WILMINGTON, Del. - An obsessed lover who submitted to a fatal attraction, or a confused girl caught up in a situation beyond her control?
These were the two portrayals of Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya that prosecutors and defense lawyers presented to the jury yesterday in the final day of her trial for the first-degree murder of Irina Zlotnikov.
Prosecutor Bill George began his 50-minute closing argument by reminding the jury who the true victim of this crime was.
"Irina Zlotnikov was the victim," George said. "This was a person who was brutally bludgeoned to death, and we must not forget her."
George then outlined evidence presented throughout the trial depicting Malinovskaya's relationship with Robert Bondar - who was dating Zlotnikov at the time and had previously dated Malinovskaya - as an obsession that grew until the day of the murder, Dec. 23, 2004 .
The prosecutor emphasized what he called Malinovskaya's "Holy Grail," the detailed schedules that Malinovskaya allegedly made so she would know Bondar's whereabouts at any time. He used this and other already-presented evidence to paint Malinovskaya as having stalker-like tendencies.
George stated that, although the evidence against Malinovskaya is circumstantial, the individual pieces taken together lead to the conclusion that she was Zlotnikov's killer.
"Malinovskaya became obsessed with Bondar and would not let go," George said. "It was a fatal attraction that ultimately led to the death of Zlotnikov."
When defense attorney Eugene Maurer stood for his concluding argument, he faulted George for not discussing the physical evidence found at the crime scene. Maurer posed a series of questions that he said the prosecution did not address and that expert witnesses had been unable to answer.
Most notably, Maurer said that the time of Zlotnikov's death was unclear and that hairs and fingerprints found at the scene did not belong to Malinovskaya.
He also spent a large portion of 80-minute argument discussing Bondar's credibility as the prosecution's main witness.
"Bondar can be disingenuous, and he can be quite cruel," Maurer asserted.
Maurer argued that Bondar's relationship with Malinovskaya was not as one-sided as the prosecution suggested, indicating phone records and e-mails that showed Bondar had contacted Malinovskaya with some regularity.
And he also mentioned Malinovskaya's willingness to talk to the police and her consistent denial of guilt.
"She had seven days to get out of the country and she stayed put," Maurer said. "She did not scurry off to Moscow," where she is originally from.
The prosecution closed the trial by offering a rebuttal to the defense, in which George countered that some of Maurer's unanswered questions were, in fact, answerable and that Malinovskaya is the only possible suspect.
The jury began deliberations yesterday afternoon. A verdict could be handed down as early as today.
