The fate of a Ukrainian immigrant charged with Ennis Cosby's murder may come down to the way he writes the letter "S" and hugs the margin on a piece of paper with his careful penmanship.
A police handwriting analyst, whose testimony Monday dominated the first hours of Mikail Markhasev's trial, linked him to a series of jailhouse letters in which the prosecutor claims he gave tacit confessions to killing the son of entertainer Bill Cosby."The crime happened in Bel-Air," said one letter. "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," which is said to be Markhasev's jailhouse nickname.
Said another letter: "The case looks real bad."
Defense attorneys Henry Hall and Harriet Hawkins suggested that the letter and others are forgeries designed by gang members to shift blame for the killing to Markhasev.