Bill Cosby Urges Son Killed in 1997 to 'Keep Fighting' in Tweet Ahead of Upcoming Sex Assault Trial

Ennis Cosby was killed in 1997 in an attempted carjacking

Photo: Bryan Bedder/Getty

As Bill Cosby prepares for his sexual assault trial next month, the entertainer posted a tweet Monday expressing love for his family and seemingly urging his slain son Ennis, who has been dead for 20 years, to “keep fighting.”

“I love you Camille, Erika, Erin, Ensa & Evin — keep fighting in Spirit Ennis,” reads the post.

Ennis Cosby, 27, was fatally shot in January 1997 during an attempted carjacking after he pulled onto the roadside of Interstate 405 in Los Angeles to change a flat tire. The killer, Michael Markhasev, was convicted and sentenced to life without parole.

In April, Cosby’s youngest daughter, Evin, 40, defended her father in an online essay, writing that he “loves and respects women.”

Evin Cosby added, “He is not abusive, violent or a rapist. Sure, like many celebrities tempted by opportunity, he had his affairs, but that was between him and my mother. They have worked through it and moved on, and I am glad they did for them and for our family.”

Cosby, 79, has pleaded not guilty to three counts of aggravated indecent assault for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand at his Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, mansion in January 2004. Jury selection begins May 22, with the trial scheduled to start June 5.

The entertainer, through his attorneys, repeatedly has denied the allegations related to Constand and similar claims from more than 50 other women.

Todd Korol/The Toronto Star via Zuma Wire

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In an interview posted April 26 with the NNPA Newswire, which posted his daughter’s essay the same day, Cosby said he is now completely blind after waking about two years ago and telling wife Camille, “I can’t see.”

Cosby gave up performing after he was charged in December 2015 with the alleged assault on Constand, now 44, a former Temple University employee.

Daughter’s Essay Claimed ‘Public Persecution’ of Cosby

In her essay, Evin Cosby referenced the loss of her brother.

“I thought when my brother Ennis was murdered, that was the worst nightmare of all time,” she wrote. “It’s so hurtful to this day. I try to block out the day he was killed, but that pain has only worsened in these last few years. For some reason, my family’s pain has been a trigger for people to seize upon us harder.”

Although Bill Cosby did not discuss the sexual assault case against him in his published interview, Evin addressed the topic head-on.

“The public persecution of my dad, my kids’ grandfather, and the cruelty of the media and those who speak out branding my father a ‘rapist’ without ever knowing the truth and who shame our family and our friends for defending my dad makes all of this so much worse for my family and my children.” she wrote.

George School, Mark Osterman/AP

“Two years ago, and over 10 years later, several women came out,” she wrote. “Like the woman from 2005, they claimed to have been raped or drugged. But, like the one from 2005, their stories didn’t match up. Instead of going through the criminal justice system, these stories never got investigated and just got repeated. They have been accepted as the truth. My dad tried to defend himself. His lawyers tried to defend him, but they all got sued.”

“People were constantly reaching out to me about why doesn’t you dad say something,” she wrote. “I kept saying he’s trying, but the media is only interested in the stories of the women. Friends of our tried to help, but the media wouldn’t print what they said or knew.”

Cosby settled a civil lawsuit with Constand in 2006. But in a decade-old deposition, Cosby said he acquired seven prescriptions for quaaludes in the 1970s with the intent of giving them to women he was pursuing for sex. He said he no longer had the prescriptions when the alleged incident with Constand occurred.

After a judge ruled April 28 that jurors in the current case will be allowed to hear testimony about Cosby’s intentions with quaaludes, both his spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, and the prosecutor in the case, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele, declined comment.