Creep of the Week - March 15, 1997

Mikail Markhasev

It wasn't an unusual crime. Innocent people who are in the wrong place at the wrong time get blown away on a daily basis in Los Angeles and just about everywhere else. Ennis Cosby was on the shoulder of an LA freeway trying to fix a flat tire late one night last January when Mikail Markhasev, an 18-year-old Ukranian immigrant, shot him to death during an attempted robbery. Mikail seems to be one of today's run-of-the-mill killers: a teenage gangster wannabee with a gun and previous problems with the law. Just your average hoodlum creating your average carnage, destroying your average life, causing your average grief.

But, as you know, this crime was just a bit out of the ordinary. Ennis was the son of Bill Cosby, America's favorite comedian, sitcom star, and family man. Even the rich and famous are vulnerable to random acts of violence, which makes it more difficult for any of us to want to leave our dead-bolt-locked, motion-detector-alarmed, electrical-fence-surrounded, alligator-filled-moat-encircled, armed-guarded homes. And in another sad after-effect to this event, just as we're mourning Ennis, his family and one more blow to our security, we find out that Father Bill isn't such a great family man after all. Is nothing sacred anymore?

While we're thinking such dark thoughts, here's another one: 1997 is less than three months old, but already, two Creeps of the Week have been Russians who killed Americans in the United States. Is there a trend developing? At least back when the good old days of the USSR and the Evil Empire when everyone feared a Soviet nuclear attack, they weren't over here mowing us down one by one.

By now, we should all be able to predict how this story will play out. A group of slick, high-priced lawyers, smelling an abundance of media coverage, take over Mikail's defense which rests on the following points:

Mikail grew up in an abusive environment in the Ukraine, forced to eat caviar and drink vodka.
He was uprooted from his comfortable home and landed in unfriendly LA where his classmates made fun of him because of his funny accent and his bad breath.
The black guys wouldn't let him in their gangs because he was white.
The white guys wouldn't let him in their gangs because he was Russian.
None of the black, white, yellow or brown girls would go out with him because he was a jerk.
What was Ennis doing in the white part of town at that time of night anyway? Trying to score drugs? Going after Ukranian girls? Trying to catch his father at a rendezvous?
Have you asked Richard Jewell what he was doing that night?

And guess who's going to pay for this expensive and shrewd legal maneuvering? Hold on to your wallets and your barf bags.

Let me know what you think at montgome@servtech.com

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