Los Angeles authorities continued piecing together clues over the weekend in the shooting murder of Bonny Lee Bakley in light of new evidence that bullets found at the scene didn’t match those seized from her TV actor husband’s home.
A pile of ammunition confiscated from the house of Robert Blake, star of the 1970s television series Baretta, was not the same sort as that collected at the murder scene Friday, unnamed sources told the Associated Press Friday.
"This is why they're having such a difficult time with their theory," said Blake's lawyer, Harland Braun.
Bakley, 45, was shot twice in the head and killed May 4 as she sat alone in the car she shared with Blake, only moments after the couple finished dinner at a Studio City restaraunt where Blake has a meal named after him.
Though police haven’t officially named the 67-year-old Blake a suspect, he has been the focus of their investigation thus far.
"If Robert wanted to do something like that ... there's a lot of people out there who would've helped Robert," Blake's friend John Solari said.
Blake told authorities the murder happened when he went back into the restaurant alone to retrieve a handgun he’d left behind. Eyewitnesses, however, don't remember Blake returning for the gun.
Sources tell Fox News that in 19 years of visiting that restaurant, Blake never made reservations. On the night of Bakley's murder, Blake made a reservation for 8:30 PM.
Some have speculated the bullets were meant for Blake.
"The police are having a terrible time admitting that their first hypothesis didn't work," Braun said. "As scientists will tell you, if you develop a hypothesis and you find no evidence to support it, you try to figure out another theory."
The actor also reportedly doesn’t own the type of rare German WWII-era pistol believed to have been found in a trash bin near the murder scene. According to Braun, the bodyguard responsible for Blake’s guns, Earle Caldwell, told authorities that a Walther pistol isn’t part of the collection.
Blake and his slain wife's family decided to cancel a planned New Jersey funeral. Instead, Bakley will likely be buried in secret in California to avoid the media circus, Blake's lawyers said.
A private religious service late Wednesday in Los Angeles was also canceled when crowds of media showed up at the funeral home.
Police have said repeatedly they haven’t ruled out anyone as a suspect in the case. They have questioned Blake twice as a witness.
Blake, who began his acting career as a child and has had roles in several films, played the angry, misfit cop Tony Baretta in the mid-1970s show Baretta. In 1975 he won an Emmy for the role — a character whose personality and experiences he could identify with.
The program was canceled after only three seasons — after which Blake slipped into a years-long battle with drugs and alcohol. In 1992 Blake revealed details of a tough childhood as the son of an abusive, alcoholic father and distant mother.
Bakley, for her part, grew up in a working-class New Jersey family and always had her sights set on the Hollywood stars. She and Blake have an 11-month-old daughter.
Blake's lawyer, whom the LAPD has criticized for interfering with their investigation, said Bakley was planning to swindle Oscar-nominated actor Gary Busey in the months before she was shot to death.
"Marrying a star was her way of proving her worthiness," Marjerry Bakley, Bonny Lee Bakley's sister, said.
Linda Gail Lewis — Bakley's friend and sister of Jerry Lee Lewis — got a divorce when she found out that Bakley had slept with her then-husband.
"I was angry with her for a time, but Bonnie was so loveable, you just couldn't help but get over it," Lewis said.
— Fox News' Juliet Huddy, Jon Du Pre, Trace Gallagher, William La Jeunesse and the Associated Press contributed to this report
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