Blake Bodyguard Describes a Mysterious Lurking Man

The first time a mysterious man with a blond crew cut was seen near the home of Robert Blake, his bodyguard didn’t give it much thought, but now he says the man may have killed the actor’s wife.

Earle Caldwell said he told police Thursday that the man, in his 20s, first showed up outside Blake’s Studio City home about two months ago. Often, the man would sit in a black pickup and stare at the property. Blake saw him as such a threat that he had the couple’s infant daughter stay with relatives in Calabasas.

“I was the first to see the guy,” he said. “I named him ‘Buzz Cut.’ ”

Blake’s wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, was fatally shot May 4 as she sat in the couple’s car a block from the restaurant where they had dined.

Caldwell said that a week before Bakley was killed, Blake told him to leave town. Bakley wanted him fired, the bodyguard was told. Caldwell was in Northern California when the shooting occurred.

Caldwell said he told all he knew about the stranger and the Blakes’ relationship to detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division.

He told them the stranger once drove up outside Blake’s home in the middle of the night, turned his lights off and watched the property. He smirked as Blake approached with a flashlight.

He said the stranger, thin and about 5 foot 8, showed up repeatedly over a month. Caldwell said he and Blake once chased the man through the neighborhood.

During the two-hour interview with police, Caldwell said the detectives listened carefully, just as they did when he told them some of the sordid details of Bakley’s life. But in the end, the bodyguard said, he came away believing that the two homicide detectives were “clearly looking only at Robert Blake” as a suspect in his wife’s slaying.

They “are not being flexible in considering other evidence,” he said. “It was clear to me they weren’t looking for anything different. They have their minds set. I’m sure they think Robert did it.”

Los Angeles Police spokesman Lt. Horace Frank said, “It’s unfortunate that he feels that way. Certainly we’re not in a position to dictate how he feels. The investigation is going to be a painstaking process involving many interviews.”

Interviewed Friday at the office of Harland W. Braun, Blake’s defense lawyer, the 45-year-old bodyguard said he was closer to the actor and Bakley than anyone else, and described the couple as happy and trying to work things out.

After his wife was fatally shot, Blake told police he had left her in their car while he retrieved his handgun from the restaurant.

The two married last fall after DNA tests proved Blake was the father of their daughter. They lived separately on Blake’s property.

Bakley’s relatives have described her as a woman who sought relationships with wealthy, well-known men. She had been convicted of identity fraud. She ran a business that took money from men in exchange for nude pictures and promises of relationships, family members said.

Caldwell met Blake while installing a stereo system in the actor’s car in Studio City.

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Times staff writer Edward J. Boyer contributed to this story.