Bonny Lee Bakley

Long before slaying victim Bonny Lee Bakley married actor Robert Blake, she married a Montana widower who answered one of her personal ads. But moments after the "I do's" were exchanged in Elko, Nev., DeMart C. Besly handed his bride a roll of quarters. He never saw her again. His heartbreak hardened into obsession, and Besly spent his final years pounding out Bakley's story on a manual typewriter.

David M. Schacter, a retired Los Angeles County Superior Court judge who presided over several high-profile trials in his 21 years on the bench and publicly feuded with the media over access to his courtroom during one, has died. He was 68. Schacter died Feb. 25 at his home in Winnetka after a two-year battle with Parkinson's disease, said his daughter, Danna. In 1996, Schacter presided over a trial in which actor Clint Eastwood was sued by his ex-girlfriend Sondra Locke.

Two people testified Wednesday that a key prosecution witness who accused Robert Blake of soliciting the slaying of his wife snorted, ate and smoked methamphetamine frequently. Stuntman Ronald "Duffy" Hambleton kept the drug in a china hutch and on a dining room table next to a bowl of jelly beans, according to testimony in Los Angeles County Superior Court in Van Nuys.

An appeals court Friday upheld a civil judgment holding actor Robert Blake responsible for his wife's death, but cut in half the $30 million he was ordered to pay her family. The 2nd District appellate court ruled Friday that Blake's attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach failed to show there had been a trial error in the wrongful-death suit. Schwartzbach had argued before the court in January that his client had not received a fair trial, citing juror misconduct and insufficient instruction given to the jury.

The defense peppered the chief detective in the Robert Blake murder case Wednesday with questions suggesting the investigation was ineptly handled, contending police ignored hundreds of promising leads from a lonely-hearts-club swindle that the actor's wife ran. Defense attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach also criticized Los Angeles Police Department Det. Ronald Ito's supervision of the crime scene.

A truck driver asked by Los Angeles police to haul evidence away from where actor Robert Blake's wife was found fatally shot said Monday that officers told him they found a discarded handgun in a trash bin a few yards from the crime scene. John Philip Brice, who has driven trucks for a Monrovia waste hauling company for eight years, said the trash bin was filled mostly with construction debris the morning of May 5.

The body of actor Robert Blake's wife had hardly been whisked from the crime scene last week when defense attorney Harland Braun, an affable lawyer with a mischievous grin, stepped before the cameras and began picking apart the victim's character.

Facing a lawsuit from the children of his slain wife, actor Robert Blake sat in court and watched Thursday as the family's attorney accused him of conspiring with his handyman to murder Bonny Lee Bakley. But attorney Eric J. Dubin, already looking at a tough fight because of Blake's acquittal on criminal charges in March, was interrupted repeatedly and finally cut short by the judge for arguing rather than outlining his case.

In the biggest trial of his legal career, Eric J. Dubin began his closing argument by apologizing to the jury. If his questions sounded confusing, his objections seemed inopportune or his loud sighs and rolling eyeballs came off like theatrical stunts, he said, please don't hold it against his clients.

A woman testified in actor Robert Blake's murder trial Thursday that she never saw one of his chief accusers hallucinate. Hillorie Rudolph, the girlfriend of former stuntman Gary McLarty, told jurors that he was not subject to delusions or hallucinations. McLarty had testified earlier that Blake offered him money to kill the actor's wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. Blake's defense attacked McLarty as unreliable because of his admitted past drug use.

Robert Blake, the actor acquitted of his wife's murder, should not have to pay her survivors a $30-million civil court award because he did not get a fair trial, his lawyers told appellate judges Tuesday. "All we asked for was a fair trial, and it wasn't," M. Gerald Schwartzbach argued to the state 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles. "Celebrities have the same rights as anybody else. . . . Mr. Blake was denied that." Attorney Eric J.

Jurors in Robert Blake's civil trial discussed the cases of O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson, ignored the lack of evidence that Blake killed his wife and decided to "send a message that celebrities and rich people cannot get away with murder," the actor's attorney said in an appeal filed Wednesday. Blake's lawyer argued that the award of $30 million to the family of Bonny Lee Bakley in the wrongful-death case was the result of prejudice and jury misconduct and should be reversed.

In the biggest trial of his legal career, Eric J. Dubin began his closing argument by apologizing to the jury. If his questions sounded confusing, his objections seemed inopportune or his loud sighs and rolling eyeballs came off like theatrical stunts, he said, please don't hold it against his clients.

I am the attorney who represented Robert Blake in the criminal trial that resulted in his acquittal. I am writing in response to The Times' Nov. 19 article, "Blake Held Responsible for Slaying." The article contains an unfair statement: "The verdict by the Burbank jury [in the civil trial that concluded on Nov. 18] was a rebuff to a Van Nuys criminal jury, which acquitted Blake in March of murder charges." The verdict in the civil case was certainly not "a rebuff." Aside from the fact that the civil trial involved a lower burden of proof [a fact later noted in the article]

Attorney Michael A. Brewer has some advice for Bonny Lee Bakley's four children, who were awarded a $30-million civil damage award Friday from actor Robert Blake for liability in the death of their mother. "Act quickly. Be extremely aggressive in the collection of any judgment," said Brewer, one of the attorneys who won a similar $33.5-million civil judgment in 1997 against O.J. Simpson for liability for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Punctuating a saga that wove stock elements of Hollywood movies into a deeper tale of loss and outrage, a civil court jury ruled Friday that actor Robert Blake "intentionally caused" the death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, and awarded her children $30 million in damages. The verdict by the Burbank jury was a rebuff to a Van Nuys criminal jury, which acquitted Blake in March of murder charges.

Jurors in Robert Blake's civil trial discussed the cases of O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson, ignored the lack of evidence that Blake killed his wife and decided to "send a message that celebrities and rich people cannot get away with murder," the actor's attorney said in an appeal filed Wednesday. Blake's lawyer argued that the award of $30 million to the family of Bonny Lee Bakley in the wrongful-death case was the result of prejudice and jury misconduct and should be reversed.

Marlon Brando's son Christian took the 5th Amendment at Robert Blake's civil trial Tuesday, refusing to answer nearly two dozen questions about the murder of the actor's wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. With his lawyer, Bruce M. Margolin, at his side, an uneasy Brando confirmed his voice on a tape of a conversation, in which he could be heard telling Bakley: "You're lucky somebody ain't out there to [put] a bullet in your head."

Hoping to blunt potentially damaging testimony in a wrongful-death suit, a lawyer for Robert Blake introduced into evidence Tuesday a letter written by the actor's wife in which she alleged that she had almost been killed half a dozen times. The letter, from Bonny Lee Bakley to her probation officer in Arkansas, was part of a larger effort by Blake's defense attorney, Peter Q.