Blake Joins O.J. on Crime Scene Tour
May 21, 2001 -- First O.J. Simpson was offering advice to actor Robert Blake in the wake of his wife's killing. Now the scene of Bonny Lee Bakley's shooting has been added to the itinerary of a company that tours celebrity crime sites, including the key locales in the slaying of Nicole Brown Simpson.
Crime Scene Tours, which also takes people to the key sites in the murder of Bill Cosby's son and the Charles Manson crime spree, will soon be bringing tourists to Blake's favorite restaurant, near where Bakley was shot as she sat in the actor's car, and his home, the Mata Hari Ranch.
"We go by Vitello's restaurant. We retrace the steps that Mr. Blake went from the restaurant to the crime scene," said Lonnie Levine, a former Los Angeles Police Department crime analyst who runs the tours. "We then drive by Mr. Blake's house just to show you the proximity of where the location was to his home."
Just last week, the LAPD issued a statement asking the media to tone down the coverage of the investigation, and chastising Blake's attorney for his aggressive portrayal of Blake's wife, Bakley, as a career grifter who made a living bilking lonely men out of money.
Crime Scene Tours decided to add the killing of Blake's wife to its tours because the company was getting so many requests, Levine said. Unlike the other sights on the tour, though, this one involves a case that is still being investigated.
"We're not in the business to show who's guilty or who's not," Levine said. "All we do is present the facts. And just the fact that he's very close to the restaurant, that was a favorite restaurant of his, that's why we think it's important."
Blake, most famous for his leading role in the Baretta television series, has been the focus of media attention since his wife was shot May 4.
O.J. Chimes In
Bakley, 45, was shot to death as she sat in the couple's car near Vitello's, a Studio City, Calif., restaurant, waiting for the 67-year-old actor. Blake said he had gone back to the restaurant where the couple ate to get a gun he had left there.
Blake married Bakley four months ago after DNA tests proved he was the father of her 11-month-old baby daughter.
Simpson — the man whose "trial of the century" held the nation transfixed following the 1994 stabbing deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman — admitted he was fascinated by the case.
"I've got to admit, I was pretty fascinated when I first heard it," Simpson told the syndicated show Extra . "And my first reaction was an immediate feeling of compassion for him because I knew what he was about to go through."
The former football star also said he had advised Blake not to take a lie detector test or watch TV, and advised him against besmirching his late wife's character.