Alleged Bakley Murder Weapon Found

May 14, 2001 -- Los Angeles police have retrieved a gun they believe was used to murder actor Robert Blake's wife, ABC's Good Morning America reported today.

Though a Los Angeles Police Department spokeswoman refused to either confirm or deny the report, the news program said that the murder weapon — a World War II-era Walther pistol made in Germany, a collector's item — was retrieved from a trash receptacle near the site where Bonny Bakley, 44, was fatally shot in her husband's car on May 4.

A special broadcast on Good Morning America also revealed that Bakley had been shot twice, not once, as previously reported. Bakley was shot once in the neck and once — fatally — in the head as she sat in a car near a Studio City, Calif., restaurant where she and her husband had just dined. The weapon confiscated by police had two bullets fired from it with a third bullet still in its chambers.

Authorities also apparently found a box of ammunition of the same brand used in the gun during a search of Blake's "Mata Hari Ranch" in Studio City. However, the casings on those bullets did not match the casing of the bullet in the weapon, and the Remington brand of ammunition used is a popular one. The murder weapon was not registered to Blake, ABC reported.

The segment included a startling claim that Blake's house was in total disarray when police searched it, and that one wall was inscribed with a cryptic scrawl that read, "I am not going down for this."

A police spokeswoman said, "We cannot confirm or deny the report. We don't know where [ABC is] getting this information from."

"We have certainly not ruled out Mr. Blake," LAPD Capt. Jim Tatreau told The Associated Press. "We have not been able to develop enough evidence that, as far as eliminating Mr. Blake, that takes us in another direction." Police served a second search warrant on Blake's home Wednesday, stating that they were acting on undisclosed "new information."

The 67-year-old actor, who starred in the '70s detective series Baretta, is an avid gun collector and has told authorities that he returned to the restaurant where he and his wife had dinner to retrieve his pistol. Blake and his attorney, Harland W. Braun, have maintained that Bakley was fearful that someone was stalking her, and that the star carried a gun to protect her.

On Thursday, Braun delivered two carloads of Bakley's possessions to police. The lawyer and his client have continually painted Bakley as a scam artist who may have been murdered by someone from her past (she allegedly sold photos of herself to lonely men through newspaper ads). They believe that her belongings could reveal clues about her death.

Reuters contributed to this story.