Entertainment

Tawdry Tinseltown Hit

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

May 6, 2001 / 5:34 PM EDT / CBS

The Los Angeles coroner's office has finished its autopsy of Bonny Lee Bakley, the wife of actor Robert Blake, but the results won't be released anytime soon, reports CBS News Correspondent David Dow.

Spokesman Scott Carrier says police investigators want the results kept secret to assist them in finding Bakley's killer.

Blake, 67, who had left his wife in the car while he went back to a restaurant to pick up his own handgun, checked himself into a hospital for treatment of high blood pressure Saturday and will remain there for another day or so, attorney Harland Braun said.

"The doctors, I think, have his blood pressure under control now," Braun told CBS Radio Station KNX. "Just the shock of everything that happened, it just went through the ceiling, so as a precaution he's in a hospital."

Bakley, 45, was shot late Friday as she sat in a car near an Italian restaurant that Blake frequented in Studio City.

Blake reportedly has hired a private detective to investigate the murder.

Police refused to comment Sunday but previously said Blake wasn't considered a suspect.

However, police searched Blake's house on Saturday and recovered two 9mm handguns and seized phone records and other paperwork, Braun said. Police had interviewed Blake twice — once for about three hours immediately after the shooting and again for an hour on Saturday, Braun added.

Bakley was shot once in the head while her husband returned to the restaurant to retrieve a handgun he had left behind.

Braun said Blake was carrying a gun to protect her.

"She apparently was afraid of something that she would not articulate to him," he said. "She's be in marginal types of businesses where she was kind of a con person is the best you can say, where she would place ads to lovelorn men and defraud them of money.

"If someone wanted to make a hit, that would have been a perfect opportunity," he added. "They probably were tailing them, and the moment he left her to go back and get the gun, that gave the person the opportunity to kill her."

Theirs was a marriage of convenience, Braun said. Paternity tests proved her child was his, and he married her to "do the right thing." However, they lived in separate residences on the same property.

"Obviously it was a troubled relationship, because it was basically based on the fact that they had a daughter together rather than a typical marriage."

Bakley had been on probation after being convicted in her home state of Arkansas of carrying a fake ID. Braun said the couple had signed a prenuptial agreement before their marriage earlier this year that stated Bakley couldn't engage in any criminal activity.

The 11-month-old baby girl was placed in the care of Blake's relatives.

Blake was a former child star who made his debut at age 5 in the "Our Gang" comedies.

He played tough TV detective Tony Baretta in the 1970s show of the same name. He has had dozens of movie roles, including his potrayal of real-life killer Perry Smith in the 1967 film "In Cold Blood."