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CNN Live Saturday
Robert Blake Turns Over Wife's Phone Conversations to Police
Aired May 12, 2001 - 12:09 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: As the investigation into the killing of actor Robert Blake's wife continues in Los Angeles, CNN's Charles Feldman has obtained an exclusive copy of a series of tape recordings that Blake's lawyers have turned over as evidence to the Los Angeles police department.
And according to Robert Blake and his attorney, the recordings are Bonny Bakley's telephone conversations that she herself made, conversations that help paint a portrait, in her own words, of a woman who is now at the center of a Hollywood murder mystery. Here's CNN's Charles Feldman.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHARLES FELDMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (on camera): The audio recordings you are about to hear were discovered by Robert Blake's investigative team, CNN's been told, at a small guest house where Blake's late wife, Bonny Bakley, resided next to her husband's home.
The tapes purport to be recordings Bakley made of her own phone conversations over a period of time last year, before she married Blake and while paternity of their infant daughter was still being clinically established.
Blake's lawyers allowed CNN to make complete copies of the recordings after they were turned over to the LAPD as evidence. Blake himself told CNN that the voice on the tape was his wife's.
When Bakley gave birth to her daughter, she named her after actor Christian Brando, Marlon Brando's son. She told people she thought it was his child, but CNN has not established that she actually ever knew the younger Brando. And our attempts to reach Christian Brando were unsuccessful.
Complicating matters, she had a very real affair with Robert Blake, more than two decades her senior. And paternity tests have clearly determined he is the father of Bakley's baby.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "BAKLEY PHONE CONVERSATIONS")
BONNY BAKLEY, ROBERT BLAKE'S WIFE: I met Blake, and then I thought, well, when I met Blake, I kind of wanted him, but I kind of didn't, because he wasn't like up to par with the looks. You know, I couldn't remember what he looked like younger. You know, I started looking at movies now, but -- and I thought he was cute when he was younger.
But, like, he wasn't what I was looking for, and I was already -- I thought I was already in love with Christian, you know, and then I thought, well, I don't really -- I don't know if I really would want him the rest of my life, because he's going to get even older and worse looking, and I am already in love with Christian.
Blake, he'd come on really mushy and sweet like he's really falling for me. And then, you know, and I was backing off of then, you know, and then all of a sudden I didn't know what happened but I fell for him. And then, he started backing off, and then I got these awful feelings, you know, that pain, you know, it's like withdrawal or something, like really sad, lonely and depressed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FELDMAN: Bakley talks about her various legal problems on the tapes.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "BAKLEY PHONE CONVERSATIONS")
BAKLEY: Yeah, I know. I got three years probation just for having different IDs, you know. And it wasn't even like I was really using them for anything totally, you know, to -- to illegal either, you know. I mean, it's my business and if I want to, you know, like, fool guys and say that I'm somebody else, you know, what's the difference?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FELDMAN: In another portion, Bakley goes so far as to wonder how a judge might react if she admitted tricking a well-known celebrity into having her child.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "BAKLEY PHONE CONVERSATIONS")
BAKLEY: Even if I was to admit and say, OK, well, no, I didn't take the pill. I told him I was going to take the pill, and I didn't take it that day...
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FELDMAN: The question you may be asking is why would Robert Blake's lawyers give this tape to a news organization? While Blake has not been named a suspect in the slaying of his wife, police say they have not ruled him out, either.
His lawyers contend that something or someone in his wife's past is responsible for her death. The tapes, they claim, bolster that argument. But it is also possible that they fear Blake might eventually be arrested for the killing and want to create public sympathy for him. Blake's wife clearly had a troubled past and clearly craved the spotlight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "BAKLEY PHONE CONVERSATIONS") BAKLEY: I was the kid that everybody hated in school, because I was, like, poor and I couldn't dress good, and you know, and everybody always made fun of me because I was a real loner type, you know.
So then you grow up saying, oh, I'll fix them, I'll show them, I'll be a movie star, you know. And it was too hard because I was always falling for somebody, so I figured why not fall for movie stars instead of becoming one, you know.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
FELDMAN: And so, in death, Bonny Bakley found what she never did in life. She is now famous.
Charles Feldman, CNN, Los Angeles.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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