Physician: Blake's cry for help seemed fake
By Lisa Sweetingham
Court TV
VAN NUYS, California (Court TV) -- A physician testified in late December in the murder trial of actor Robert Blake that he heard and watched the actor crying out for assistance on the night his wife was shot to death, but he did not offer aid because he feared for his safety and did not perceive the actor's pleas to be genuine.
"I heard a man's voice calling, 'Help, my wife is bleeding!'" said James Michael McCoy, a hospital administrator who has not practiced medicine in 10 years. "My very first impression was that this was not a call for help. It didn't have distress as an element. It seemed more [like] cajoling."
McCoy's testimony came on December 22 as the trial of actor Blake prepared to recess for the holidays. The trial resumes on January 4.
McCoy was walking with a companion on Woodbridge Street in Studio City California, when he saw Blake's silhouette under a porch light. It was May 4, 2001, at about 9:40 p.m., and the former "Baretta" star was banging on the door of Sean Stanek. Stanek previously testified that he called 911 and ran out to aid Blake's wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, who was in a parked car nearby, bleeding to death from the two gunshot wounds to her right cheek and shoulder.
McCoy, who did not recognize Blake, said that he and his companion moved to a spot behind a tree, across from Stanek's house, where they could watch. "I thought maybe this was a home invasion robbery," McCoy said.
"As a doctor, did it occur to you to render aid?" Deputy District Attorney Shellie Samuels asked.
McCoy said he considered it, but he didn't see anyone in need of help.
Prosecutors say that Blake, 71, shot Bakley, 44, as she sat in his black Dodge Stealth about a block and a half from Vitello's Italian restaurant, where they had just dined.
In fact, Blake had a gun on him that evening -- a revolver he was licensed to carry. But that gun was not the murder weapon, and the defense team claims there is no evidence tying Blake to the 9 mm Walther P-38 pistol found in a garbage container nearby, which was identified as the gun used to kill Bakley.
Several witnesses, including McCoy, have testified that the actor's demeanor that evening did not fit the picture of a man grieving for his wife, and that his tone and intonation seemed disingenuous.
McCoy said he was making a "wailing, grief-like call about 'My wife, my wife.'" He thought it was unusual that Blake never approached Bakley or tried to come to her side.
But McCoy's testimony may not have pleased jurors, who appeared to be giving hard looks and taking notes as he described watching Blake leaving Stanek's house, following about 150 feet behind as the actor walked "briskly" toward Vitello's, and then observing Blake emerging from Vitello's with a group of people who headed toward the parked car.
McCoy eventually approached the group, and learned from a bystander that Blake had a gun and that one of the individuals at Bakley's side was a nurse.
"Why didn't you help?" Samuels later asked.
"I didn't help because my first instinct was I was in a dangerous situation and a crime was being committed," McCoy said, adding, "I stayed, not just out of curiosity, but because I wanted to help if I could establish someone needed help."
During cross-examination, the witness conceded that even after he heard Blake saying, "Call 911," he never identified himself to anyone as a doctor. The nurse and the paramedics who later showed up, McCoy testified, did not seem to be working on Bakley in a "frantic" manner, so he did not offer his help.
"I assumed the patient was dead or injured beyond resuscitation," McCoy said.
Fatal wounds
Blake maintains that he was not present when Bakley was shot to death. According to the defense, the actor walked Bakley to the car, realized he left his gun inside Vitello's and during the time it took him to fetch his gun and come back, someone else had killed his wife of six months.
But no waitstaff or other diners ever saw Blake return to table #42, a semi-private booth near the front entrance. Joe Restivo, co-owner of Vitello's, testified Wednesday that Blake was a regular customer, dining one to three times a week and always requesting table #42.
Restivo said he was not manning the front entrance the entire night, and it was possible that Blake may have slipped in and out without anyone noticing. He characterized the actor's demeanor that night as happy and smiling.
Jurors also heard from Jeffrey Gutstadt, the medical examiner who performed an autopsy on Bakley on May 6.
Gutstadt testified that the bullet to her right cheek would have rendered her immediately unconscious as it went through her right cheek at an upward angle, passed through a central portion of her brain and lodged in her left temporal lobe.
The bullet to her shoulder also followed a right to left trajectory and slightly upward, fracturing her right clavicle, passing through her right carotid artery and lodging in a vertebrae at the base of her neck, though not affecting her spinal cord.
Both wounds were fatal, Gutstadt said, as they severed major arteries.
Bakley did not have any sooting -- black discolorations resulting from metals and gasses that release upon firing a gun -- or stippling -- red dots that result from powder burns -- on her entry wounds.
Gutstadt said that the lack of stippling or sooting meant the gun was at least 1 1/2 feet away. But he was unable to determine the order Bakley suffered her wounds or what position she was in, whether the shooter was left or right-handed, and the shooter's height. Blake's defense suggested during opening statements that the killer was right-handed, and that Blake is left-handed.
Although Bakley had no defensive wounds on her hands or forearms, she did have gunshot residue particles on her hands, with the major portion being on her left hand, indicating that she may have moved her left hand toward her right side at the time she was shot.
The nurse and the neighbor who called 911 previously testified that Bakley was gurgling blood and suffered labored breathing when they arrived at her side shortly after 9:40 p.m.
Gutstadt testified that she would have likely died from her fatal wounds from 3-15 minutes after being shot, but on cross-examination he conceded that the hospital listed her time of death as 10:15 p.m., and that she was not pronounced dead on arrival.
Blake is charged with one count of murder with the special circumstance of lying in wait and two counts of soliciting former stuntmen to murder Bakley. Prosecutors say he killed Bakley because he was obsessed with protecting their toddler daughter, Rosie, now 4, from Bakley's mail-order porn business and criminal past.
Blake is on house arrest on $1.5 million bond. He wears a black, boxy-looking electronic monitoring device around his right ankle. He showed the device to Courttv.com earlier Wednesday with a wry smile when asked if he had any special plans for the holidays.
He faces life in prison without parole if convicted of Bakley's murder.
