True Crime with Rachel Shannon
She was Burned Alive, Then Testified at her OWN Trial: The Harrowing Story of Judy Malinowski
Sun, 02 Mar 2025
Set on fire by her ex-boyfriend, Judy Malinowski survived long enough to testify at her own murder trial. A heartbreaking story of courage, justice, and the fight against domestic violence. This is her incredible battle.What are your thoughts on Judy's incredible case? Let's discuss in the comments. Thank you guys for watching, hope to see you next time!
Chapter 1: What is Judy Malinowski's story?
Hello everyone, my name is Rachel and welcome back to another true crime video. So the case that I have for you all today is one that is truly an incredible case. The amount of courage and power this woman showed after going through literally the worst thing imaginable is truly amazing.
Chapter 2: How did Judy's childhood shape her life?
It's overall a very sad and devastating case, but I'm really looking forward to telling you all about the story of Judy Malinowski. Judy Malinowski was born on August 26th, 1983, being the firstborn to her parents. Judy was overall known as being from a loving family with a happy childhood.
She had a younger brother named Patrick and a sister named Danielle, who she absolutely doted on and adored, and she was absolutely beautiful. Growing up, she won several beauty pageants, including being crowned Miss New Albany and Homecoming Queen at her high school, New Albany High School, in 2001. After graduating from high school, Judy went on to Ohio State University.
Judy was known as being a beautiful person on the inside and out. She was known for her special ability to love all people unconditionally without judgment. She was passionate and loving with a free spirit and a quick wit. She was someone that could always make those around her smile and feel good.
She was known to put others needs before her own and was just overall the light in the lives of those who knew her. Judy's mother said that Judy always just wanted to have a simple, nice life. She wanted to live in a nice house in a normal neighborhood, and she wanted two children. And it seemed that she was starting to live the life that she had always wanted.
She was married to a man named Ron, and together the couple went on to have two daughters, Kaylin, who was born on March 12, 2004, and Madison, who was born in September of 2007. And of course, Judy loved her daughters. She called them the colors of her heart. Judy made sure to always make sure that her daughters felt loved and cared for.
However, while Judy was pregnant with Madison, Ron cheated on Judy and the relationship between Judy and Ron fell apart. And from there, of course, they broke up. Now, when Judy was younger, she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which she did beat the first time and she went into remission. However, by 2006, unfortunately, the cancer returned.
After the cancer came back, the doctors performed a full hysterectomy on Judy, but that just led to more and more issues. Judy began to struggle with opioid abuse to deal with all of the pain that she was suffering from that surgery, which unfortunately was a very common occurrence during that time due to the overprescription of opioid drugs.
It got to the point that her insurance stopped covering the opioids that she relied on. So unfortunately, she ended up turning to street drugs and that got her hooked on heroin. Through that though, her family worked hard to support her, help her raise her children, and do whatever they could to help her recover from her addiction.
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Chapter 3: What led to Judy's tragic relationship with Michael?
After a while, she did start to get back up on her feet and she started to make really great progress. She had her own apartment, she was clean, she had gone to rehab, and she had been getting income via disability paychecks that she got due to her cancer and other issues, as well as her mother helping out with her bills.
But by 2014, it was also around this time that a man named Michael Slager reached out to Judy via Facebook, and the two quickly connected. Now, Michael and Judy had already known each other previously. Michael knew Ron and their other group of friends and she had hung out with him and, you know, Ron and the other friends before.
So, they knew each other and after years of not seeing each other or talking, Michael reached out to Judy and they reconnected. They went on their first date and after that, the pair became almost inseparable. And during that time, Judy also slipped back into her addiction. What she didn't know about Michael at the time was that he had a long criminal history.
He had passed criminal offenses for theft, stalking, domestic abuse, rape, battery, assault, breaking and entering, and child endangerment. She didn't know that she was bringing such a dangerous man into her life and into her family. The relationship between Michael and Judy was a very toxic one. The first incident that police got involved with was in May of 2015.
The two would get into really aggressive verbal fights and Judy would either scream or she would fight back or she would leave. And Michael was typically the one who would call 911 on Judy to report these incidences.
So what would happen sometimes is like the two would fight and Judy would lock herself in her room to get away from him or she would scream back or try to fight back in any way that she could.
However, after call after call, eventually adding up to over 30 different incident calls, police got the feeling that Michael was calling the police so often as a way to control Judy and scare her into submission.
They believed that he used this as a way to basically say, like, the cops are on my side, they know that you're abusive, you're gonna get in trouble if, you know, we keep fighting like this, etc. Also, while the two dated, Michael would supply Judy with the drugs that she was taking, even though he did not use any drugs himself.
So to me, that says that basically he liked that she was dependent on drugs, which therefore made her more dependent on him since he was the one who was getting the drugs for her. So if she was dependent on the drugs, he was the one that was always getting them for her, keeping her addicted, keeping her coming back for more. that also kept her coming back to Michael because she needed him.
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Chapter 4: How did Judy survive the attack?
