Ennis Cosby

Case background and investigation

Ennis William Cosby, the only son of entertainer Bill Cosby, was shot and killed in the early hours of January 16, 1997, in Los Angeles. He was 27 and, according to History.com, a graduate student in special education at Columbia University's Teachers College. He is widely reported to have been the inspiration for the character Theo Huxtable on his father's television series "The Cosby Show."

According to published accounts, Cosby had pulled off Interstate 405 at Skirball Center Drive, near Bel Air, at about 1 a.m. to change a flat tire. He was approached by a man who tried to rob him and was shot once in the head. Wikipedia's summary of the case notes that police received more than 800 tips in the weeks that followed.

Mikhail Markhasev, then 18, a Ukrainian-born resident of the Los Angeles area, was arrested in March 1997. The break reportedly came after an acquaintance of Markhasev contacted the National Enquirer, which had offered a $100,000 reward, and the information was passed to police.

Markhasev pleaded not guilty and was tried in Los Angeles County. On July 7, 1998, a jury convicted him of first-degree murder and attempted robbery. The following month he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, plus ten years. He was 19 at the time of sentencing.

Markhasev maintained his innocence through the trial, but that changed in February 2001. ABC News reported that he sent a handwritten letter to California Deputy Attorney General Kyle Brodie admitting that he was guilty, asking to withdraw his remaining appeal, and saying he wanted to apologize to the Cosby family. The development was announced by the state attorney general and the Los Angeles County district attorney, whose office described the abandonment of an appeal as very unusual.

The conviction and sentence have stood since. According to a March 2026 report by Hoodline, Markhasev filed a petition in November 2024 seeking resentencing, citing his education in prison, letters of support and a reentry plan. The trial court declined to act on the filing, and on March 18, 2026, a three-justice panel of California's 2nd District Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal from that decision. He remains imprisoned under the original sentence.