A Question Of Guilt III: Is Blake Innocent?

Who Killed Bonny Lee Blakely?

(CBS)  Blake's lawyer, Harland Braun, has discovered numerous audiotapes of Bonny Lee Bakley describing to a friend why she married actor Robert Blake.

"I was the kid that everyone hated in school,” Bonny says on the tape. "So then you grow up saying I'll fix them, I'll show them I'll be a movie star. But it's too hard to become a star. So I figured, why not fall for movie stars instead of becoming one."

Braun will use this information to persuade a jury that someone other than Blake had a reason to kill Bonny. Even while married to Blake, Bonny continued sending nude photos to men in exchange for money.

"There's thousands of men out there who have been cheated by her,” Braun says. “Men who are lonely, men who she humiliated, men who she thought was the love of her life. And then they pick up the National Enquirer and see that she's with Robert Blake. Some guy out there quite possibly said: 'Wow, that's the woman I'm in love with and now she's with Blake? I'm either gonna hire a thug from my town to go out there, or I'm going to do it myself.’"

“We know that the killer shot her at point blank range, through the passenger window,” says Braun. “He then took an oil can and poured oil over the weapon and threw it into the dumpster. It's almost inconceivable that Robert Blake could have done all of this.”

Police investigator Gary Brennan says Los Angeles police have ruled out Braun's theory. "Other possible suspects were interviewed and eliminated,” Brennan says. “The evidence both circumstantial and physical points to Robert Blake."

Braun says Bonnie was married at least eight times: "She would marry people right and left, it wouldn't make any difference to her.” Investigators are learning more about the intricate scamming webs she wove. Her notes tell it all: one man promised her his life insurance money.

Christina believes Bonny made hundreds of thousands of dollars from her scams. She even stole her best friend Christina Scheier's birth certificate and used her name in her con game.

Christina thinks Bonny's refusal to stop bilking money from lonely men may have pushed Blake to the edge. Even Blake's attorney concedes the mail order business caused friction in their relationship. “He was angry,” says Braun. “He was trapped and was being used.”

Rosie, Robert and Bonny’s daughter is now two, and is being raised by Blake's daughter Delinah. Blake has been denied bail, while his bodyguard Earl Caldwell is out on a million-dollar bond. Both men have pled not guilty and will stand trial next year.

But Christina doesn’t believe Bonny got what she deserved. “As bad as anybody can be, you don't deserve to die,” she says.

Ironically, in death, in a Hollywood cemetery, Bonny has achieved what she wanted most in life: to be among the stars.

The Bakely Case: Part 1