Expert: No Blood Found on Blake's Clothes

LOS ANGELES – An expert witness said Friday he could not find any blood on the clothing that actor Robert Blake (search) wore the night his wife was shot to death.

Rod Englert, a crime scene reconstructionist, testified he was asked to analyze Blake's clothes and those of Bonny Lee Bakley (search) to determine the blood patterns that were left by two gunshot wounds to her head and shoulder.

He said he did numerous tests on the actor's clothes, including spraying them with a chemical called Luminol, and found not a speck of blood on his T-shirt, jeans, boots, socks or belt.

In the case of Bakley, Englert said he found blood consistent with the gunshot wounds and said he believed one of her arms was raised when she was shot. He also said the interior of the car in which she was sitting had numerous blood stains.

In order for blood to be transferred to the clothing of a killer, "the shooter would have had to be right on top of her," Englert said.

A medical examiner has testified that the shooter was perhaps one to two feet away from Bakley when the gun was fired.

Jurors listened attentively to the first testimony after they toured the crime scene late Thursday. They had a chance to examine a duplicate of the car where Bakley was shot on May 4, 2001.

Arriving in the neighborhood around 8 p.m., jurors spent more than an hour marching up and down streets, peering into a car resembling the one Blake parked near the restaurant that night and examining the same trash bin where the gun used to kill Bakley was found. Bundled up in hats and coats, many jurors stopped to take notes, walking under street lights to see to write.

Blake was present with his lawyers, but stood off to the side and watched somberly as the procession began and ended. TV cameras were held back and neighborhood streets were blocked off to accommodate the tour.

Blake, 71, is on trial on charges of murder, soliciting others to commit a murder and lying in wait.