The woman who suffered more than 20 knife wounds recalled the moment she realized she was being stabbed Tuesday during the trial of actor Shelley Malil.
Malil, known for a supporting role in the movie "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," is accused of stabbing Kendra Beebe 23 times in the backyard of her San Marcos home on August 10, 2008.
Prosecutors said Malil came to Beebe's house uninvited, walked up to her with one hand behind his back saying "Kendra, Kendra, Kendra..."
“I thought, ‘Oh my God, he’s going to hug me’ and then I thought ‘Oh no, he’s going to punch me’ and then I see this flash of silver and bang, bang, bang,” Beebe testified through tears. "It was just like not real."
At the time of the stabbing, Beebe was sitting outside enjoying a glass of wine with her friend, renowned Spanish Flamenco singer and guitarist David Maldonado.
“I hear this screech and David let out a sound like when you hear an animal get hit by a car,” she testified. “He screamed out.”
Maldonado, who also testified Tuesday, said he thought the pair - who were an on-again, off-again couple - was hugging when in fact, he said Malil was stabbing Beebe several times in the chest.
“I realized it after I tried to pull him off her,” he testified.
Maldonado described Beebe as “panicked and frightened” during the attack but testified during cross-examination that he never actually saw Malil stab Beebe.
Maldonado said he grabbed the knife by the blade, twisted it and pulled it away from the defendant. He threw the knife over the fence and ran to his car to call 911. He sustained minor cuts to his finger and palm on his left hand.
In the meantime, Malil went into Beebe's kitchen and grabbed a second knife and started stabbing Beebe again, according to court documents.
After a neighbor intervened, Malil stopped the attack and walked calmly from the scene, investigators said.
On Tuesday, Shelly Emery, a former employee of Beebe, testified how employees in San Diego, Oregon and Washington offices of Beebe’s insurance business received an email with a folder of images showing a couple having sex. Prosecutors said Malil sent the nude images to Beebe's co-workers on the evening before the attack.
At times, Emery found it difficult to describe the images for jurors.
“The next one is a picture of … what appears to be a picture of Kendra’s body that is naked,” she testified.
Emery testified that the faces of the couple having sex were obscured but described a tattoo shown on the left side of the man’s chest.
Under cross-examination, Emery recalled feeling the images were all of Beebe but could not positively identify the couple because their faces were obscured.
Shelley Malil played a co-worker, Haziz, to comedian Steve Carell's title character in "The 40-Year-Old Virgin." Malil also starred in a Budweiser ad, a spinoff of the "Whassup" spots from 2000.
Malil has pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon and burglary. Prosecutors said Malil could face life in prison if convicted of all charges.
