Opening Statements In Cosby Trial

A prosecutor opened her case against Mikail Markhasev today by seeking to prove, through his own jailhouse writings, he is the killer of Ennis Cosby, pointing out the defendant himself wrote it was "a robbery gone bad."

In her opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Anne Ingalls reconstructed for jurors the scene at the side of the road where Cosby was shot to death. And, with friends and family of Bill Cosby in the courtroom, she displayed graphic photos of the younger Cosby lying beside his car in a pool of blood.

Henry Hall, the lawyer for the defendant, said the case was a tragedy for both the Cosby and Markhasev families but insisted police have charged the wrong man and Markhasev is innocent.

By the end of the case, Hall said, "We will know who the killer is and it's not him."

Ingalls quoted Markhasev as using a racial epithet in allegedly confessing he committed the killing and saying, "it's all over the news."

But Hall said the racial epithet should not be part of the case.

"This case is not about racially charged issues, ethnicities or countries of origin ...," he said. "It is about whether my client, Mr. Markhasev, is the person who shot and killed Ennis Cosby. ... This case is about a chance meeting. It's also a case full of mystery."

Cosby's only son, Ennis, 27, a graduate student at Columbia University, was fatally shot Jan. 16, 1997, while changing a flat tire on a dark road.

Markhasev, 19, a Ukrainian immigrant with a history of gang affiliations and a previous brush with the law, was arrested nearly two months later.

The letter attributed by the prosecutor to Markhasev describes a plan to go to Bel-Air, a wealthy area of Los Angeles, and rob "a connection," apparently a drug dealer. But the letter says the target was not home.

The letter includes the statement: "The crime happened in Bel-Air. A robbery gone bad." It concludes: "I went to rob a connection and obviously found something else." It closes with a picture of a happy face and is signed "Peewee."

Ingalls called her first witness police Detective John Garcia, who showed jurors enlargements of many letters allegedly written by Markhasev in jail to members of a Mexican prison gang.

The letters are filled with Spanish words and repeatedly refer to the recipients as "my homies."

Bill Cosby was not expected at the trial.

During an appearance last weekend in Los Angeles, Cosby said "the family wants dignity" at the trial. Previously he and his wife, Camille, have said only that they want jurisprudence to take its course.

By LINDA DEUTSCH