Probe of Cosby Slaying Expands

The investigation into the death of Ennis Cosby expanded Friday, as police considered information from a number of new potential witnesses and struggled to get the distraught woman who reported the crime to help them draw a sketch of the suspect.

Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L. Williams and his department publicly released almost no new information on the crime. But police sources said the woman identified as the principal witness--a 47-year-old self-described writer--had told them that she was on the scene when a man with a pistol accosted her and Ennis William Cosby, the only son of internationally renowned entertainer Bill Cosby.

The woman told authorities she was frightened off, sources said, and returned to find Cosby’s body lying by his car.

The 27-year-old Cosby was shot once in the head and, though nothing was obviously missing from the car, police are investigating the possibility that the crime was an opportunistic robbery. Other motives have not been ruled out in a violent encounter that lasted only “a few moments or a few seconds” on a dark side road above Bel-Air early Thursday, Williams said.

Slow advances in the police investigation came as the outpouring of condolences to Bill Cosby and his family continued. From President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to tearful talk radio callers, the nation expressed sadness at the loss suffered by Cosby, the fatherly icon.

In Los Angeles, police were struggling to understand why Ennis Cosby--by all accounts a likable, warm, serious young man--was gunned down by the side of the road. A graduate student at Columbia University in New York City, he was in Los Angeles finishing up a two-week vacation. “We have,” Williams said, “no suspects at this time.”

The intense importance of the principal witness is emphasized by how gingerly the Police Department treated her statements.

At first, Williams said she was a witness to a homicide, then said she had witnessed “some portion of the homicide, period.” He would not clarify whether that meant that she had seen the assailant pull the trigger or whether she merely had seen the attacker either approaching or leaving the area.

Investigators had previously stated that Cosby had called the woman on his cellular phone and asked for her help in repairing his flat tire on a dark roadway near the top of the Sepulveda Pass. She came to help illuminate the area with her headlights, but told police the gunman arrived before the job was completed, sources said.

Although officers described her as rattled by the murder and the overwhelming attention she has received, they said Friday that they have no reason to disbelieve her story.

The woman had been so upset by the crime and ensuing crush of attention by the media, including one camera crew standing guard on her lawn, that investigators were having trouble calming her in order to obtain a sketch of the suspect, Williams said.

“The witness was very traumatized by the event and the public exposure that occurred yesterday,” Williams said. “We’re working with her and our graphic artist to make sure that when we have a sketch available, that it’s something that’s good and is really focused towards one individual.”

Despite her fear, the witness is being cooperative and police are continuing to work with her, Williams said.

The chief asked that the media leave the woman and any other witnesses in the case alone, lest they become skittish. “The fear of this public or national exposure could certainly frighten them away,” Williams said.

The Times is not identifying the witness.

Other witnesses have also begun to come forward, some who reported that they may have seen Cosby beside the road still alive and others who came during or after the crime, Williams said during a late afternoon press conference. Investigators were culling through a flood of calls trying to separate cranks from potentially significant witnesses.

Determining exactly what witnesses may have seen--and how accurate the perceptions of the principal witness may have been--is among investigators’ principal tasks. But Williams was vague about what the department knows.

Police said they also were trying to reconstruct the last 48 hours of Ennis Cosby’s life in hopes that his activities might lend some clues in the killing.

Just hours before he died, Cosby was working out at a swanky West Los Angeles health club, a representative of the club said Friday. Cosby had visited Sports Club L.A. at least once previously and was at the Sepulveda Boulevard gym, which features valet parking, on a guest pass again until late Wednesday, said the representative, who did not want to be named.

At the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, investigators completed an autopsy and confirmed that Cosby died of a single gunshot wound to the head. Other results of the examination, including routine screening for alcohol and drugs, will not be available for several weeks.

Williams said his department would not discuss other facets of the case, including Ennis Cosby’s relationship with the prime witness and how the suspect, described only as a white man, arrived at the scene and escaped.

Williams’ news conference became tense as reporters demanded more information and the chief said he would not give out too much and jeopardize the probe. When pressed about the resources being devoted to the LAPD’s investigation, he said the media, not his department, were preoccupied with the celebrity case.

Emphasizing that point, Williams opened the session by saying: “Yesterday . . . here in the city of Los Angeles, there were three homicides.” Before discussing the Cosby case, the chief spoke of the shooting death the same day in South-Central of Compton high school student Corie Williams, 17, and the death of Conception Madrid, 50, a hairdresser who was found strangled in her Van Nuys apartment Thursday.

Williams insisted that despite the televised images of more than 30 police and investigators at the Cosby murder scene early Thursday, his department was not giving the case more attention than the lower-profile crimes.

“Even though different homicides may get more public attention, we want to assure the public here in the city and county of Los Angeles that the investigators and the men and women of this department pay as much attention . . . to each and every homicide,” said Williams, appearing behind a podium bearing the seal of the LAPD.

“Every death,” he added, “is one death too many in our city.”

He said he had talked to Bill Cosby for 20 minutes and noted that the entertainer had spoken compassionately of the other Los Angeles homicide victims.

“Almost literally the first words out of [Cosby’s] mouth were about Corie Williams and her family, [asking] how the mother was doing,” Williams said. “To be worrying about his fellow man . . . who have suffered a slaying, that really says something about Bill Cosby the man and the Cosby family.”

The entertainer, his wife and four daughters remained out of the limelight Friday. The 59-year-old performer made his own request for circumspection by the media, as camera crews in New York and Los Angeles dug in trying to obtain pictures of grieving family members.

“The Cosby family respects the job of the journalist,” Cosby said in a prepared statement. “However we do not accept journalists coming to our homes, because this is a time we want to ourselves, to find solutions to questions in our hearts. We find it damaging for the media to continue to seek photo ops of us.”

Condolences for the family came from the ranks of the powerful and the unknown. Clinton and Gore expressed their sympathies to Bill Cosby in phone calls to his New York townhouse.

In a typical moment, a woman who called KABC talk radio held back tears as she told host Michael Jackson how much Cosby meant to her.

“I grew up with Bill Cosby,” she said. “He is so much more than a comedian. This just feels so personal.”

Mike Dunham, a friend of Ennis Cosby from graduate school in New York, said current and former classmates are calling across the country to console each other and express shock at his death.

“Everyone’s talking about it,” Dunham said. “Now that everybody knows, we’re all talking. We can’t believe it.”

Cosby’s spokesman said the star did not plan an extended seclusion. The entertainer said he will honor his commitment to appear Thursday evening at an AIDS benefit at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and was likely to return to work on his sitcom “Cosby” Jan. 27, after an already scheduled hiatus, said David Brokaw, Cosby’s longtime representative and friend.

“Bill Cosby is a very strong person,” Brokaw said. “This could bring anyone to their knees, and he is very work-oriented. I think, if anything, it will probably be helpful to be working.”

Times staff writers Josh Meyer, Beth Shuster and Andrew Blankstein contributed to this story.

* COVERAGE DEBATED: The slaying of Ennis Cosby has fueled debate about TV journalists’ responsibility. F1