New Details Surface in Cosby Case

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LOS ANGELES: Crime-scene photos shown to TIME Magazine suggest that Ennis Cosby was shot in the act of offering a cigarette -- and then was assaulted after he died. "Ennis Cosby wasn't just shot," says journalist Joseph Bosco in the June 2 editions of TIME. "His corpse was found face up with a split but virtually unswollen lip. That injury is telling: trauma inflicted after the heart has stopped will not cause the swelling and discoloration usually associated with blows to living flesh." The most logical conclusion, sources close to the prosecution tell TIME, is that whoever shot Bill Cosby's only son also kicked or hit the young man in the mouth. The photos, which the magazine declined to publish, also reveal Cosby's right hand clutching a pack of Natural American Spirit cigarettes. Gunpowder residue on the left side of Cosby's face indicates the killer was within 4 feet when he fired. According to forensic experts familiar with the pictures, that would be close enough for Cosby to have been killed while offering a cigarettes. But Bosco says these details are actually making the prosecution's case against Michael Markhasev, 18, the suspect charged in the murder, more difficult. "The prosecution is already struggling with tainted witnesses and a paucity of evidence," Bosco says. "The reconstruction is worrisome because the killer would have been so near Cosby that the victim's blood would have spattered from the kick onto the perpetrator's pants, shoes or socks. No such evidence has surfaced."