New Letters to Blake's Wife Found

May 24 -- Just who was Bonny Lee Bakley, the wife of actor Robert Blake who was shot to death outside a California restaurant where the two had just eaten dinner?

As Los Angeles Police Department investigators try to identify a suspect in the shooting, the picture of the victim becomes more and more complex.

Fascination with the crime has been a boon to Vitello's Italian Restaurant in Studio City, where Blake, 67, and Bakley, 45, ate just before she was killed. The Associated Press reported that Vitello's manager Steve Restivo said business is up 25 percent since the killing.

Souvenir-hungry customers have even been stealing menus, he said.

And former LAPD detective Mark Fuhrman said today on Good Morning America that from what he knew, the evidence did not indicate a professional hit. He said the weapon used and reports that she was shot once in the shoulder and once in the head did not indicate the killing was carried out by someone who wanted to be sure she was dead.

Taking a Friend’s Name

In the latest revelation about the woman, dozens of letters from around the country were found in a mail box Bakley apparently rented under an assumed name.

Blake's attorney, Harland Braun, has described Bakley as a lifelong grifter who said she needed to prey on lonely men to get back at the father who abused her.

When employees at Postal and Packing Emporium in Los Angeles opened Box 617 on Wednesday, they found about two dozen letters all addressed to Bakley. The letters were from all over the country, from as close as Portland, Ore., and as far away as New Jersey.

According to store manager Ernesto Barragan, Bakley used a fake identification card from New Jersey to open the mailbox. Bakley's picture was on the ID, but the name was Christina Scheier, Barragan said.

"She gave me two forms of ID, two proper forms of ID for the Christina Scheier," Barragan said. "But then she never brought in the two forms of ID for Miss Bonny Lee Bakley."

Scheier is a childhood friend of Bakley's who told reporters that she didn't know Bakley was using her name. She also said Bakley had dozens of fake IDs from all over New Jersey and Pennsylvania.