Bonny Lee Bakely Murdered in Actor's Dodge Stealth

Actor Robert Blake was married to con artist Bonny Lee Bakley. Before they married she had 9 previous husbands, made money by selling nude photos, and conned men out of money by running “lonely heart” scams before moving on to her next mark. She saw the opportunity for a permanent relationship when she became pregnant while dating both Brando and Blake at the same time. She originally named the child with Brando’s last name, and he threatened “to put a bullet in her head.” 

The child’s last name was changed to Blake after the paternity test proved that Robert Blake was the father. They married in 2000, but the marriage was not a picture-perfect one. They married because of Robert's devotion to his daughter. They did not live together, but they did socialize together. Including the dinner, they had before she was killed. They ate at his favorite restaurant, where he ate a dish named after him. They went to his Dodge Stealth, he went back to the restaurant because he forgot his handgun, and when he came back she had been gravely injured. 

His handgun did not match the murder weapon, but the murder weapon was found dumped in a dumpster nearby. With no fingerprints able to be recovered. They did find gunshot residue on his clothes, but couldn’t connect it to the shooting. He was arrested a year later, with two of his previous co-workers saying they had been approached by Blake to kill Bakley. After nine days he was found not guilty in the criminal case because there wasn’t enough concrete evidence.