Robert Blake, the film and television actor who was acquitted of the murder of his second wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, has died at the age of 89. It was Blake’s niece, Noreen Austin, who confirmed the news of his death on Thursday, saying the actor died of heart disease.
As he revealed to People magazine, he was surrounded by family at his home in Los Angeles at the time of his death. A native of New Jersey, the performer began his career as a child actor on the comedy series Our Gang at the age of 5, but later went on to have a prolific career. After a slew of TV movie and series roles, he first appeared in Bill Hickok’s The Adventures of Wild and starred in the 1967 Oscar-nominated film In Cold Blood.
He would later be arrested and later acquitted in the 2001 shooting death of his wife, Bakley. The 44-year-old mother of four was fatally shot on May 4, 2001 in Blake’s car, which was parked a around the corner from an Italian restaurant where the couple had just dined near their Studio City, California, home.
At the time, Blake told authorities that he had left his wife alone while he went back to the restaurant to retrieve a gun that he claimed had fallen from her clothing and that authorities determined was not used in the murder. Almost a year later, the police arrested him.
At his trial, prosecutors cited the statements of two retired specialists who alleged to authorities that Blake had tried to hire them as hit men, an allegation the defense found unreliable.
Blake and Bakley had been married for about five months at the time of the murder. At that time, DNA tests showed that he had been the father of his daughter Rose, who was 11 months old at the time.
No witnesses, blood, or DNA evidence linked Blake to his wife’s murder. The jury deliberated eight days before finding Blake not guilty. However, months later Blake was found guilty of intentionally causing the murder of his wife in a civil lawsuit and sentenced to pay $30 million to Bakley’s four children.