LOS ANGELES, March 16 -- Actor Robert Blake, who found fame playing a detective on television and a psychotic killer in the movies, was acquitted of killing his wife Wednesday, ending a case that read like a Hollywood script.
Prosecutors said the actor, now 71, tried to solicit two stuntmen to "whack" his wife and, when they turned him down, did it himself, shooting her as she sat in his car outside his favorite Italian restaurant nearly four years ago.
After hearing the verdict, actor Robert Blake appeared overcome with emotion.
(Pool Photo Nick Ut)
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But after deliberating for nine days, a jury found Blake not guilty on the murder charge and one count of soliciting someone to kill his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. Jurors deadlocked on another solicitation charge.
Blake, who had maintained his innocence in a nationally televised interview with Barbara Walters after his arrest, dropped his head on a courtroom table when the verdict was read and appeared on the verge of tears.
The trial was the stuff of the cable news shows that in recent months had included the end of the Scott Peterson murder trial -- he was sentenced to death Wednesday -- and the opening of Michael Jackson's child-molestation trial. Talking to reporters outside the courthouse after the verdict was read, Blake said, "You're innocent until proven broke." The actor said he spent $10 million on his defense.
Prosecutors said that Blake killed Bakley, 44, because he felt duped into marrying her but was devoted to their daughter, Rosie.
But jurors said they were unconvinced.
"They couldn't put the gun in his hand," jury foreman Thomas Nicholson said. "There was no [gunshot residue]. There was no blood on the clothing. There was nothing. They could never connect all the links in the chain."
Bakley was a grifter with a record for fraud. She had long been attracted to celebrities and said she had a child with Jerry Lee Lewis.
Blake said Bakley had told him she was on birth control when they had sex in his car outside a jazz club. But she became pregnant and when a paternity test established he was the father, Blake married Bakley. He said he was determined that his daughter would not turn out like her mother.
