Either Robert Blake is clairvoyant or the actor somehow knew--three months before his arrest--that he needed to dig up dirt on a retired stuntman who claims that the actor asked him to kill wife Bonny Lee Bakley. The former stuntman, Ronald "Duffy" Hambleton, has reportedly told investigators that Blake asked him in March 2001 to kill Bonny Lee Bakley (Hambleton's account is reflected in Overt Acts 2,3, and 4 of the Blake criminal complaint). A second retired stuntman, Gary McLarty, has also told prosecutors that the actor recruited him to kill Bakley, who Blake allegedly shot to death on May 4, 2001.

On January 15, Blake's private investigator requested the court docket on a misdemeanor weapons case pending against Hambleton, 65, in California's San Bernardino Superior Court, according to the below letter P.I. Scott Ross sent to court officials (and which The Smoking Gun discovered in the Hambleton court file). A December 2000 Los Angeles Times story described Ross as "an investigator for Harland Braun," Blake's attorney.

The Ross letter seems to contradict what Braun told the Times in today's (4/25) editions. According to the Times account, "Braun said he learned about stuntmen Gary Raymond McLarty and Ronald "Duffy" Hambleton through a search warrant executed Friday at Blake's Hidden Hills home." Braun told the Times that L.A. cops searched Blake's home for, among other things, photographs of McLarty and Hambleton.

Ross's records request, of course, indicates that the defense team began targeting Hambleton long before prosecutors turned over discovery material (like search warrant affidavits) last Friday. Perhaps Blake and Co. had some particularly inside information.