A jury was sworn in Wednesday for the murder trial of actor Robert Blake, more than 3-1/2 years after his wife was found shot to death in his car.
Superior Court Judge Darlene Schempp scheduled opening statements for Monday in the long-delayed case, which stems from the May 4, 2001, slaying of Bonny Lee Bakley as she sat in Blake’s Dodge Stealth near a Los Angeles-area restaurant where they had just dined.
The jury of seven men and five women was picked from a pool of 75 people. Six alternates were also chosen and sworn in for the trial.
The 71-year-old actor, who won an Emmy for playing a maverick detective in the hit 1970s cop drama “Baretta,” could face life in prison if convicted.
Prosecutors say Blake considered Bakley, 44, a petty swindler who had tricked him into having a child with him. They say Blake killed her to get sole custody of their daughter.
Blake, who has pleaded innocent, told police that he and Bakley dined at Vitello’s and that she was killed by an unknown assailant while he returned to the restaurant to retrieve a handgun he had left behind.
Police found little evidence at the scene linking Blake to Bakley’s death and prosecutors did not charge him with murder for nearly a year. Since then the case has been delayed repeatedly, partly because the actor has twice fired attorneys.
Blake, a former child actor who starred in the “Our Gang” comedies, has appeared in dozens of movies. He starred in the 1967 film “In Cold Blood” as killer Perry Smith, one of two men who murdered a Kansas family and were hanged for their crime.