On this day, May 4, in 2001, Bonnie Lee Bakley, the wife of actor Robert Blake, was shot and killed outside an Italian restaurant in Studio City, Calif.
Blake, 71, who starred as a detective in the “Baretta” television series, told police that he had walked his wife to the car after dinner and returned to the restaurant to retrieve his gun. When he got back to the vehicle, he found Bakley, 44, fatally shot.
Police eventually charged Blake with murder, accusing him of trying to hire two stunt men to get rid of the celebrity-obsessed woman he felt had tricked him into a loveless marriage.
Blake was acquitted of the criminal charges, but a civil jury ordered him to pay $30 million to her family.
– Scott McCabe
