LAPD: Everyone a Suspect in Blake Case

May 9 -- Los Angeles police today denied singling out actor Robert Blake as a potential suspect in the slaying of his wife.

Police officials talked to reporters after Blake's attorney charged that police were ignoring leads from the victim's shady past and the lonely hearts she allegedly bilked out of money.

"We have not ruled anyone as a suspect in this case and information that indicated that we had is just quite frankly wrong," said Capt. Jim Tatreau, commander of the LAPD's robbery-homicide division

Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks described the case as an "open and current investigation."

But in today's Los Angeles Times, Blake attorney Harland Braun suggested police were focusing their attention on the actor.

"By ignoring the possibility that someone came from her past, they're overemphasizing Blake as a possible suspect," Braun said.

Police have questioned Blake twice and searched his house twice. Until today, authorities had said the star of the 1970s cop show Baretta was not considered a suspect in the death of his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, 45.

Today, Tatreau said police were following standard procedure in the case. "We're following leads, clues. We're receiving information, conducting interviews, going in many directions as a case like this demands," he said.

As for the attorney's comments, Tatreau said: "Mr. Braun is a defense lawyer and he'll do what he deems appropriate."

Housekeeper: Actor Worried About Security

Bakley was shot in the head Friday night as she sat in a car outside a restaurant, waiting for Blake, 67, who said he had gone back to the restaurant to get a gun he had forgotten in the eatery.

The actor owns numerous weapons and has a permit to carry a concealed handgun. He told police he was carrying one Friday night because he feared for his wife's safety.

Braun has hired a private detective, Scott Ross, to try to find the killer. Ross has learned that a man with a crewcut in his early 20s had been watching the actor's house for a couple weeks, sitting in a black four-door pick-up parked across the street, Braun said.