'40-Year-Old Virgin' actor Shelley Malil, convicted of attempted murder, to be released on parole
Actor Shelley Malil, who played one of Steve Carell’s co-workers at SmartTech in 2005’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin, will soon be released from prison.
In 2010, Malil was convicted of attempting to murder his girlfriend, Kendra Beebe, in a brutal 2008 attack. According to the Los Angeles Times, Beebe received 23 deep puncture wounds, and a chunk of skin from her chin was “nearly sliced off” when Malil attacked her at her home in San Marcos, Calif. A friend of Beebe’s pulled Malil away from her, but not before Malil “slashed at [Beebe] with a broken wine glass, and stabbed her with a large knife he’d taken from her kitchen” and attempted to “smother her with a pillow as she lay bleeding,” reported the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Malil was sentenced to life in prison for his crime, but on Tuesday a parole panel revisited the issue. There was a ruling earlier this year that Malil should be paroled, because he was found to be at “low risk of committing violence in the future.”
California Gov. Jerry Brown spoke out against the release in a letter, pointing out that there seemed to be no explanation of why Malil’s “rage escalated so far out of control, and resulted in such a prolonged horror.”
However, a parole panel unanimously agreed with the “low risk of violence” assessment. Panel commissioner Brian Roberts said, “We find that the evidence supports that finding.”
Malil will be free in approximately two weeks, but he will be on supervised parole for for another five years.
At his original sentencing hearing, Malil said he wanted to make amends.
“I want to do whatever I need to do to make sure I make right from the wrong that I did,” he said at the time. “Kendra Beebe did not deserve anything that happened to her. … I can’t even begin to imagine what she has been through.”
During the trial, Beebe accused him of telling “lie after lie after lie.”
Beebe was present at Tuesday’s hearing. Afterward, she told the San Diego Union-Tribune, via text message, that she was “shocked” by the decision to release Malil. She added, “the system is broken.”
“Today, these men had a chance to take real action showing that we, as a society, value women and will protect them,” wrote Beebe, whose lawyer is Gloria Allred. “Because of their inaction, I will continue to live in fear.”
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