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Ennis Cosby (April 15, 1969 – January 16, 1997) was the son of actor Bill Cosby and Camille Hanks. He had four sisters.

Cosby aspired to become a special education teacher after he overcame dyslexia. While he was a student at Teachers College, Columbia University, Cosby was murdered by a Ukrainian immigrant named Mikail Markhasev on January 16, 1997, in Los Angeles, California. He was 27 years old.

Cosby had pulled his Mercedes to the side of Interstate 405 to change a flat tire tire when he was confronted by Markhasev. According to prosecutors, Markhasev demanded money from Cosby, and then shot him in the head and fled the scene.

While the prosecutors stated that the case was very circumstantial, and that the verdict could have gone either way, Markhasev confessed his guilt after his conviction, because, in his own words, he "wanted to do the right thing … More than anything, {he} wanted to apologize to the victim's family." Markhasev is serving a life sentence in San Quentin State Prison without the possibility of parole.

Cosby graduated from George School, Newtown, Pennsylvania, and Morehouse College, Atlanta, Georgia.

In 2000, Bill Cosby started a scholarship in Ennis Cosby's name at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

• Several events in the life of Ennis Cosby were intentionally mirrored by the events in the life of his father's fictional son from The Cosby Show, Theo Huxtable (portrayed by Malcolm-Jamal Warner). Both Ennis and Theo had four sisters (two older, two younger). Both had academic problems in middle school and high school. Both were diagnosed as dyslexics and excelled academically in college. And both sought master's degrees in education from elite colleges in New York City (Ennis at Columbia University, Theo at New York University).
• Similarly, the character Griffin Vesey (portrayed by Doug E. Doug) from Cosby was a surrogate son to Bill Cosby's character on that series. Griffin eventually became a teacher, as Ennis aspired to do.

In many ways, Theo Huxtable and Griffin Vesey were intended to be reflections of Ennis Cosby.

• In one of his early standup routines (later released in theaters as Raw), Eddie Murphy mentioned Ennis Cosby as part of a sketch involving his father; Ennis was said to be a fan of Murphy's.

He was also a Sunday school teacher in the Bronx.

• Hello Friend/Ennis William Cosby Foundation
• Convicted Killer of Ennis Cosby Confesses

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