ROBERT BLAKE FINALLY PAYS FOR WIFE’s MURDER

NationalEnquirer.com

ROBERT BLAKE may have been acquitted of murder­ing his late wife Bonny Lee Bakley, but the former “Baretta” star is finally paying for her death!

Twelve years after Bakley was gunned down in a parked car out­side a Los Angeles restaurant, the wrongful death lawsuit filed by her children has been settled – and The ENQUIRER has learned that her four kids will each receive approximately $500,000.

Although Blake was found not guilty of killing Bakley in his sensational 2005 criminal trial, her children followed up with a civil lawsuit – and won. A jury awarded them $30 million, but Blake appealed. In 2008, an appeals court upheld the ver­dict but cut the award in half.

While the exact amount of the settle­ment has not been officially disclosed, it is believed to be about $2 million in total – way less than the $15 mil­lion previously awarded by the appeals court. Still, Bonny’s children are thrilled with the outcome.

“Finally, it has been settled,” a source told The ENQUIRER. “This case dragged on for over a decade.

“ALL of Bonny's kids have struggled financially since she died, and they finally will receive what was coming to them.”

Blake, 79, the former Little Ras­cal and star of “In Cold Blood,” who filed for bankruptcy in 2006, confirmed to The ENQUIRER that there had been a settlement, but refused to discuss it further.

“No one is talking about the exact amount,” said the source. “Obviously, they have agreed to keep the amount of the settlement private, but all the kids are going to come into some money soon.”

Bakley, 44, was a scam artist who was married at least 10 times and made her living hustling men. She married Blake in 2000, five months after their daughter Rose’s birth. She initially claimed the child she was carrying had been fathered by Marlon Brando’s son Christian, but DNA tests proved otherwise.

It was a scam Bakley had worked before. She once claimed that her third child – a girl she named Jeri Lee – was the daughter of rocker Jerry Lee Lewis, which he denied. Jeri Lee, 19, changed her name to Deborah and today lives with her father, Paul Gawron, in Memphis.

Bonny’s two eldest children – Holly Lee Gawron, 32, and Glenn Paul Gawron, 33 – also live in Tennessee. Twelve-year-old Rose lives with the actor’s daughter Delinah.

“I am firmly convinced that Robert Blake murdered Bonny and got away with it, no matter what the courts said,” Bonny’s sister, Margerry Bakley Smith, told The ENQUIRER. “Now, he finally has to pay for her death.”