VAN NUYS, Calif. — Robert Blake's defense called its last witness — a Catholic priest who ministered to the "Baretta" star as he sat in jail charged with killing his wife — and then rested its case Wednesday.

The defense called 38 witnesses over six days, but Blake himself did not take the stand.

Court insiders speculated up until yesterday over whether the 71-year-old actor would testify on his own behalf about the events surrounding his stormy relationship and last hours with Bonny Lee Bakley, the 44-year-old mother of four who was shot to death on May 4, 2001, as she sat in Blake's parked car.

Deputy District Attorney Shellie Samuels is expected to begin her rebuttal case Thursday, and the defense may put on a surrebuttal. Closing arguments could begin as early as next Wednesday.

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Blake's daughter, Delinah Blake Hurwitz, also took the stand Wednesday morning to testify about her relationship with Blake and Bakley's daughter, Rose Lenore Sophia Blake.

Prosecutors say Blake killed Bakley, with whom he had a casual sexual relationship, to retain custody of baby "Rosie," and to protect her from Bakley's mail-order porn business.

Several witnesses testified for the state that Blake discussed "whacking," "snuffing," and "popping" Bakley before she was killed.

Blake claims that while he may not have loved his wife, he had nothing to do with her murder and that someone else shot her to death when he briefly left her alone in his car.

Over the past six days, the defense has called a drug expert and former roommates and relatives of the two stuntmen who claim Blake asked them to kill his wife.

The defense claims the stuntmen were suffering from delusions and hallucinations about the alleged solicitations due to chronic methamphetamine and cocaine use.

'I'm her mother'

Delinah Blake Hurwitz, a petite pregnant woman in her early 30s with chin-length dark hair, smiled at her father when the defense asked her to identify him at the defense table. Blake smiled back broadly.

"Do you know Rose Lenore Sophia Blake?" defense attorney Gerald Schwartzbach asked.

"Yes," Hurwitz said.

"What is your relationship to her?" Schwartzbach asked.

Hurwitz smiled and replied, "I'm her mother."

Hurwitz said she legally adopted Rosie in August 2004 after a period of retaining permanent custody of her. She also said that her husband, whom she married in March 2004 and whose child she is now carrying, is currently going through the legal process of adopting Rosie himself.

Previous witnesses, including Bakley's adult daughter Holly Gawron, told jurors that Blake tricked Bakley into leaving the baby in his care when she was visiting from Arkansas, and then secreted Rosie away to his Hidden Hills home.

Hurwitz, a professor of psychology at California State University at Northridge, said the first time she saw Rosie or even knew Blake had fathered a child was when he showed up with her in September 2000 at the Hidden Hills home she co-owned with Blake.

At the time, Blake brought the then three-month-old baby to live with Hurwitz.

"The first thing I did was call a friend who had children," Hurwitz said, adding that the two women went on a shopping trip to buy baby items and arranged for Rosie to see a pediatrician.

Hurwitz said she was concerned about Rosie's condition, as she appeared withdrawn and stayed in a fetal position.

"She didn't raise her head very much or make eye contact," she said.

During cross-examination, however, Hurwitz conceded that the pediatrician did not medically treat Rosie and her condition appeared to improve over the next few weeks.

In November 2000, Hurwitz said, she met Bakley for the first time. Bakley was in town for a visit and wanted to see the baby, according to Hurwitz, so she brought Rosie to her father's Studio City home, where Bakley and Blake spent about an hour with the baby.

The substance of their conversations was not discussed in court.

Hurwitz said that after Bakley's death, she received separate requests from Bakley's sister Margerry and ex-husband Paul Gawron and daughter Jeri to see Rosie, and she arranged those visits.

During cross-examination, Samuels suggested Hurwitz had her first marriage annulled because he refused to have children.

Prosecutors have theorized that part of Blake's motive for killing Bakley was to ensure his daughter could have a baby.

Samuels produced an "Emergency Order for Annulment" document and asked the witness to read a paragraph in which her first husband claims that the marriage fell apart because he refused to father children.

The prosecutor read aloud parts of the document, which stated that the union was never consummated and the couple began sleeping in separate quarters after a week of being married.

"Didn't you get your marriage annulled because he said he didn't want to have kids?" Samuels asked.

"No," Hurwitz replied, adding that she believed that was her husband's opinion, but she herself was not ready to have children at the time because she was in graduate school and worked full-time.

Father's perspective

Father George Horan, a Catholic priest who ministered to Blake during the year he spent in Men's Central Jail, told jurors about the actor's demeanor and physical condition.

Horan said he visited Blake's one-man cell every Sunday. He said that the actor was on medications and that he often cried and appeared listless, but that he enjoyed reading books by Hemingway and Faulkner and was given new books on occasion.

Though Horan told jurors he believed Blake feared dying in jail, the answer was stricken from the record as hearsay.

Jurors also saw a video clip of a February 2003 jailhouse interview Blake gave to Barbara Walters. The state previously closed its case with a brief portion of the interview, in which Blake tells Walters that he had a good relationship with Bakley at the time of her death.

The defense played a longer version of the interview in an attempt to provide jurors with a balanced context of Blake's statements. In the interview, Blake admits to Walters that at first, he tried to find a way to keep Rosie while having Bakley stay in Arkansas, but eventually decided to marry her in November 2000 because "there was no down side for me."

He explained that Bakley was going to live in his guesthouse and the two would get to know each other. He also said that on the night of her murder, they had a lot to talk about, including plans about their future, and his desire for Bakley to not conduct her mail-order porn business on his property.

"What did I have to lose? You tell me!" Blake shouts at Walters in the clip, adding that having his daughter, Rosie, was "God's gift of a century."

"I wasn't going to mess it up by being selfish," Blake said.

Robert Blake is charged with one count of murder with the special circumstance of lying in wait, and two counts of soliciting the two stuntmen to kill his wife.

He is currently on house arrest on $1.5 million bond and faces life in prison if convicted of Bakley's murder.