P.I. Says Blake Sought Slaying

Robert Blake’s longtime private investigator testified that the actor, angered that Bonny Lee Bakley had become pregnant, said he wanted to “whack” her.

Retired LAPD detective William Welch, a witness in Blake’s murder trial in Van Nuys, on Thursday said he suggested Blake pay Bakley up to $100,000 to make her go away. But he said Blake had a different idea.

“He said, ‘We’re going to hire a doctor. We’re going to abort her, and if that doesn’t work, we’re going to whack her,’ ” Welch told jurors.

Welch, a 21-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department who began working for Blake in 1988, said he understood that Blake was soliciting him to help kill Bakley during the October 1999 conversation. Welch testified that he refused and thought he had succeeded in talking Blake out of it.

Welch is a key witness as the prosecution moves into the third and perhaps most important phase of its case: providing a motive -- that Blake loved daughter Rosie and killed her mother, who at one time ran a mail-order pornography business, to keep her away from the child.

Welch testified that Blake told him Rosie was the result of a one-night stand and that once he saw the baby, his love for her grew and protecting her became an obsession.

Prosecutors contend that Blake’s hatred for Bakley led him to try to hire two Hollywood stuntmen to kill her. When they refused, prosecutors allege, Blake shot Bakley, 44, as she sat in his car the night of May 4, 2001, after they had dined at a Studio City restaurant.

Blake, 71, star of the 1970s television show “Baretta,” and Bakley had a stormy relationship after their daughter was born in June 2000. But Blake married Bakley after DNA tests proved he was the baby’s father. Bakley was shot five days after moving into Blake’s guest house.

Welch, who investigated 300 homicides during his career with the LAPD, told jurors that Blake had earlier hatched a scheme to plant cocaine in Bakley’s hotel room, then have Welch’s LAPD friends swoop in and arrest her.

Welch testified that Blake said he would park his motorcycle at the front of the Beverly Garland hotel, where Bakley was staying. If he was able to plant drugs, he would turn his baseball cap to the side as he left, a signal to officers to go in and arrest Bakley.

“Did you tell him that was the most sophisticated plan you had ever heard in your life?” asked prosecutor Shellie Samuels.

“No,” responded Welch. “I told him it was another one of his real bad ideas.”

Welch said he eventually helped Blake hire a private investigator in Arkansas to prepare a report on Bakley’s past there and her pornography business.

Welch testified that he suggested Blake try to contact authorities to catch Bakley for violation of probation on a federal mail fraud conviction in Arkansas, which would have forced her return there.

When Bakley was killed, Welch testified, he thought Blake was behind it.

“I’ve handled almost 300 homicides, and we always look at the husband or wife first,” Welch said. “I was thinking bad things about Robert, and I had known him for a long time.”

In cross-examination, defense attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach tried to turn Welch’s law enforcement pedigree against him when the private eye acknowledged that he never reported Blake’s threat to authorities, either when the “whack her” comment was first made or in the immediate aftermath of Bakley’s slaying.

Welch said it wasn’t until Oct. 30, 2001 -- more than five months after Bakley was slain -- that he told the full story to LAPD detectives and the deputy district attorney.

The day after Bakley was killed, Welch told jurors, he went on an annual fishing trip but called home to see if detectives investigating the case had contacted him.

He said he was surprised to learn they had not. He said Blake, his employer for many years, had his phone numbers, and Welch assumed any police search would turn them up.

In all their discussions, Welch testified, Blake was “very adamant about wanting [Bakley] to disappear.”

Jurors also heard testimony Thursday from commercial boat dealer Luis Mendoza, who said Blake twice paid Mendoza’s way to Los Angeles from the East Coast. He said Blake discussed Bakley’s criminal background and asked Mendoza if he could alert his contacts in law enforcement to see if she could be taken into custody.

Mendoza testified that Blake showed him letters and nude pictures of Bakley and told him “he wanted the baby away from the mother no matter what.”