The charges came as little surprise to Bakley's family, who had all along loudly voiced their certainty that Blake was the triggerman. Bonny's sister Margerry told PEOPLE that her sister had long feared that Blake -- who felt he'd been trapped into marrying Bakley -- would kill her. Still, with criticism of their methods in the O.J. Simpson case still stinging, L.A. cops wanted to take it slow. At a press conference after Blake's arrest, outgoing Police Chief Bernard Parks stressed that investigators had interviewed 150 witnesses and traveled to 20 states running down clues.

Their wariness was especially evident in the way police handled Blake's arrest. Shortly before 6 p.m. on April 18, a caravan of nearly a dozen police vehicles rolled into Hidden Hills, the gated community where Blake has been living with Rose since January. The actor had been given about 15 minutes' notice that he was about to be taken into custody. At his request, police agreed to wait until his older daughter Delinah, 35, by first wife Sondra Blake, arrived to care for Rose, who was in the house with her father and her full-time nanny at the time of the arrest. Blake was later transferred to the hospital ward of the L.A. County Jail, where high-profile detainees can be kept away from other inmates. At his arraignment on April 22, Blake, who, like Caldwell, has pleaded not guilty, was held without bail, with no timetable for a trial. "He is very philosophical," says his lawyer Harland Braun. "Being in custody is not the worst thing that has ever happened to him."

Perhaps not, but he may be looking at substantial time behind bars.

According to cops and several press reports, police have linked a World War II-era handgun found in a large trash bin at the murder site to the shooting. Several news reports go further, linking a box of bullets found in Blake's home to those found at the scene. In the court papers, police maintain that Caldwell supplied the weapon to Blake. But Braun argues that the handgun is nothing more than a red herring. He points out that it was not discovered until a day after the crime and questions whether police can tie it to Blake.

Authorities have also evidently been picking apart Blake's statement to them the night of the murder. Blake's story has long been that after dinner he and Bakley had walked a block and a half to his car when he suddenly realized that he had left his own handgun, a .38-cal. that he was licensed to carry, back at Vitello's. Leaving her in the car, Blake said he went back to the restaurant, got the gun and returned to the scene to find a bloody and dying Bakley inside the vehicle. Investigators have reportedly focused on several aspects of Blake's behavior that night. For one thing, they wonder why he parked in a dimly lit area behind a truck-size trash bin next to a construction site. So far, though, it is unclear whether there are any outright inconsistencies in Blake's statement. "There should be no glaring holes in his story," says one LAPD source. "His comments to different officers and detectives have to match."