California v. Markhasev
"The Ennis Cosby Murder Trial"
Defense pokes holes in police work, witnesses
July 1 (Court TV) --One of the friends who allegedly heard Mikail Markhasev admit to killing Ennis Cosby asked a police investigator if his story sounded "good," the investigator said Wednesday.
Markhasev's defense opened its case by placing Detective Bert Luper on the stand to walk jurors through his questioning of Markhasev friend Christopher So just before Markhasev's arrest.
Luper secretly recorded the interrogation, and admitted that So asked him, "Does my story sound good?" Luper said he attempted to deflect the question with vague answers and told So that he just listens to what witnesses say.
So's testimony last week provided the backbone of the prosecution last week as he told jurors how he overheard Markhasev tell friend Michael Chang, "I shot a nigger. It's all over the news."
But So's credibility was damaged after he reached out to the National Enquirer, which paid him $40,000 and promised $100,000 more if Markhasev is convicted. It was his conversations with the tabloid that led police to So.
Prosecutors also lost a chance to corroborate So's story when Chang twice refused to testify last week, claiming his testimony would make him a marked man. They were also unsuccessful in getting another witness, Eli Zakaria, to testify, though they brought him into the courtroom so jurors could compare him to Markhasev and the police sketch of Cosby's killer.
Luper also admitted Wednesday that the initial lineup in their investigation included Markhasev but not Zakaria, and that Zakaria resembled the sketch of the suspect made by police to aid in the investigation. Markhasev was not picked from the lineup by eyewitness Stephanie Crane.
Deputy Public Defender Henry Hall maintains that Zakaria, allegedly with Markhasev the night of Cosby's death, is the one who shot Cosby. He plans to place several police witnesses on the stand, presumably to prove that they unfairly targeted Markhasev as a suspect without adequate evidence that the Ukrainian immigrant was responsible for Cosby's murder.
Cosby, the son of entertainer Bill Cosby, was shot while changing a flat tire on his Mercedes on January 16, 1997.
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