Again, because Judy survived, he knew that Judy would be able to testify at his trial and he knew that seeing Judy in the condition she was in and hearing the words of what she suffered would make a jury even more motivated to put him behind bars for as long as they could. So he pled no contest to the charges and for this he was sentenced to 11 years behind bars.
That was the maximum amount of time that someone could be charged with this type of sentence. But of course, given that he was only going to serve 11 years, was just heartbreaking to Judy's family. Judy suffered constant pain. She was permanently disfigured. She would never be the same. From her hospital bed, Judy wanted to live so that she could make the changes that she wanted to see.
She wanted the laws around this type of charge to be changed. At the same time as Judy clung to life, her condition started to get worse. But she spoke with investigators and it was clear that Judy had a clear memory of what happened and she wanted to speak her truth.
So after almost a year and a half, she started to wean off of her pain medications, which happened over the duration of a few weeks, enduring even more pain and suffering just so she could prove that she was in the right state of mind to tell her story.
She knew that there was a possibility that she might die, and with that, she wanted to testify against Michael in the inevitable murder trial that would come after she died. So she did. When speaking about the events of that day, she spoke clearly and forcefully. She was questioned by the prosecution as well as cross-examined by Michael's lawyer.
When speaking about that day, she said that Michael had been taking her to this rehab center where she was supposed to check in, but like I said, she decided at that time that she didn't want to go right then and there. She decided that before committing herself, she wanted to talk to her daughters and her mother about the whole thing,
So they left rehab and stopped at a gas station, that's Speedway. When they got to the gas station again, Judy wanted to pick up more cigarettes since she was allowed to bring them to rehab and she was completely out of cigarettes at that time. That is important to note that she literally had zero cigarettes. She didn't have any left and that is why she wanted to go to the gas station to get more.
But throughout the entire car ride, the two were arguing. So when Michael went inside the speedway to get the cigarettes, Judy got out of the car and again went behind the speedway by herself to get some space. But when Michael got out of the gas station, obviously he saw that Judy was no longer in the truck.
So he got in the truck and then pulled around to the back of the gas station to follow her. That is when he found her behind the Safeway and he pulled up next to her and demanded that she get into the truck. Michael got out of the car and the two argued for quite some time and Judy admits that she threw the cup of pop at Michael, which splashed all over him.
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Chapter 5: What was the outcome of Michael's trial?
No, it was an evil demeanor.
Okay. After he poured the gasoline on you, what happens next?
He backed away from me for about 30 seconds, and I kept telling him to please help me and stop and I'll get the truck, I'll go with you. You know, why would you do this? And I looked at him, and he pulled a lighter out of his pocket, and he started walking towards me. And I just remember crying and begging for help. And he left me on fire, and the look in his eyes were,
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. He did nothing.
But even after screaming for help and asking him to stop, saying that she would just come with him if he stopped, he didn't listen. He reached into his pocket, grabbed his lighter, and set her on fire. She made it clear that he was in a state of anger. He looked evil. He didn't want to make up with her, and it wasn't an accident. He was malicious, evil, and purposeful.
Then she described how it felt to be set on fire. She said it felt like a thousand needles all penetrating her body at one time.
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Chapter 6: What changes did Judy want to see in the law?
Judy, tell me how that moment felt when you were ignited.
It felt horrible. I don't think words can describe what it feels like to have your whole body set on fire. I can remember... fire out of my face and eyes. I couldn't remember screaming for help. I couldn't remember looking over and seeing him just standing there staring at me with the look in his face that was just like I just sang over and over again, pure evil.
There's no other words to describe it. My whole body felt like the worst burn you could ever feel in your life. And it stung and it was like a thousand needles going in, a thousand hot needles penetrating my body. I guess that's the best way I can explain it. And I just remember, like I said, begging him to help, pleading for any help.
trying to get the fire off of my face, eventually burying my face in the grass and walking around. And then I got to the point where I couldn't see anything and everybody's voices were sounding far away. I could tell there was definitely somebody around. I couldn't hear him or make it out. 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 and I don't remember anything. And so I woke up in the hospital.
During cross-examination, of course, Michael's attorney brought up her own drug use history, how there were several times that Michael accused Judy of stealing things, of trying to take her own life, and things like that. But she said that none of those things were true, that he made all of those things up just to have more control over her.
They also talked about the day of the incident and Michael's attorney brought up that Judy had been on drugs at the time that this entire incident took place. Then Michael's attorney basically asked why she didn't run away from the time that he poured gas on her during the 30 seconds while he walked away and grabbed the lighter and came back.
she basically explained that 30 seconds goes by a lot faster than you think she was just trying to get the gas off of her at that time she had an issue with her shoe so that also made it hard for her to stand back up at the time because as he was pouring gas on her she like fell over and was either sitting or lying and it made it hard to get back up after he had done that
and she said that she really didn't want to run away. She just wanted to plead with Michael. She didn't run away because she was pleading with him to just let her come back in the truck, that she would come with him if he didn't hurt her anymore. That's basically how and why it happened the way it did. So, Judy gave her deposition in January of 2017, and unfortunately, less than five months later,
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