Blake hires private investigator to solve wife's killing

Robert Blake in a 1985 file photo

In this story: Autopsy report on security hold Lawyer: Victim had 'interesting past' 'She was a good woman' Blake started acting at age 5 RELATED STORIES, SITES

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Robert Blake, who portrayed a tough-talking detective on a 1970s television series, has hired a private investigator to help find who killed his wife, his lawyer said.

Police are saying little about their investigation, but confirmed that Blake has been interviewed as a witness to the crime.

An autopsy report was completed on Bonny Lee Bakley, 44, but it won't be released pending further analysis.

Bakley was shot in the head Friday night as she sat in a car outside Vitello's Restaurant, where she and Blake has just eaten.

Police are investigating the death as a homicide, but have not named any suspects.

Blake's home was searched Saturday.

"They were looking for anything that would show she had troubles with anyone from her past, including Mr. Blake," said Harland Braun, Blake's attorney.

Blake, 67, met Sunday with Scott Ross, the private investigator.

Sean Stanek, a film director, said Blake was "screaming" for him to call 911

Autopsy report on security hold

The autopsy report was completed Sunday but did not contain a cause of death, pending further investigation and toxicology reports, which typically take four to six weeks, said Scott Carrier, a spokesman for the coroner's office.

Though autopsies are public information, the Los Angeles Police Department has put a security hold on Bakley's autopsy, a routine move in high-profile cases, said Carrier.

Blake, who spent part of the weekend in a hospital has not said anything publicly about the shooting.

He told police he left his wife in the car and returned to the restaurant in Studio City when he realized he had left his gun inside. Bakley believed someone had been stalking her and had asked the actor to carry the weapon, Braun said.

Over the weekend, Vitello's co-owner Joe Restivo said Blake appeared to have retrieved nothing. Restivo said Blake looked flustered, drank two glasses of water and left.

Upon returning to the car, Blake discovered his wife had been shot, his lawyer said.

Blake then went to a house across from his car, where Sean Stanek, a film director, opened the door. "He's frantic," Stanek said. "He's in agony, screaming 'Call 911. My wife's been hurt.'"

After calling an ambulance, both men ran across the street.

"She was alive, she was trying to breathe," Stanek said. "I looked in her eyes and she looked like she was dying."

Paramedics administered CPR at the scene, but Bakley was declared dead on arrival at a nearby hospital.

Lawyer: Victim had 'interesting past'

LAPD spokesman Don Hartwell said Blake had been interviewed "as a witness to the crime."

Braun said the actor, who starred in the series "Barreta," married Bakley last November only because she had become pregnant with his child.

The couple's 11-month-old daughter, Rose, is being cared for by Blake's relatives.

Braun appeared to raise questions about Bakley's background. Braun said Bakley had an "interesting past" that "seems to have caught up with her." He did not specify what he meant.

Bakley was a defendant in a 1997 case filed in U.S. District Court in Little Rock, Arkansas, in which she was charged with possessing false identification documents with intent to use them, according to court documents found through a Lexis search.

She was sentenced to three years of probation.

Blake's wife was found shot dead outside this restaurant in Los Angeles Friday night

'She was a good woman'

A former husband disputed the suggestion that someone from her past was responsible for her death.

"Her past had nothing to do with this," said Paul Gawron, who divorced Bakley in the early 1980s and with whom he had three children. He now lives in her home in Memphis, Tennessee, and said he had maintained a close relationship with her and was helping her with her mail-order business.

"She was a good woman that made bad choices," said Gawron.

Blake and Bakley were not living together, he said. Instead, she was living in the stucco house behind the main one on the actor's lot, he said.

Gawron said Bakley had been married at least five times.

A decade after they divorced, Gawron said, he and Bakley had another child, now 7 years old.

Blake started acting at age 5

Born Mickey Gubitosi in Nutley, New Jersey, Blake won a role in MGM's "Our Gang" series at age 5. In 1940, he took the stage name Bobby Blake (though he continued to use the name Mickey Gubitosi in the "Our Gang" series for another three years) and began playing child roles in a wide range of films.

His career took off in his portrayal of killer Perry Smith in the movie "In Cold Blood" (1967).

Television stardom followed in the 1975 detective series, where the 5-4 actor played undercover cop Tony Baretta. A line in the show's theme song was, "Don't do the crime if you can't do the time."

After the show was canceled, Baretta made frequent guest appearances on "The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson," where he discussed his anger over his treatment by his family and the studio as a child and his bouts with drug abuse.

CNN Assignment Editor Megan Clifford, Correspondent Hena Cuevas and Producer Dree DeClamecy contributed to this report.

Actor Blake hires attorney in wake of wife's death
May 5, 2001

E! Online - Credits - Robert Blake
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