Crack-Smoking Monkeys Hit Blake Case

As another week wraps up in Robert Blake's murder trial, the actor's defense team has done its best to discredit the prosecution's case.

After prosecutors rested their case on Monday, Blake's legal eagles kicked into high gear in an attempt to paint one of the prosecution's star witnesses as a drug addict whose testimony could not be taken seriously.

Last week, Ronald "Duffy" Hambleton alleged that he and fellow stuntman Gary "Whiz Kid" McLarty were approached by Blake and asked to "snuff" the actor's wife, Bonny Lee Bakley. He claimed Blake had provided them with a variety of scenarios of how best to carry out the act.

When asked about his history of drug use, Hambleton told the Van Nuys Superior Court that he had stopped using drugs in 1999, two years before Blake allegedly approached him about doing away Bakley.

However, two defense witnesses who took the stand earlier this week testified that the stuntman was a frequent user of methamphetaminess, allowed a meth lab on his property and kept a supply of drugs in a bowl on his dining-room table--right next to his supply of jelly beans.

Witness Donna Sharon testified that Hambleton often suffered from paranoid hallucinations--that he believed a large, horned animal roamed outside his house and dug a hole to trap it and that he suffered from a fear of "tree people," specifically "people dressed like sagebrush or Joshua trees that were sneaking up on his house."

Sharon said she lived at Hambleton's residence off and on for 10 years and last saw him in 2001.

She said it was common for Hambleton to inject meth, even after 1999.

"He would snort it, sometimes he would smoke it, sometimes he would eat it," Sharon testified.

The second witness, Keith Seals, testified that meth was "the basis" of his relationship to Hambleton and that he manufactured the drug in a room adjacent to Hambleton's pool.

When asked if Hambleton had ever been present while he cooked the drugs, Seals replied that he had. He also stated that Hambleton had a tendency to surround himself with drug users.

"If someone came over and had a fat sack of dope, he'd let them stay there," Seals testified.

Earlier, Team Blake called McLarty's son and estranged wife to discuss that stuntman's cocaine addiction. McLarty acknowledged past cocaine use when he was on the stand last.

Son Cole McLarty said his father was paranoid and delusional because of the constant cocaine use. The younger McLarty also said that, upon meeting Blake, his father made no mention of a murder plot.

"He just said that Mr. Blake had somebody stalking him and he wanted their eyes blackened, and he offered money," Cole McLarty said.

Gary McLarty's estranged wife, Karen McLarty, said he used cocaine throughout their 30-year marriage. She did, however, admit that they have been separated for 16 years and could not specifically say if he was recently using.

On Friday, UCLA drug-abuse expert Ronald Keith Siegel took the stand to inform jurors that longtime users of cocaine and methamphetamines sometimes suffer from alternate realities and hallucinations that can last for years.

"You can't win an argument with a paranoid," he told the jury. "They are so convinced of the reality."

While Siegel did not specifically reference Hambleton or McLarty, it was clear that his testimony was tailored to raise questions about the stuntmen's credibility.

Siegel, a psychopharmacologist, testified that he had been studying the effects of hallucinatory drugs since the 1960s and that he had sampled the goods for himself.

Under the influence of drugs, he said, he once crawled into a cage of monkeys that were smoking cocaine. He said he has not taken drugs in 25 years.

Meanwhile, after hearing from a bevy of prosecution witnesses who testified that Blake's emotions at his wife's murder scene did not seem genuine, the defense called Los Angeles Fire Department Captain Kevin Bailey who said that he was convinced that Blake's grief at the scene was real.

The firefighter said Blake moaned and covered his face, "like someone who would be upset."

The defense also called restaurant patrons who were dining at Vitello's at the same time as Blake and Bakley the night of the murder to testify to Blake's behavior at the eatery.

Warner Bros. animation director James Timothy Walker said the actor waved to him and Chris Taylor, another diner, and he shared "a wave and a nod" with Blake.

A waiter at the establishment testified it was common practice for Blake to park his car on the street when he dined at Vitello's, casting doubt on the prosecution's assertion that Blake chose a spot two blocks away from the restaurant as part of his murder plot.

Blake has pleaded innocent to the May 4, 2001, murder of Bakley. If convicted, he faces life behind bars.