it in the murder, he would have had to lure Bonnie back to the car, shoot her with it, then run about a block and a half away to get rid of it inside a dumpster. Now, that's definitely possible, and it's definitely doable, but the prosecution didn't have the forensic evidence to be able to prove that.
No one else was ever linked to the gun either. Not any of the men conned by Bonnie throughout her business, not Christian Brando, not anyone else. There was some speculation that Robert's part-time bodyguard, Earl Caldwell, who we talked about a little bit earlier, might have had some connection to that gun, but they never found any solid evidence proving that theory.
Whoever bought and owned that particular gun is still a complete mystery. The prosecution's theory that Robert asked two of his former stuntmen to help commit the murder also had its set of problems. One of the stuntmen was an admitted meth user, or he had used meth in the past. So the defense basically destroyed his credibility in front of the jury.
The son of the other stuntmen testified that his father had told him that Robert was going to pay him not to shoot Bonnie, but to protect them from a potential stalker they had. So his credibility was also trashed. The defense argued that no forensic evidence existed that linked Robert to the murder. None of his fingerprints were found on the murder weapon.
The untraceable gun found in the dumpster the day after the murder, none of Bonnie's blood was found on any of his clothing, and only five particles consistent with GSR were found on his hands, which his defense team argued could have come from something else entirely completely unrelated to the murder. So without a single shred of forensic evidence, could the jury convict Robert Blake of first-degree murder?
What's on the jury's mind? With no forensic evidence, is motive enough to convict? We'll be right back. On March 16th, 2005, the jury found Robert Blake not guilty. Not guilty of murder, not guilty of solicitation, not guilty of anything. The jury believed there wasn't enough evidence to say whether he hired someone to kill Bonnie or he killed her himself.
In this case, there wasn't much scientific proof, like fingerprints or DNA. Even though the person seemed guilty, that's not enough to prove it. The prosecution usually needs some type of forensic evidence to say for sure, but we just didn't see that here. But because Robert Blake was found not guilty during his criminal trial, that didn't mean his legal troubles were done.
Just a few years later, he was found liable for Bonnie's death during a civil trial that her family initiated. The court ordered Robert to pay Bonnie's family $30 million, a judgment that would ultimately send him into bankruptcy. So what happened to Bonnie and Robert's daughter Rose? Well, after her father's criminal trial, she went to live with some other family members who raised her.
So if Robert really did murder Bonnie because he wanted custody of Rose all to himself, that entire plan backfired. Because after he was arrested, Rose was raised by other relatives, and she didn't speak to her father for years. And according to an article by NPR, she called him Robert, not dad.
Now you've got two entirely different verdicts. The criminal courts found Robert not guilty, but the civil courts found him liable for Bonnie's death. So which one is it? Did Robert Blake murder Bonnie Lee Bakley? For many people, Robert is a guilty man, a man who got away with murder. If he didn't pull the trigger himself that night, he hired someone to do his dirty work.
Many people believe he was the only person out there with a strong enough motive to want Bonnie dead. And it's disappointing that there wasn't enough forensic evidence at trial to send him to prison. But for Robert's supporters, he's an innocent man who's been wrongfully accused by the court of public opinion. They believe the jury made the right decision based on the forensic evidence they heard during the trial. Two starkly different opinions.
and two completely different interpretations of the forensic evidence. Now it's your turn. What do you think happened to Bonnie Lee Bakley and who murdered her? Send me your thoughts. And don't forget that the show's patrons will hear my thoughts on this infamous case right here at patreon.com slash forensic tales. To share your thoughts on the story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook.
To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales. After each episode, I release a bonus episode where I share my personal thoughts and opinions about the case. Don't forget to subscribe to Forensic Tales so you don't miss an episode. We release a new episode every Monday. If you love the show, consider leaving us a positive review or tell friends and family about us.
You can also help support the show through Patreon. Thank you so much for joining me this week. Please, join me next week. We'll have a brand new case and a brand new story to talk about. Until then, remember, not all stories have happy endings. ♪
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Remember, not all stories have happy endings.