VAN NUYS, Calif. — Robert Blake may be the star of his own murder trial, but a prosecutor began her closing arguments Wednesday by giving credit to the peripheral characters who testified during the 10-week trial — the colorful and often troubled witnesses whose testimony against the actor may greatly influence the jurors' final decision about how Blake's biggest role will end.

Deputy District Attorney Shellie Samuels told jurors that despite the lack of direct evidence linking Blake to the May 4, 2001, murder of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, the state had proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt, "with a cast of characters straight out of central casting."

Those characters include Blake's former private investigator, who claims the actor asked for his help in several ridiculous plots, including having Bakley kidnapped or "whacked"; a mobster-turned-minister who told jurors that Blake offered him a blank, signed check to come to California to kill Bakley; and two former drug-using stuntmen who said Blake separately solicited them to "pop" and "snuff" his wife in the weeks before her death, suggesting similar murderous scenarios.

But when none of those plans panned out, Samuels said, Blake killed Bakley himself, shooting her twice as she sat in his parked Dodge Stealth near an Italian restaurant where the couple had just dined.

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"That's what this case is all about: the defendant getting what he wants, and if he can't get someone else to do it, he'll do it himself," Samuels said.

Defense attorney Gerald Schwartzbach, who gave about an hour of his closing arguments before court was adjourned, countered that there was no direct evidence — no DNA, hair, fibers, or eyewitnesses — to indicate Blake shot his wife.

"I told you [during opening statements] that the prosecution built its case on the backs of two drug-addicted men, and the evidence showed that," Schwartzbach said.

He held up the murder weapon — a Walther P-38 9 mm pistol found in a Dumpster next to the crime scene — and reminded jurors that detectives could not link the gun to Blake, nor come up with any plausible hiding place Blake might have stashed it before Bakley was killed.

"There's no testimony that he ever used it, possessed it, borrowed it," Schwartzbach said.

Prosecutor Samuels, who spoke for three hours, discussed Blake's alleged motive, including his hatred for Bakley and the obsessive love he had for their infant daughter, Rosie.

Samuels referred to the photos and letters from Bakley's mail-order pornography business that Blake allegedly trotted out to friends and law enforcement contacts, who later became state witnesses that testified Blake bad-mouthed Bakley to garner their sympathy and confidence.

Robert Blake stroked his hair throughout closings Wednesday.

"He was tricked by Bonny Lee and he hated her for it," Samuels said, referring to testimony that the celebrity-obsessed Bakley got pregnant to force Blake to marry her in November 2000. "The defendant fancied himself street-savvy, and he was taken by a small-time grifter."

"It doesn't matter what you think of Bonny," Samuels told jurors. "That's not why we're here."

Bakley's adult daughter, Holly Gawron, sat in the front row of the gallery Wednesday, flanked by her civil attorney Eric Dubin and LAPD Robbery Homicide detective Brian Tyndall. At one point, she left the courtroom in tears after seeing photos of the shooting reenactment.

On the opposite end of the front row, sitting behind the defense table, was Blake's adult daughter Delinah. Delinah has legally adopted Rosie, and her husband is in the process of legally becoming Rosie's father.

Both Delinah and Holly are pregnant, and in the strange mathematics of this family tree, they are both carrying children who will call 4-year-old Rosie their aunt.

Murder plot

According to Prosecutor Samuels, Blake went through three plans to get rid of Bakley before deciding to kill her himself.

Those plans, Samuels said, included enlisting the help of his former bodyguard, Earle Caldwell, and his unwitting assistant, Cody Blackwell, to kidnap the couple's infant child, Rosie, in September 2000.

Then, when he was forced to marry Bakley two months later to retain custody, he allegedly tried to plant drugs on her to get her arrested. When that didn't work, Samuels said, in March 2001, he tried to pay stuntmen Ronald Hambleton and Gary McLarty to kill Bakley.

Blake does not deny he met with the stuntmen; however, he claims he met with Hambleton to discuss a film project.

McLarty's son and estranged wife testified for the defense that McLarty told them that Blake offered him $10,000 only to "rough up" someone who was bothering him and his wife.

"There was nothing about killing in that conversation," Schwartzbach told jurors. The attorney characterized McLarty's statements to police after Bakley's murder as the act of a paranoid cocaine addict who was afraid the paper trail linking him to Blake would implicate him in murder.

Defense attorney Gerald Schwartzbach during closings.

The defense called Hambleton a "meth manufacturer and a liar" who changed his story to police several times before confessing to the solicitations.

However, Samuels asked jurors to consider the alleged job Blake had in mind when deciding the credibility of the witnesses.

"You're not going to go to your minister. You're not going to go to anybody upstanding," Samuels said. "When you hear how bad these guys are — just keep in mind that's why they were picked."

She also pointed to the corroborating evidence unearthed by detectives, including phone card records detailing dozens of calls Blake made to the stuntmen and receipts that confirmed Hambleton's testimony about where the two met to talk of the murderous schemes and what they ate.

Tears and vomit

Samuels also focused on the testimony of seven witnesses — neighbors and patrons of Vitello's Italian restaurant — who testified that Blake acted strangely on the night of his wife's murder and that his cries were disingenuous.

"The defendant overestimated his acting abilities that night, and they didn't buy it," Samuels said. "This whole thing would have worked out better if the defendant had the acting abilities he thought he had."

The defense reminded jurors that several Vitello's employees and patrons said Blake looked and acted normally that evening.

However, there has been evidence that Blake vomited both before Bakley's murder — in a trash can in the men's bathroom — and afterward, on the curb near the crime scene.

Defense witnesses, including Delinah Blake, testified that the "Baretta" star commonly vomited after his meals, suggesting that perhaps the actor was bulimic. Samuels took issue with that assumption.

"If you're an experienced vomiter, like the defendant apparently is, you make it to the toilet," Samuels said. "He was going to kill somebody. He was freaked out and he didn't make it to the toilet."

But some of her most compelling arguments came when she discussed Blake's alleged alibi.

Blake claims that after dinner, he walked with Bakley back to the car, realized he left his licensed revolver (which was not the murder weapon) at the booth, and that someone else killed her during the time it took him to walk back, retrieve it and return.

Samuels balked at the defendant's claim that he carried the gun for her protection, but left her alone in the car with the windows rolled down as he walked the block and a half back to Vitello's.

"That's bulls---!" she told jurors. "When you look at it, it doesn't make sense."

She also posited that Blake never went back to Vitello's to complete his planned alibi because he was too shocked from the act of killing Bakley.

"Obviously the defendant is not a hit man," Samuels said. "This is probably the first person he ever killed in his life."

She also pointed out that no one saw him return to retrieve the gun, including two patrons who testified that they were standing out front smoking cigarettes during that time.

"He shot people on TV, he shot people in the movies, but he never really shot people in real life," Samuels said. "It freaked him out."

Defense closing arguments will continue on Thursday, and the prosecutor expects to put on a short rebuttal. Jurors will likely receive the case by Friday afternoon.

Robert Blake, 71, is charged with one count of murder with the special circumstance of lying in wait and two counts of soliciting the stuntmen to murder Bakley.

He faces life in prison without parole if convicted of murder. Each solicitation count carries a maximum sentence of nine years.

The closing arguments and verdict are being broadcast live on Court TV and Court TV Extra.