LOS ANGELES, April 18 (UPI) -- Former television star Robert Blake was arrested late Thursday after being considered a prime suspect for nearly a year in the shooting death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley.
The 67-year-old actor was seen on live television being led in handcuffs out of his daughter's home in a gated community near Calabasas, where he had been staying for some time after Bakley was found shot to death in the couple's car after they had dined at a Studio City restaurant.
Blake, dressed in blue jeans, a white sweatshirt and bright green baseball cap, was placed in the back seat of a white unmarked police car and driven to police headquarters with a flock of television news helicopters in tow. He was expected to be booked on a murder charge. His arraignment likely would be on Monday.
Police earlier in the day arrested Blake's bodyguard, Earle Caldwell, in Burbank. His role in the case was not immediately revealed, but there had been reports from Bakley's family he had threatened her sometime before her death.
Los Angeles Police Department later confirmed the arrest and said more information would be announced at a news conference later in the evening.
Blake was the Emmy-winning star of the 1970s television series "Baretta," and had gotten his start as a child star in the "Our Gang" comedies. He appeared in some 40 films, including "In Cold Blood," "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre," "PT 109," "The Money Train," and in 1997's "Lost Highway," which was his final role.
He had been considered a suspect since the initial stages of the investigation into the May 4, 2001 shooting. The couple had gotten married six months earlier after a DNA test revealed Blake had fathered the couple's daughter, Rose, and not Christian Brando, as she originally had believed.
Blake's attorney Harland Braun arrived at police headquarters Monday evening and hurried inside to meet with his client without commenting to the waiting gaggle of reporters and TV cameras.
The brief marriage of Blake and the 44-year-old Bakley was described as stormy. Blake was said in some media accounts to be bitter about Bakley's pregnancy, but not willing to part with his new daughter on whom he reportedly doted.
Braun had in the past raised the possibility Bakely's checkered past had included the commission of petty frauds that could have caused other people to want to kill her. She apparently had solicited money from men she met through newspaper and Internet lonely heart ads.
On the night of Bakely's death, the couple had dined at Vitello's, Blake's favorite restaurant located near his Studio City home, where there is a popular dish named after him. Blake told police he had brought a gun with him that night because he was concerned someone was stalking his wife.
Blake said moments after leaving the restaurant, he realized he had lost the weapon.
He said he left his wife in the car and walked back to the restaurant to look for the pistol. When he returned, still without the gun, he found Bakley had been shot while seated in the car.
