Woman testified in her own murder trial after being set alight by boyfriend

Content warning: this article contains subject matter some readers may find upsetting.

One woman testified in her own murder trial after being set alight by her boyfriend.

Judy Malinowski was attacked and burned alive by Michael Slager at a gas station in Ohio, resulting in third and fourth degree burns over 90 percent of her body.

However, after miraculously surviving the heinous attack, Malinowski was able to 'testify from the grave' against her ex-boyfriend.

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While the mother-of-two has since passed away from her injuries two years after the attack in 2017, she once showed just how much of a fighter she was after testifying against her attacker from her hospital bed.

The arson victim, who was missing hair, skin, ears and fingers following the ordeal, raised her right hand before issuing her testimony through a live feed to her lawyer alongside the attorney representing Slager.

The tragic case has since been chronicled in the documentary The Fire That Took Her, which will be released on Paramount+ on 23 May.

"I don’t think words can describe what it feels like to have your whole body set on fire," Malinowski says in the film.

"I thought for sure I was dying. I just prayed to Jesus to please forgive me for my sins and to take care of my children, and that was it. I blacked out. I don’t remember anything until I woke up in the hospital."

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Recalling the traumatizing incident, Malinowski told the judge and jurors that the whole thing began after and Slager got into a heated fight.

After she threw a drink at him, Slager then 'ran around to the other side of his truck, and he got these cans of gasoline that he kept in the back of his truck'.

Malinowski continued: "He ran around me and started pouring gasoline, started at my head and worked his way down. Some got in my throat as he did that. That burnt really bad."

She then called Slager 'evil' before explaining he 'backed away from me for about 30 seconds'.

Malinowski went on: "I kept telling him to please help me and 'stop' and 'I’ll get in the truck, I’ll go with you.

"And he pulled a lighter out of his pocket, and he started walking towards me.

"I just remember crying and begging for help, and he lit me on fire.

"And the look in his eyes ... his eyes went black, literally. After I was set on fire and he backed away, his eyes just turned black as I screamed for his help. And he did nothing."

Talking about previous issues with Slager, Malinowski revealed: "I called the police and told them Michael was going to kill me and I needed help, but the detective did nothing about it - so here I am.

"You have to understand, on August 2nd, I was set on fire, thrown on the ground and burnt, 95 percent of my body. It’s really hard for me to try to keep track of everything that happened in this horrible relationship."

Speaking in the doc, Franklin County District Attorney Ron O’Brien considered the decision to allow Malinowski to testify as 'genius'.

He called it: "A a stroke of genius to come up with the idea of taking a deposition where she could testify from the grave at a subsequent homicide trial."

Malinowski's posthumous testimony went on the prompt a historic development within the Ohio court system - allowing a murder victim to testify at their own trial.

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Slager was sentenced to life without parole.

"I could probably prosecute prosecute for another 20 years and not get a case that is so right for the death penalty," assistant Prosecutor Warren Edwards says in the doc.

"And really, for the first several months of this case, we were we were playing the delay game. It sounds terrible, but we were basically waiting for Judy to die so that we could charge Mr Slager with the homicide. And we got a call one day that she was awake, which is a call I never expected to get," Edwards disclosed.

He added it was the 'first homicide case I’ve handled where I got to meet the victim'.

The film's director Patricia Gillespie told The Independent: "This woman contributed to American legal precedent.

"It’s a wild story. Everybody should know about this woman."