WILMINGTON, Del. - It was deja vu all over again as the third murder trial for Wharton undergraduate Irina Malinovskaya began yesterday at the New Castle Co. courthouse.
Opening statements took a familiar turn as Delaware state prosecutor Victoria Witherall once again attempted to establish Malinovskaya as a lover obsessed over her ex-boyfriend, then-Widener law student Robert Bondar.
Defense attorneys countered by stressing to jurors that no forensic evidence definitively links Malinovskaya to Bondar's Delaware apartment, where his then-girlfriend, Temple pharmacology student Irina Zlotnikov, was brutally beaten to death on Dec. 23, 2004.
"Science doesn't lie. Science doesn't play favorites. It is what it is," defense lawyer Joe Hurley told the jury.
New to the case, Hurley is one of the few changes for a trial that will likely include much of the same evidence and witnesses as the last two, both of which ended in hung juries.
A former state prosecutor and nationally recognized criminal attorney, Hurley replaces Mary Burnell on Malinovskaya's defense team, alongside Eugene Maurer, who has been the lead attorney for the first two trials.
Likely in an effort to throw off the prosecution, Hurley, not Maurer, gave the opening statement yesterday and cross-examined the state's first witness, the victim's mother, Sophia Zlotnikov.
Hurley said Maurer asked him to lead the defense this time around, but he ultimately agreed to sign on only in a secondary role.
Prosecutors also threw a bit of a curve ball by introducing another charge to the trial - attempted tampering with physical evidence - and dropped the charge of second-degree burglary.
Malinovskaya is still being charged with first- and second-degree murder and possession of a deadly weapon.
The new count stems from a false electronic document, the contents of which are not yet known, that Malinovskaya allegedly engineered to use as evidence in the middle of her second trial last September.
The state has shifted its team as well, replacing former prosecutor Bill George with New Castle Co. Chief Prosecutor Paul Wallace and adding Abigail Layton.
But aside from the minor tactical changes, the two sides made it clear early on that their respective strategies would largely remain the same - the prosecution focusing on Malinovskaya's obsessive nature in the days leading up to the murder, and the defense attempting to impugn Bondar's character.
During the opening statements, the defense played a videotape that captured Bondar saying, "When I cry, the jury's gonna cry with me," referring to Bondar's eventual testimony, which will likely come late next week.
The prosecution, on the other hand, painted a picture in which Malinovskaya stalked Bondar and Zlotnikov the night before the murder and then was seen pacing outside Bondar's apartment the morning Zlotnikov died.
Malinovskaya, who has been incarcerated since her 2004 arrest, remained calm throughout the first day's proceedings, attentively jotting down notes throughout the opening statements and testimony. Her parents and Zlotnikov's family were both present.
Aside from Sophia Zlotnikov, the prosecution also called two police officers and a paramedic to the stand.
The trial will recess today and continue Monday, likely with a heavy focus on testimony from forensic experts.
-Staff writer Jon Meza contributed reporting to this article.
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