Trial begins in fatal bludgeoning

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, June, 2006 | by Susan Snyder

It was a gruesome sight: a tall, broad-shouldered man in a ski mask brutally beating a petite woman with a baseball bat in broad daylight on South Street. But what happened next, according to Melissa Idoni, was even more bizarre.

"He ripped off his mask and stared directly at me with a huge grin on his face," Idoni testified tearfully during the opening yesterday of the Common Pleas Court trial of Nader Ali, 28, of Franklin Lakes, N.J.

Ali is accused of killing 25-year-old Lea Sullivan, a promising third-year student at Jefferson Medical School College, which Ali also had previously attended before being placed on medical leave for what the school termed "extreme changes in behavior."

The attack occurred Nov. 7, 2004 - early on a Sunday afternoon - outside...