Justice From Beyond the Grave SHE TESTIFIED AT HER OWN MURDER TRIAL

WHEN AN EX-BOYFRIEND SET HER ON FIRE, JUDY MALINOWSKI HUNG ON-AND HELPED PUT HIM BEHIND BARS FOR LIFE 

- CHRISTINE PELISEK

The argument broke out after the couple stopped to buy cigarettes at a gas station in Gahanna, Ohio, on an August evening in 2015. Judy Malinowski, a 31-year-old mother of two, and her on-again, off-again boyfriend Michael Slager exchanged heated words before the confrontation quickly turned violent. Captured on a horrifying surveillance video from a nearby bank, Slager stepped away for a moment and returned with a can of gasoline that he poured over Malinowski and then set ablaze with a lighter. Towering flames engulfed her while Slager returned to his truck to retrieve a fire extinguisher that he used to put out the blaze-leaving Malinowski near death.

Rushed to a hospital, she was barely recognizable when her mother, Bonnie Bowes, arrived from home and was told by doctors that her daughter-horribly disfigured and in excruciating pain-was unlikely to survive. "They said it was a matter of hours," recalls Bowes, 60. Yet against unfathomable odds, Malinowski, who was revived seven times and went on to endure more than 50 agonizing surgeries, lived for nearly two years until succumbing to organ failure. Fighting her painful ordeal, she was determined to face her attacker in court.