Anya Malina (From Bergen Record Online)
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ID in casino suicide
Wednesday, October 7, 1998
By JOHN CURRAN
The Associated Press
ATLANTIC CITY -- Police said Tuesday they were "99 percent
sure" they have identified a woman who committed suicide
by jumping
off the top of a casino parking garage.
Acquaintances identified her as a British-born woman who
split with
her boyfriend two days before she killed herself. But
police were still
trying to figure out what her real name was, according to
Detective
William O'Neill, the lead investigator in the case.
She was identified by friends as Anya Malina, 31, but her
real name
may have been Annette Mitchell, according to O'Neill.
The woman fell more than 120 feet to her death Aug. 23
from the top
of the 12-story Caesars Atlantic City Hotel Casino parking
garage.
But she had no identification on her, and no one ever
stepped forward
to claim the body.
Police investigating the death sought unsuccessfully to
match her
description and fingerprints with those of known
criminals, casino
employees, and others, all to no avail.
A story about the search for clues -- which was
accompanied by a
police sketch of the woman -- prompted several people who
knew
her to contact police in Seaside Heights, O'Neill said.
Born in Bradford, England, to Jewish and Muslim parents,
she moved
from London to the United States in 1990 and had worked as
a nanny
in Jackson Township and a waitress in Seaside Heights,
friends said.
She was an avid fan of "Star Trek," who liked to dress up
as
characters from the show and shoot photographs of actors
at "Star
Trek" conventions, they said.
Her ex-boyfriend, David Galloway of Smithville, told
police he dated
Malina for eight months and that she often lied or misled
him.
Recently, he found a passport and a birth certificate
among her
possessions that bore the name Annette Mitchell, according
to
O'Neill.
When Galloway and others who knew Malina from a "Star
Trek" fan
club confronted her about lying, she grabbed the documents
and
locked herself in a room, O'Neill said.
The friends then took her belongings and rented a motel
room for two
nights for her, storing the clothing there, O'Neill said.
She knew people in "Star Trek" groups in both Ocean County
and
Atlantic County.
"She took our group and the group in Atlantic City as her
family and
she sometimes made up and embellished things, which wasn't
necessary," said Bob Vosseller, 36, of Dover Township, who
knew
her in Ocean County. "We accepted her as she was. That's
the true
tragedy here."
None of her friends saw Malina again until Sunday, when
Malina
approached Galloway at his workplace and told him she had
been
raped. In fact, an autopsy showed no sign of sexual
assault.
"She gives him a hug and says 'I want you to know that
within the next
24 hours, I'm gonna' be dead' or something to that
effect," O'Neill
said.
Knowing her history of lying, Galloway didn't believe her,
O'Neill said.
When he didn't hear from her for weeks, he believed Malina
had
returned to Seaside Heights, where she had lived
previously, O'Neill
said.
Police recovered the belongings from the M&M Motel on
Route 9 in
Smithville and found among them photos of Malina. "She had
the same
makeup, same hair. It's definitely her," said O'Neill.
Why did she jump?
"I just think she lost it because she had security with
him for eight
months and then she was moved into a hotel room. She was
called on
the carpet for lying, she had just been confronted. I
guess she felt the
bottom fell out," he said.
Galloway got a letter from Malina sometime after Aug. 23
in which
she said it was time for her to move on and for them to
move on,
according to Jim Rennie of Northfield, another friend.
"I talked to her the night before she did it. I didn't
think this would
happen," he said.
Copyright (c) 1998 Bergen Record Corp.
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