Robert Blake's Vomit

Steven Mikulan recounts some of the testimony in the murder trial of Robert Blake in the January 14-20 edition of his column OPEN CITY in the LA Weekly.

“Deputy D.A. Shellie Samuels called on LAPD Robbery-Homicide Detectives Steven Eguchi and Martin Pinner to help hammer home the prosecution’s contention that Blake’s operatic mad scene following his wife’s death was played strictly for the balcony seats.

Samuels prodded Eguchi to note that, significantly, a puddle of vomit produced by Blake that night lay closer to the trash dumpster — where he stayed during the paramedics’ resuscitation efforts — than to the car where his wife sat dying with two bullets in her.

‘It was green and appeared to be regurgitated spinach,’ Eguchi solemnly elaborated.

This was not the first — nor, likely, the last — time the contents of Blake’s May 4, 2001, dinner have come up in testimony. It’s been noted that vomit was found in a trash receptacle of the men’s lavatory of Vitello’s after Blake had paid a visit to the room.”

Or maybe it’s just a really, really bad restaurant.