Judge says burn victim can testify from the dead in boyfriend’s murder trial

Judy Malinowski, 33, died in August 2017, two years after being torched by her boyfriend Michael Slager outside a gas station near Columbus, Ohio.

Before she passed away, Judy recorded a video in hospital with what might be key evidence in putting her murderer in jail.

Slager goes on trial for her murder in July, and in a rare move, a judge will allow the interview Malinowski gave from her hospital bed, to be heard by the jury.

The mother-of-two suffered burns to 80 per cent of her body and clung to life in a hospital bed for two years.

Slager was charged with assault and was due to go to trial in 2016.

Malinowski recorded her video testimony for his court case from her hospital bed.

Slager’s attorneys tried to stop the tape from being used by citing a legal technicality.

They claimed it was improperly obtained by prosecutors.

But the judge allowed it on the grounds that it is an unprecedented case where the victim is able to give evidence after their own death.


Malinowski also spoke to the media from her hospital bed before she died.

Although she could barely speak, she managed to say: “I never knew that a human being could be so evil. He just stood there and did nothing.”

“God please, please help me,” she said.

Slager has always maintained that he set her on fire by accident when he lit a cigarette.

After her death, Ohio passed Judy’s Law, which added six years onto the sentence of anyone convicted of an assault which permanently maimed their victim.

Malinowski lost both of her ears and two fingers in the attack and was left with open wounds on her back and buttocks.

She underwent 56 surgeries before she died.

Malinowski also suffered horrendous damage to her throat and never walked again after the incident.