Woman who testified in her own murder trial after being set alight by boyfriend said he didn't deserve death penalty

A woman who testified at her own murder trial after being set alight by her boyfriend said he didn’t deserve the death penalty.

On August 2, 2015, Judy Malinowski was burned alive by her on-and-off boyfriend, Michael Slager. He doused his girlfriend with petrol outside a gas station in Gahanna, Ohio during an argument and watched as she was engulfed with flames after he set her alight.

The mother-of-two was in a coma for eight months and when she gained consciousness she was in excruciating pain, especially when her dressings had to be changed two times a day. She had burns covering 95 percent of her body and she died from her injuries nearly two years later on June 27, 2017.

Slager agreed to a plea deal in 2016 and his lawyers entered an Alford plea, in which he didn’t admit guilt but accepted that there was enough evidence for a jury to convict him. Security camera footage showed the attack and the moment Slager went to his truck to get a cigarette lighter.

He was sentenced to 11 years for aggravated arson. Malinowski’s mother, Bonnie Bowes, said in an interview with Insider that Michael’s strategy was to ‘silence her’ so she couldn’t tell her story publicly.

Bonnie Bowes/Facebook

Malinowski knew she was dying and that her now-ex boyfriend could be charged with murder. Bowes had said that she was 'determined to testify and prove that Michael had acted on purpose'. Malinowski filmed the deposition which included questions by the prosecution and a cross-examination by the defense all from her hospital bed. She even reduced her pain medication to ensure she would be considered a more reliable witness.

“See what I’ll do to you, bitch,” Malinowski testified her boyfriend said while emptying a can of gasoline over her body.

She described how Slager walked towards her while she was ‘crying and begging for help’, and recalled the moment he ‘lit me on fire’.

She testified: “After I was set on fire, he backed away, and his eyes just turned black.”

Malinowski’s mother said she didn’t like Slager when they were introduced in January 2015. Malinowski had just overcome an opioid addiction and she didn’t think her daughter’s new boyfriend had the best intentions.

Describing the relationship as ‘toxic’, Bowes said that Slager beat up her daughter, who repeatedly called the police but never pressed charges.

MTV Documentary Films/Paramount+

The film of Malinowski’s deposition was played at Slager’s sentencing hearing in July 2018, just over a year after she died. He changed his plea from not guilty to guilty of aggravated murder at the last minute, and even though the offense carried the death penalty, Malinowski asked for leniency.

He was ultimately sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole.

"Judy had forgiven him, and it was rightfully her decision," Bowes told Insider. "I know that she was hoping that he would somehow find God or figure out his way out of the darkness."

Malinowski’s legacy involves the nonprofit Judy’s Foundation – which was established by her family not long after she died. The foundation campaigns to change laws relating to domestic violence at a federal level. ‘Judy’s Law’ was established in the state of Ohio in 2017 to protect people affected by domestic violence.

Malinowski’s story is chronicled in the 2022 documentary The Fire That Took Her which will be available to watch on Paramount from May 23.

For anonymous, confidential help 24/7 in the U.S., please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or 1-800-787-3224 (TTY). You can also visit the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence website here.

UK readers who have been affected by this story can call Refuge’s National Domestic Abuse Helpline at 0808 2000 247, or talk to them online here.