VAN NUYS, Calif. — As the murder trial of actor Robert Blake winds down, prosecutors focused on two fronts during their rebuttal case Thursday: bolstering the credibility of the two stuntmen who claim Blake solicited them to murder his wife, and refuting the damaging testimony of a defense gunshot residue expert who said that the actor's hands were too clean to have been his wife's killer.

In a case that offers no direct evidence linking Blake to the May 4, 2001, shooting death of Bonny Lee Bakley, prosecutors have asked jurors to rely on testimony from several witnesses who say Blake hated Bakley and openly discussed wanting her dead.

Among the most compelling of those witnesses are stuntmen Gary McLarty and Ronald Hambleton, who told jurors very similar stories about how Blake suggested murderous schemes to each of them in the months before his wife was killed.

McLarty's credibility, however, was called into question during the defense's six-day-long case. His son and estranged wife testified that he was a chronic cocaine user who commonly suffered from paranoid delusions, that he believed satellites were tracking his movements, and that in September 2004 he checked himself into a psychiatric ward.

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On Thursday, jurors heard from the other woman in McLarty's wife — his girlfriend of 12 years, Hillorie Rudolph.

Rudolph told jurors that the satellites were real, but the bizarre behavior was not.

"There's a satellite that goes over the San Gabriel Mountains every night," she testified. "Everybody sees it and knows what it is. It's not a spaceship."

Rudolph said that until her boyfriend's September 2004 breakdown — about three and a half years after the alleged murder solicitation — McLarty never acted strangely, despite his chronic cocaine use.

"[Before 2004], did you ever see him get delusional?" Deputy District Attorney Shellie Samuels asked.

"No," Rudolph said.

"Did you ever see him hallucinate?"

"No."

"Did you ever see him behave bizarrely while under the influence of cocaine?" the prosecutor asked.

"No," she said.

Rudolph said McLarty began to act "abnormally" just before his hospitalization, when he believed his wife was out to kill him and his girlfriend was a police informant.

Rudolph said she called lead detective Ronald Ito, who met them at Glendale Adventist Hospital when the stuntman checked himself in on Sept. 16, 2004.

However, her statements conflict with the testimony of McLarty's son, Cole, and wife, Karen, who told jurors that the stuntman suffered from paranoia and delusions for years and believed he knew what others were thinking.

"Has Mr. McLarty ever told you he's capable of reading people's minds?" defense attorney Gerald Schwartzbach asked Rudolph on cross-examination.

The witness paused before answering, "Not in so many words."

"What words did he use?" Schwartzbach asked.

"Right before his breakdown, he told me he was getting telepathic communications," Rudolph said.

Stuntman's story

Jurors also heard briefly from Detective Brian Tyndall of LAPD's Robbery Homicide division, who said he was present during police interviews of stuntman Hambleton.

Hambleton testified that he met with Blake three times in March 2001, during which the defendant appeared obsessed with discussing ways his wife could be killed.

The stuntman gave specific details about what Blake ate — pancakes — during their first meeting at a Studio City delicatessen, as well as the store — a 7-11 — where Blake purchased a phone card to use for what he allegedly believed would be stealth communications with Hambleton.

Hambleton's former roommates testified for the defense, however, that the stuntman was among a group of methamphetamine addicts who did drugs on a daily basis at the stuntman's desert compound, and that he commonly suffered from paranoia, delusions and hallucinations.

Prosecutors have procured detailed phone card records showing dozens of calls Blake made to the stuntman.

Tyndall established Thursday that he obtained copies of Blake's credit card statement, showing charges from the delicatessen and the 7-11 Hambleton described, as well as a receipt that showed the defendant ate pancakes during his first meeting with Hambleton.

Residue dispute

Blake had five particles of gun shot residue (GSR) on his hands the night his wife was murdered, and both sides agree that the small amount may be consistent with the defendant's handling his own licensed revolver that evening, which was not the murder weapon.

However, the defense's GSR expert Celia Hartnett, lab director of Forensic Analytical, told jurors that based on a formula published in a report by the Aerospace Corporation, Blake should have had closer to 97 or 98 particles on his hands if he was the shooter.

Prosecutors recalled criminalist Steven Dowell of the L.A. County Coroner's Office to the stand Thursday to refute Hartnett's testimony.

Dowell told jurors that the 1980 Aerospace formula, a method to calculate the potential fall-off rate of the sticky GSR particles on a subject's hands, was not an accepted scientific formula and he had heard of no other instances when it was cited by the scientific community.

He also reiterated the state's suggestion that the defendant's activity — touching his hair, clothing and other items — during the two and half hours before his hands were tested, could have effected the number of GSR particles found.

In experiments conducted by defense expert Hartnett, a test-shooter had 2,440 particles of GSR on his hands immediately after firing the murder weapon twice — the same number of times Bakley was shot.

Dowell maintained that while the data was interesting, it did not offer any conclusive answers as to whether or not Blake was the shooter.

"But isn't it more than just interesting?" Schwartzbach asked Dowell during cross-examination. "Isn't it that the more GSR that's produced, the more difficult it's going to be to get rid of all of it?"

"Yes," Dowell conceded.

Prosecutors are expected to complete their rebuttal case on Friday and the defense will put on a short surrebuttal case. Closing statements may begin on Wednesday.

Robert Blake, 71, 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.