Bonny Lee Bakley and Rose.Photo: Bob Mahoney/Zuma
On the evening of May 4, 2001, television starRobert Blake, 67, had dinner with his second wifeBonny Lee Bakley, at an Italian restaurant near their home in Studio City, Calif.
It would be Bakley’s last night alive: While sitting in Blake’s car after dinner, she was shot twice.
Blake, a former child star who later won critical acclaim appearing in the 1967 Oscar-nominated filmIn Cold Blood,later told authorities they’d left the restaurant together, but that he’d gone back into the restaurant to retrieve a gun that had fallen out of his clothing.
The investigation into the case is explored on the upcomingPeople Magazine Investigates: The Price of Fame, airing Monday at 10 ET/9 CT on Investigation Discovery and streaming on discovery+. (An exclusive clip is shown below.)
A neighbor, who was on the scene, said Blake was frantic, pacing up and down the street, occasionally vomiting, then falling to the pavement. “The cops were treating him with kid gloves,” the neighbor said. “For most of the time paramedics were working on [Bakley]; he was just sitting on the curb. An officer had his arm around him, just consoling him.”
Nick Ut/AP
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Investigators soon determined that the one bullet left in chamber matched the two bullet casings found at the scene.
Was this the gun used in the slaying of Bakley?
Investigators immediately focused on Blake as the killer. But was he?
Bakley’s death would become one of Hollywood’s most notorious cases, with the former acting legend at its center.
People Magazine Investigates: The Price of Fame, airs Monday at 10 ET/9 CT on Investigation Discovery and streaming on discovery+.
source: people.com
