ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, March 14, 1997 TAG: 9703140060
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES
SOURCE: LYNDA GOROV THE BOSTON GLOBE
Police said a man called a tip-line set up by the National Enquirer with information that had not been publicized.
A man seeking a $100,000 reward from a supermarket tabloid helped police crack the two-month-old roadside murder of entertainer Bill Cosby's son, which police said Thursday was a random robbery gone awry.
Police Wednesday night arrested one suspect, 18-year-old Mikail Markhasev, and he is expected to be charged with murder soon. Another man and a woman were released after being questioned Thursday in the Jan. 16 death of Ennis Cosby, who was shot once in the head while changing a tire on his Mercedes-Benz convertible while vacationing in Los Angeles.
``The motive was robbery,'' Los Angeles Police Chief Willie Williams said at a news conference Thursday. ``He passed by. Mr. Cosby was there. [It was not] a set-up.''
Police said the break in the case, which had appeared stymied, came after a man called a tip-line set up by the National Enquirer. The caller, said editor Steve Coz, had information about the slaying that had not been publicized, including the caliber of the gun used - a .38 rather than the 9 mm that had been widely reported. The caller also said he had overheard a man talking about ``killing a black guy,'' Coz said.
In addition, the caller told the Enquirer that the killer or killers were involved in a ``Russian'' gang of auto thieves. Although the suspect moved to the United States from Russia eight years ago, Williams ruled out any connection to an organized ``Russian mob.'' Markhasev, who has what Williams would describe only as a criminal history, was arrested at his suburban North Hollywood home.
In recent years, Russian organized crime in California has been growing in both size and sophistication, according to a 1996 report by the state Department of Justice. Such gangs are gaining footholds in most major California cities, with areas of operation including extortion, loan sharking, drug trafficking and auto theft.
Both the Los Angeles Police Department and the L.A. County Sheriff's Office have specialists devoted to tracking Russian gangs.
Williams said the Cosby shooting was unrelated to Russian organized crime. ``This was a random stop as far as we know,'' he said. ``There is no indication that there is any Russian gang or Russian mob ties at all.''
Throughout the day, however, the Enquirer was sticking to the Russian mob angle, which the supermarket weekly began investigating simultaneously in what Coz called ``a gingerly fashion.'' At the same time that the Enquirer turned the story over to two reporters, it turned the tipster's beeper number over to police, Coz said.
The tipster who contacted the Enquirer showed police where the gun allegedly used in the crime was tossed, a few miles from the murder scene, Coz said. Williams said police recovered the gun and a watchcap last Friday, and that ballistics tests showed that the gun was the same one used to kill Cosby.
He added, however, that the tip phoned in to the Enquirer was only one of hundreds that police have received and that investigators continue to check out other leads.
The Cosbys, who were notified of Markhasev's arrest Wednesday night, thanked police in a statement: ``We realize how tough it must have been on them every day. We always had every hope that they would find the suspect and that jurisprudence would proceed.''
David Brokaw, the Cosby family's spokesman, said he spoke with Cosby and his wife following the suspect's arrest. ``I sensed a real sense of triumph and exuberance and something along the lines of some sort of closure,'' Brokaw said on NBC-TV's ``Today'' program. ``(Camille Cosby said ... `I want this man, and I want him convicted, and I want him sentenced, and I want him to go to jail.'''
The death of the Cosbys' 27-year-old son, Ennis, a doctoral candidate in special education at Columbia University, stunned people who had come to view Bill Cosby as a father figure for the nation and prompted 800 or so calls to police with tips.
Williams said Thursday that police are still trying to determine whether any of the young Cosby's property was missing.
The principal witness to Cosby's killing was a female friend of his who told police she had gone to help Cosby repair his car on an exit ramp off the San Diego Freeway near Mulholland Drive, after he telephoned her. The woman said she fled after being approached by a man, and soon returned only to find Cosby in a pool of blood.
With her help, police put together a widely circulated sketch of the suspect and a description that resemble the man now under arrest. At Thursday's news conference, the sketch and a mug shot were displayed side-by-side.
Said Coz, the Enquirer editor: ``We're very happy that the reward could trigger this outcome. But all due credit is owed to the LAPD. They solved the crime.''
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. 1. A cross and old flowers mark theby CNBscene Thursday where Ennis Cosby was killed Jan. 16 while changing a
tire on the side of the road. 2. (headshot) Markhasev. color.