Judge James Vaughn has declared a mistrial in the first-degree murder case of Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya due to a hung jury.
Malinovskaya may be retried as a result, according to Eugene Maurer, one of her lawyers.
She is accused of the Dec. 23, 2004 killing of Irina Zlotnikov, the girlfriend of Malinovskaya's former boyfriend, Robert Bondar. Zlotnikov was found evidently bludgeoned to death in Bondar's New Castle County, Del., apartment.
Lawyers for the defense had argued that no physical evidence tied Malinovskaya to the crime and that jurors could therefore not be sure beyond a reasonable doubt that she committed murder.
Malinovskaya admitted being near Bondar's apartment on the day of the murder but denied entering or killing Zlotnikov.
Prosecutors for the state of Delaware, meanwhile, attempted to discredit Malinovskaya, who gave a different account of her whereabouts on the day of Zlotnikov's death when she was first arrested.
