After a 12-week trial that ended with jurors saying they did not believe two Hollywood stuntmen central to the prosecution's case, actor Robert Blake was found not guilty Wednesday of fatally shooting his wife.
Prosecutors "couldn't put the gun in his hand," said jury foreman Thomas Nicholson. "I felt the primary thing from what I saw was that the circumstantial evidence was flimsy."
Blake, 71, who would have faced life in prison if convicted, shook from apparent emotion when the verdict was read by the clerk for Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Darlene E. Schempp.
The jury of seven men and five women deliberated for nine days in a Van Nuys courthouse before acquitting Blake of charges that he had killed Bonny Lee Bakley, 44. The mother of four, Bakley was shot as she sat in Blake's car on May 4, 2001, near Vitello's, the Studio City restaurant where the couple had just had dinner.
The jury also found Blake -- the star of the 1970s detective series "Baretta" -- not guilty of soliciting a stuntman, Gary McLarty, to kill Bakley. They deadlocked 11 to 1 on a charge that Blake had solicited a second stuntman, Ronald Hambleton. After the verdict, the judge dismissed that charge "in the interest of justice."
The jurors, who ranged in age from 24 to 78, included an air-conditioning technician, a legal secretary, a retired librarian and a postal worker. They cited concerns about the circumstantial nature of the case against Blake, in which prosecutors were never able to link him to the murder weapon or produce a witness who could place him at the scene at the time of the murder.
"As things progressed, it just turned out there were a lot of gaps," said Michael Pollack, 47, an alternate juror who said that when the trial began, he believed Blake didn't stand a chance of acquittal.
In the absence of direct evidence, jurors were asked to believe testimony from the stuntmen, who testified that Blake had asked them to kill Bakley two months before she was slain. But Blake's attorney, M. Gerald Schwartzbach, was able to undermine their credibility by presenting evidence that their admitted use of cocaine and methamphetamine could have caused them to be delusional.
"I didn't believe either one of them," said Charles Safko, a 50-year-old truck driver from Winnetka. "I thought they were both so full of it, it was unbelievable."
Deputy Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Shellie Samuels, a career prosecutor who had won 48 of 49 murder cases before this one, said she was "blown away" by the verdict. She wondered what effect Blake's celebrity had on the case.
"I can't believe a jury would not convict on this," Samuels said.
Eight of the 12 jurors noted on questionnaires they filled out during jury selection that they recalled Blake from his roles in TV's "Baretta" and the silver screen's "Our Gang" comedies. All said they were aware of the case before being called, but only four said they had followed it "quite a bit."
Outside the courthouse, Schwartzbach said he had hoped for a quick verdict but instead got the prolonged deliberations. He also said Blake handled the trial with "tremendous grace."
"He handled the deliberations with more composure than I was able to muster," he said. "As the jury was about to come back, he said to me 'You did your best.' Now what kind of person says something like that when he doesn't know which door he's walking out of?"
After his acquittal, Blake was at times emotional during a rambling session with reporters outside the courthouse.
He said he was broke and had to get a job.
"I used to be a rich man," he said. "Right now I couldn't buy spats for a hummingbird."
"If you want to know how to go through $10 million in five years, I can tell you," he said.
Asked who he "honestly believe killed your wife," Blake shouted, "Shut up!"
He then asked for a pair of scissors to remove the electronic monitor that had been attached to his leg since he was released on bail two years ago.
Bakley's daughter Holly Gawron wept as the verdict was read.
"It was not what I wanted to hear, but I will accept it and move on," she said. "At this point there is nothing I can do. I would like him to suffer."
Eric Dubin, Gawron's lawyer, who is suing Blake for wrongful death in Bakley's shooting, said, "I completely respect the jury's decision, but in America, money and fame will buy you freedom."
During the three-month murder trial, Blake did not testify in his own defense. But 110 witnesses were called, 74 for the prosecution and 36 for the defense.
In the end, the two Hollywood stuntmen -- McLarty and Hambleton -- were crucial to the prosecution's case, and their credibility proved an insurmountable problem for the prosecution.
