Home Brewed Mojo: THE MURDER OF ENNIS COSBY

1/16/1997 - Wrong place at the wrong time Thursday blues, demonstrating yet again that life for anyone can be a short dance on extremely thin ice, a shockwave goes through the city of Los Angeles when superstar actor and comedian Bill Cosby's only son (Cosby will also sire four daughters), 27-year-old Ennis William Cosby, is murdered at a little after 1:00 am in the morning while changing a flat tire on his Mercedes-Benz just off the 405 Freeway, near Mulholland Drive.

Father & Son Take In A Game

It seems like another world now, but once upon a time Bill Cosby epitomized American success and dreams coming true. Born to William Henry Cosby Sr (a mess steward in the U.S. Navy) and Anna Pearl Hite Cosby on July 12, 1937 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, while becoming the "class clown" wherever he goes, the future comedian also finds time to be the class president and captain of the baseball and track & field teams at Mary Channing Wister Public School, begins acting in plays in junior high, is on the track, baseball, football, and basketball teams at Philadelphia's Central High School, enlists in the U.S. Navy and becomes a hospital corpsman working with Navy and Marine corps personnel wounded during the Korean war, is awarded a track & field scholarship to attend Temple University (despite flunking the 10th Grade years before in Philadelphia), studies physical education at Temple while running for the track team and playing fullback on the university's football squad, moves from being a funny bartender earning bigger tips with his jokes to performing on-stage, making the "big time" in the summer of 1963 when he appears on Johnny Carson's version of "The Tonight Show," to parlaying his comic success into becoming a best selling author and Grammy winning record artist (he will win nine Grammys and his album, "To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With" will be called "stand-up comedy's masterpiece" by Spin Magazine), along with becoming the first African-American to appear in a weekly role on a dramatic television show (opposite Robert Culp in "I Spy," a role for which he will win three Best Actor Emmys) then riding that success into becoming a movie star and for five seasons, having the #1 television show in the country with "The Bill Cosby Show" playing a character patterned after his own life, Dr. Cliff Huxtable (the role will win the comic two Golden Globe Awards and he will also have another triumph with a Saturday morning cartoon show for children called "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids"). One of his sweetest moments though takes place on April 15, 1969, when the comedian and his wife celebrate the birth of their only son at Los Angeles' Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Ennis William Cosby.

Football

I Spy

Ennis Arrives

Superstar

The Cosby Family - Ennis At Center

Not the typical "entitlement" child of a wealthy celebrity, though he grows up at homes in Southern California, Pennsylvania, and New York City, and attends George School (a private school outside of Philadelphia), while learning right and wrong from his folks and becoming a gifted athlete like his father (Ennis will play football, basketball, lacrosse, and run track and field), he endures a childhood in which he is often in conflict with his parents over his low grades. Only later, after entering Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia will it be discovered that Ennis suffers from an undiagnosed case of dyslexia (based on Ennis, the character of Theo Huxtable on Cosby's hit show will also suffer from the affliction). Problem uncovered, Ennis will spend a summer semester at Landmark College in Putney, Vermont (a school for students suffering from learning disabilities) before returning to Morehouse, where he raises his grade-point average from 2.3 high enough to become a member of the school's Dean's List (Ennis will state, "The happiest day of my life occurred when I found out I was dyslexic. I believe that life is finding solutions, and the worst feeling to me is confusion."). In 1992 he earns a bachelor's degree from Morehouse (while spending free time tutoring elementary and high school students that are struggling with similar learning disabilities), and receives a master's degree from New York City's Columbia University in 1995 (and uses bountiful amounts of his free time to tutor students at Alfred E. Smith Elementary School). Never trading on his father's international fame (he will only say his father is a successful businessman when questioned about why he moved about the country so much growing up), he is well liked by the people he meets and works with and greets people by saying, "Hello, friend" (a term that his parents will put up near his gravesite and that will be the title of a jazz collection called "Hello, Friend: To Ennis With Love" that will be released in 1997). At peace with his family, with the goal of one day opening up a school for children with learning disabilities, in 1997, Ennis is working towards receiving a doctorate in special education from the Columbia University's Teachers College, when he takes time off from his studies to spend the school's winter break at his parents' home in Los Angeles.

Always Smiling

Ennis

Returning to his home after visiting friends in the early hours of January 16, 1997, Ennis is driving north on the 405 Freeway through Sepulveda Pass when his dark green Mercedes-Benz gets a flat tire. Pulling off the freeway at the nearest offramp, Cosby parks on Skirball Center Drive and calls a recently made friend in the area, Stephanie Crane (about ten minutes away, she is a 47-year-old struggling screenwriter and the aunt of actresses Sara and Melissa Gilbert), and asks for help fixing his flat. Freshly returned from a date, Crane is in her black Jaguar in seconds and a few minutes later pulls up behind Cosby, greets her friend, and then illuminates his mechanic efforts with her headlights while sitting inside her car because of the cold. Suddenly intruding on the scene, a face appears at the window and exclaims, "Open the door or I'll harm you!" Instead she shifts into gear, steers down the road (about 50 feet), before she turns around as she hears the sound of a gunshot. Stopping next to where Ennis is now laying in a pool of blood, she sees a man running away from the area. Crane calls 911 and help soon begins arriving at the scene, but Ennis Cosby is already dead from a single gunshot to his temple (although it appears to the authorities that robbery was the motive for the killing, Ennis is still wearing his Rolex watch and his wallet carrying credit cards and $60 in cash has not been taken). And then the circus of celebrity death begins.

