WILMINGTON, Del. -- Prosecutors for the state of Delaware began making their case against Penn student Irina Malinovskaya yesterday in her trial for first-degree murder.
Several witnesses identified her as being near the scene of the crime hours before it occurred, and another said that she behaved erratically.
Malinovskaya -- a Wharton student originally scheduled to graduate last spring -- is accused of bludgeoning to death Irina Zlotnikov, 24, a pharmacology student at Temple University. Zlotnikov was found dead last December in the New Castle, Del. apartment of her boyfriend Robert Bondar, who had previously dated Malinovskaya.
If convicted, Malinovskaya could face prison or deportation to her native Russia.
A resident of the apartment complex where the killing occurred testified yesterday that he saw the defendant parked outside the building in a silver Chevrolet the night before the crime. He was able to point Malinovskaya out in the courtroom.
An employee of a Philadelphia car-rental agency provided documentation indicating that Malinovskaya had rented a silver Chevrolet on Dec. 21, 2004, two days before Zlotnikov's killing.
On the afternoon of Dec. 23, the rental agent testified, Malinovskaya returned to the rental agency just a few hours after what police believe was the time of the murder. The agent added that Malinovskaya initially said the car had been stolen but returned with it about 30 minutes later.
Several others testified that they saw Malinovskaya and the silver Chevy in the apartment's parking lot in the hours before the murder.
One resident said that Malinovskaya was "pacing in this walkway for 15 minutes, going continually back and forth."
However, when asked to identify Malinovskaya in the courtroom, that same witness pointed to a clerk sitting in front of Judge James Vaughn.
Malinovskaya -- a native of Rostov-on-Don, Russia -- has been incarcerated for the last year at the Baylor Women's Correctional Institution in Delaware. Her bail is set at $10 million.
The prosecution plans to continue its case this week with testimony from police. Prosecutors expect to wrap up next Monday.
When Malinovskaya was initially arrested, she waived her right to remain silent and admitted to being near the apartment building in the rented car.
Before the trial, her attorney Eugene Maurer moved to have this evidence suppressed, saying that police took advantage of Malinovskaya's poor language skills. The judge only agreed to suppress some of this evidence, and Maurer now plans to use all of Malinovskaya's statement.
"We don't want them to hear only half of it," he said.
