VAN NUYS, Calif. — Jurors in actor Robert Blake's murder trial sent a question to the judge Wednesday morning, well into their 13th hour of deliberations.

The seven-man, five-woman panel asked to hear a read-back of three witnesses' testimony, which may support or undermine Blake's alibi on the night his wife was murdered.

The jurors, judge, Blake and attorneys reassembled at 1:30 p.m. in the courtroom, and the court reporter sat on the witness stand to read through 90 minutes of testimony from Vitello's co-owner Steve Restivo and patrons Andrew Percival and Rebecca Markham.

Restivo said he saw Blake and Bakley leaving the restaurant some time around 9:30 p.m. Markham and Percival testified that Blake briefly passed them on the street in the minutes before a 911 call came in that Bonny Lee Bakley was bleeding to death in Blake's car.

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Blake, 71, is charged with one count of murder, with the special circumstance of lying in wait, and two counts of soliciting two former stuntmen to kill his wife of six months.

This is the first request from the jury, which began deliberating Friday, and the request appears to focus on Blake's alibi.

On May 4, 2001, Blake and Bakley were enjoying what Restivo characterized as a normal, casual dinner. But prosecutors say the "Baretta" star was preparing to kill his wife.

At one point, the judge interrupted the speedy read-back of Restivo's testimony, asking the jurors if they needed the reporter to speak slower. There were nervous laughs, heads nodding in confirmation. The voice of the foreman, juror no. 5, was heard for the first time, strong and clear, as he asked the court reporter to go back a few sentences, to Restivo's response to the question, "Do you know what time Blake left?"

The answer: "Around 9:30. Before me. One minute? I don't know."

All but a few panelists were looking down, scribbling into their notebooks.

Blake claims that after dinner he and Bakley walked to his Dodge Stealth parked about a block and a half away on Woodbridge Street. When he got in the car, the defendant says, he realized he had left his .38 Smith & Wesson — which was not the murder weapon — on the bench seat at the restaurant.

This is where the credibility of Blake's alibi may play a crucial role in the jury's verdict. Blake claims that he walked back to the restaurant, retrieved his gun, which had fallen under the table, and returned to find Bakley bleeding. At 9:40 p.m., police received a 911 call from the home of a neighbor, on whose door Blake had banged asking for help.

But no one saw the actor return to Vitello's to retrieve the gun, including Percival and Markham, who were standing in front of the restaurant, facing Tujunga Avenue, and enjoying an after-dinner smoke before walking home.

Percival and Markham lived on Kraft Avenue, just around the corner from the crime scene, and they arrived home at 9:41 or 9:42 p.m., Markham said, according to the time on her TV's cable box.

While they recalled Blake passing them on Woodbridge, neither could tell if he was coming from the direction of Vitello's parking lot, or the alley behind the parking lot. They also did not hear or see Blake banging on anyone's door.

Prosecutor Shellie Samuels says that Blake never went back to Vitello's because he was so upset about shooting Bakley that he could not finish staging his alibi.

Samuels told jurors during closing arguments that, when Blake passed Markham and Percival on Woodbridge, he did not go back to the car to find Bakley hurt, as the defense would have jurors believe, but went straight to Sean Stanek's home and banged on the door, because he had already killed her himself minutes earlier.

Blake faces life in prison without parole if convicted of Bakley's murder.