Blake Appeared ‘Upset’ at Dinner, Witnesses Say

Two friends testified Tuesday that actor Robert Blake was agitated and appeared upset as he dined at a Studio City restaurant with his wife shortly before she was shot dead.

“He seemed upset about something,” Richard Noel told jurors in Van Nuys. He also said Blake “seemed a little animated” as the actor and wife Bonny Lee Bakley talked at their booth in Vitello’s restaurant.

Blake is being tried on murder charges in the slaying of Bakley, 44, near Vitello’s on May 4, 2001. Prosecutors contend Blake hated Bakley and killed her to gain custody of their infant daughter, Rosie.

Blake told authorities that after dinner he left his wife in the car and went back to the restaurant to retrieve a gun he had accidentally left there. He said that when he returned, he found Bakley mortally wounded.

Other witnesses in the trial, which began last month, have testified that Blake acted strangely that night, appearing to fake his distress at Bakley’s death. Noel and a friend, Michael Dufficy, were the first to testify that Blake appeared agitated before the shooting.

LAPD criminalist Michael Mastrocovo told jurors how he found the murder weapon the next day in a commercial trash bin, coated with oil. No fingerprints were found.

Blake defense attorney M. Gerald Schwartzbach suggested that Mastrocovo and LAPD Det. Steve Eguchi mishandled evidence by not quickly and completely checking the trash bin for fingerprints. Schwartzbach also criticized the Los Angeles Police Department for moving the bin to a landfill before examining its contents.

Mastrocovo testified that climbing into the bin, which contained nails and other commercial debris, was unsafe and that using a tool could have damaged evidence.