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On January 16, 1997, Ennis Cosby was on the San Diego Freeway, en route from his parents Pacific Palisades home to visit her in Sherman Oaks, when the tire went flat near Skirball Center Drive. Crane drove out to meet him after he called to explain his predicament. While sitting in the car with the motor and heater running and watching Cosby change the tire in the glow of her headlights, a man wearing a light-colored knit hat appeared at the window. "Open the door or I'll kill you," he told her, Crane said. Frightened, she sped away, but only for about 50 feet. She then stopped and turned around, hoping her actions would scare the intruder away, she said."I didn't see Ennis, and I started screaming, 'Ennis, Ennis!" Crane recalled. At that moment she saw a man running toward a parked car not far way." Then I looked down and saw Ennis lying on the ground," she said. She called 911 with a car phone, and police arrived. He had been shot dead.

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Crane told how she had met Cosby, who was on a break from his doctoral studies at Columbia University Teachers College in New York, about a week earlier at a party of a lawyer friend. Crane drove out to meet Cosby after he called to explain that he had gotten a flat tire on a dark road.

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She described the man to police as "very pale, very thin" with "pointy features," including a "very pointed nose." She described his complexion as "flawless" and said he was wearing a wool hat. police drew a composite from that description. Later when police showed her a series of six pictures, not including Markhasev, she picked one who she said had features similar to Markhasev's.

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Diana Paul, a Los Angeles Police Department criminalist, said Wednesday she test-fired the gun and compared the bullet with the bullet fragment that was removed from Cosby's head by the coroner. She first held up the fragment for the jury and then the pistol with its cylinder opened. "The bullet was fired from this Taurus revolver," she said, looking directly at the jury.

Other witnesses Wednesday discussed the hair that came from the cap wrapped around the revolver. Harry Klann, the lead criminalist in the case, said his analysis of a single strand that police say was extracted from the cap contained DNA that was virtually impossible for anyone other than Markhasev to have. "It would exclude 99.9% of the population," he said. Criminalist Susan Brockbank said that several hairs from the cap were similar to Markhasev's hair in color, distribution of pigment granules, condition of the root and other characteristics. "All of the head hair from the cap were similar microscopically to the head hair sample [from Markhasev] and could have originated from him," she said.

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Mikail Markhasev, who emigrated here from Ukraine with his mother nine years ago, was on the college track in school. After graduation, he probably could have chosen any top-notch university. Instead, the former Los Alamitos High School student chose to drop out and join local gang members. on Jan. 16, 1997, Markhasev, 19, murdered Cosby, another promising young man, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Cosby, 27, was a doctoral student on winter break from Columbia University Teachers College, where he was studying to help children with special learning problems. Markhasev and two companions--Zakaria, 24, and his girlfriend, Sara Ann Peters, 22, both of Orange County--had stopped about 450 feet away from Cosby at a bank of phones near a lighted park-and-ride lot to call a drug connection. Whle Zakaria made the call, Markhasev killed Cosby during a failed robbery attempt. He was tried and found guilty for first degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison plus 10 years with no opportunity for parole.

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All materials from articles within Los Angeles Times