Crane

Wishing to contact the Cosby family, police get in touch with Congresswomen Maxine Waters, a close friend of Bill Cosby, to get the comic's phone number, but she refuses to give it to the police department, so CBS, where Cosby is filming his latest television comedy is contacted instead, and he is eventually informed of the death of his son at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens, New York by producer Joanne Curley-Kerner (shortly afterwards the police also get through to Cosby and the days he will receive personal condolences from President Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and so many fans of the entertainer that want to honor the memory of Ennis that the Cosby family will start the Ennis William Cosby Foundation to help people with learning disabilities). Meanwhile, the media vampires get the news and soon images of Ennis next to his car are being shown on television by CNN, thanks to aerial footage captured by a KTLA "news" helicopter (KTLA does not show the footage but is soon apologizing for taking it and Crane goes into hiding when she is offered money to tell her tale to the tabloids). Two days after his murder, Ennis Cosby is buried in Shelburne, Massachusetts after a funeral service takes place at the family's estate (another event that is swamped with media ghouls).

The Off Ramp

Investigation on, in charge of the state while Governor Pete Wilson is out of the country during a trade visit, Lt. Governor Gray Davis announces a reward of $50,000 for information leading to an arrest of Cosby's killer and there is also a $25,000 reward put up by the City of Los Angeles, and a $15,000 reward from Los Angeles County ... all however are withdrawn when protests begin about why the murder of Cosby is more important than the numerous other killings that take place on a regular basis in L.A. (the police will receive over 800 tips about the case). Not withdrawn however are two other reward offers, $200,000 from the tabloid newspaper, The Globe, and $100,000 from the National Enquirer. Greed solved like so many killings have been over the years, the Enquirer soon receives a tip that the killer is a 18-year-old immigrant from Ukraine, Mikhail Markhasev.

Markhasev

Transplanted from the Russian town of Lvov (an industrial city and cultural center of 800,000 souls) by his dressmaker mother in 1989 when he is nine years old (after his parents divorce), Markhasev at first appears to be on his way to being another American dream success story. At Gardner Street Elementary School in Hollywood, Markhasev gets all A's and B's and has perfect attendance and at John Burroughs Middle School, the youth is placed in a class for gifted children. Everything goes south however when Markhasev moves to the Orange County, California city of Los Alamitos (surprisingly so since the middle-class city has a crime rate well below the county average and its school district is considered to be one of the best in the state with 80% of its students regularly completing college entrance exams, more than half of its pupils attending four-year colleges, and the high school having a dropout rate of less than 1%). At first Markhasev continues to flourish with good grades, learning another language (Spanish), a place in the Los Al English Honors program, friendships that earn him the nickname of "Skippy," and a place on the freshman football team as a wide receiver. Something goes wrong however, and instead of prepping for college, Markhasev gets involved with drugs and trying to be a "bad ass" cholo gang member hanging out in an alley drinking beers with thug pals. Soon he is known as "PWee" to his gang pals and before dropping out of school, his school record shows infractions for excessive talking in class, missing assignments, failing to show up for detention, fighting with other students, a suspension for "tagging" school property with graffiti, and a second suspension for having drugs on campus. Attempting to save her son from his bad associates, in 1995, mother and son move to Encino and Markhasev is enrolled at Reseda High School, but the transfer to a new locale is too late and the budding hoodlum soon drops out of school, and moving between the San Fernando Valley and Los Alamitos, is once again hanging out with his drug addled gang friends. On the night of Crosby's murder, Markhasev is at Skirball Center Drive offramp of the 405 Freeway planning to rob a drug connection with friends.

Los Alamitos High School

Reseda High School

Picked up in March and placed in custody, the evidence collected in the investigation is placed before a Los Angeles grand jury (including the testimony of Markhasev friends, Sara Peters and Michael Chang, who testify to being at the scene of the crime, that the Russian transplant was high on a mix of heroin and cocaine, and the search for the murder weapon after Markhasev discarded the handgun) that indicts the youth for the murder of Ennis Cosby (along with attempted robbery). Brought to trial in July of 1998, Markhasev is prosecuted by Los Angeles Deputy District Attorney Anne Ingalls, and defended by defense attorney Harriet Hawkins. Slam dunk (during his incarceration, Markhasev writes a friend a letter from jail in which he calls Ennis a "nxxxxr" and confesses to the crime ... a letter that makes it into the trial's evidence), after four weeks of evidence presentation and arguments, Markhasev's jury takes five hours and 45 minutes to find the teenager to be guilt of the murder and attempted robbery charges (pushed forward by Markhasev's utter disdain for Cosby's race) ... a verdict that gets the killer a sentence of life behind bars without the possibility of parole, plus ten years. Far too late, serving his time at the California State Prison at Concoran, California, Markhasev takes up the Christian faith and in 2001, sends a letter to California Deputy Attorney General Kyle Brodie in which he asks that all appeals stop in his case, stating, "Although my appeal is in its beginning stages, I don't want to continue with it because its based on falsehood and deceit. I am guilty and want to do the right thing. More than anything, I want to apologize to the victim's family. It is my duty as a Christian, and its the least I can do, after the great wickedness for which I am responsible."