California v. Mikail Markhasev
"The Ennis Cosby Murder Trial"
Even fame and fortune could not keep Ennis Cosby from being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
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Ennis Cosby, who aspired to become a teacher in special education, was murdered Jan. 16, 1997.
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As the only son of comedian Bill Cosby and apparently a well-liked graduate student at Columbia University, Ennis Cosby appeared to have a promising future ahead of him and aspired to become a teacher in special education. He had overcome dyslexia and was planning to devote his life to helping learning-disabled children. But Cosby's life came to a sudden, senseless end when he was the victim of an apparent "robbery gone bad" on a dark Los Angeles road on January 16, 1997.
According to prosecutors, Cosby, 27, was on his way to visit a friend, Stephanie Crane, when he drove his Mercedes on a road near Bel-Air and got a flat tire. Cosby pulled his $130,000 car off to the side of Interstate 405, to change the tire. He also called Crane and asked her to drive from her home in San Fernando Valley and meet him at his location. Crane was to use her car's headlights to illuminate the roadway as Cosby changed the flat tire.
Crane met Cosby and stayed in her car as she shined her lights on the roadway. However, as she waited in her car, a would-be robber appeared at her window and told her to open the door or he would shoot. A frightened Crane immediately locked the door and drove away.
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Bill Cosby and his son, Ennis, in happier days. |
But Cosby was not as fortunate. The robber, prosecutors say, then approached Cosby and demanded money. When Cosby did not get the money out fast enough, the robber shot him fatally in the head and fled. When Crane drove back to Cosby's car, she found him dead in a pool of blood. Cosby's death prompted a huge outpouring of grief and sympathy, as the state of California and two tabloids offered rewards totaling nearly $400,000 for information leading to the killer's arrest and conviction. (California later withdrew its $50,000 reward.) And the composite drawing of the murder suspect, which was based on Crane's description of the would-be robber, was placed on approximately 3,000 pay phones, brought in hundreds of calls offering tips to police.
Nonetheless, police did not make an arrest until March 12, nearly two months after the murder. Mikail Markhasev, 19, was arrested for Ennis Cosby's murder following a tip from The National Enquirer, which had offered a $100,000 reward. Markhasev, a Ukrainian immigrant, had a history gang affiliations and a prior record; police believe that he was looking for drug money when he allegedly killed Cosby.
Markhasev's defense claims that prosecutors arrested the wrong man. Defense attorney Henry Hall says that his client was home at the time of the murder and had been dropped off there hours earlier by his friends Sara Peters and Eli Zakaria. The defense even says that Zakaria, not Markasev, really killed Cosby. Zakaria is also a convicted felon.
Markhasev has been charged with murder and attempted murder. Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty against Markhasev. If convicted, he could face life in prison.
The State's Case...And Its Potential Problems
Despite the fact that Stephanie Crane's description of Markhasev was the basis the police sketch, she could not identify Markhasev as the robber in a police lineup shortly after his arrest. There are also some discrepancies between Crane's description of Cosby's killer and Markhasev's appearance: at the time of his arrest, Markhasev was 18 years-old, weighed 175 pounds, and was 6 feet 1 inch tall, but Crane described her assailant as 5 feet 10 inches, about 160 pounds and between 25 and 32 years-old. (Zaria, 23, is 150 pounds and 5 feet 9 inches tall.) In addition, the defense claims, the police sketch bears more of a resemblence to Zakaria than Markhasev; prosecutors disagree.
However, prosecutors say that they have DNA evidence that links Markhasev to the alleged murder weapon. The .38 caliber revolver that was allegedly used to kill Cosby was found wrapped in a knit cap a month after the murder. Although the gun bore no usable fingerprints, investigators found strands of hair whose DNA matches that of Markhasev. Reportedly, the defense alleges that the killer was wearing a different knit cap at the time of the murder and that this cap was wrapped around the gun as possibly Zaria's attempt to frame Markhasev.
The prosecution is also armed with Markhasev's own jailhouse letters written to a friend where he allegedly admits to the crime and describes the murder as a "robbery gone bad." In the letters, Markhasev allegedly writes, "I shot the nigger. It's all over the news....I went to rob a [drug] connection and obviously found something else." But the defense suggests that Markhasev never wrote the letters and that the defendant's fellow gang members forged the letters in order to shift the blame for Cosby's murder on Markhasev.
Bill Cosby has said that he will not attend the trial because he did not want to interrupt or shift attention from the legal process. However, several Cosby relatives and supporters are expected to attend the trial. Undoubtedly, though, the famed comedian will be listening carefully when the jury decides whether Mikail Markhasev really killed the young man Bill Cosby described as "his hero."
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