Blake Defense Says Police Ignored Other Leads

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. Bonny Lee Bakley was shot to death on May 4, 2001, as she sat in Blake’s car waiting for him to return from a Studio City restaurant. Blake has said he had forgotten his gun inside a restaurant booth and went to retrieve it.

During nearly a full day of cross-examination, Schwartzbach attempted to show that police had focused prematurely on Blake, 71, who starred in the 1970s television series “Baretta.”

Schwartzbach implied that the police ignored hundreds of letters found in Bakley’s apartment the day after the slaying that could have led to other suspects -- victims of a mail-order porn business in which she fleeced clients who sought her companionship.

To emphasize the point, Schwartzbach stacked nine heavy binders containing Bakley correspondence in front of Ito at the witness stand.

Ito said the investigation of the letters and other tips pointed to about half a dozen people, including those who were duped by Bakley, all of whom were eliminated as suspects.

“I don’t recall any of them threatening to kill her,” Ito said.

The detective defended the investigation, saying the police must determine “what’s pertinent and what’s not pertinent, and decide what’s evidence and what’s not evidence.”

Bakley family attorney Eric Dubin, who attended the trial in Van Nuys, said there was nothing in the letters that suggested a suspect other than Blake.

“It was a theatrical presentation that tried to suggest that the LAPD ignored evidence,” he said. “The reality is that there’s nothing in those binders to suggest that someone else tried to kill Bonny.”

During his testimony, Ito acknowledged that he allowed another officer to carry Blake’s clothing in the trunk of his car for two days before it was booked into evidence. The defense has contended the clothes, which carried gunshot residue, could have been contaminated in the trunk, which also contained weapons.

Schwartzbach also criticized the LAPD’s failure to test for gunshot residue in the booth where Blake said he had left his gun. The gun, which Blake surrendered to police, was not used to kill Bakley, but it is key to his alibi that he was inside the restaurant when his wife was killed.

Ito said he did not believe such a test would prove Blake left the gun in the restaurant booth, but conceded that it could have provided “another piece of the puzzle.”

Schwartzbach also questioned Ito about allowing author Miles Corwin “inside the yellow tape” at the crime scene, along with the access Corwin was provided to police searches and witness interviews.

Then-Police Chief Bernard C. Parks gave Corwin broad access to the department’s elite robbery-homicide squad to conduct research for a book. Schwartzbach suggested that Ito did not properly identify Corwin to witnesses, including restaurant waitress Robin Robichaux, Blake assistant Cody Blackwell and stuntman Jimmy Nickerson.

Ito has also said he introduced Corwin as a partner when he interviewed Roy “Snuffy” Harrison, who helped arrange Blake’s meeting with two stuntmen who say the actor had tried to hire them to kill his wife. The stuntmen are expected to testify today.