Officials of the Sebastopol Office of the Russia’s Investigative Committee together with criminalists of the Committee's Central Office have solved a series of murders of women committed between 2009 and 2015 in Nakhimovsky, Laninsky and Gagarinsky districts of Sebastopol.

According to investigators, on 18 January 2009, a dead body of a 60-year-old woman was found in Admiral Makarov Street in Nakhimovsky district. It was revealed that she had been attacked late in the evening on a bus stop and died from strangulation. The crime remained unsolved for a long time. On 23 December 2014, a dead body of a 20-year-old university student was found in Victory Park. The circumstances of death were the same – she had been choked at nighttime on a bus stop. On 1 September 2015, a 37-year-old woman was found strangled to death in Khrustalyov Street in Leninsky district. As in all other cases some jewelry had been stolen from the woman.

Investigating the crimes of 2014 and 2015, employees of the Investigative Committee's Forensic Directorate together with criminalists of the Sebastopol Office dug into all unsolved murders committed in previous years. They divided them into categories of place and way of murder, characteristics of victims, studied thoroughly each one of the crimes. New forensic tests were run for the majority of the cases unsolved by Ukrainian authorities using advanced techniques and forensic equipment not available in Sebastopol at the time.

This way, in the case of the murder of 60-year-old woman a DNA test was run at the laboratory of the Forensic Directorate. Using cutting-edge forensic equipment genetics specialists of the Investigative Committee's Central Office found traces and layers of a person that had not been found out in 2009. The similar DNA was found on the scenes of the two crimes mentioned above. The investigators again checked all people who had gotten attention of Ukrainian investigators in 2009. Based on all data, that are not disclosed in the interest of the investigation, the investigators made a conclusion that one and the same person had been involved in all three crimes.

On 21 January 2016, the suspect was detained with the assistance of operative services. He is a 34-year-old resident of Sebastopol, employed in construction, with a family with two children. He has no previous police records. In 2009, during the investigation in the murder of the 60-year-old woman he was a person of interest, but had been released due to the lack of evidence.

The suspect was detained as a result of committed work aimed at solving the crimes of past years. This is the work that enabled investigators with active assistance of criminalists of the Investigative Committee's Central Office to solve thousands of complicated and tangled crimes all over the country. Expertise of the investigators and the use of modern forensic equipment allowed finding and gathering evidence of the suspect’s involvement in the murders of women in Sebastopol. At present, the investigators are preparing a request to remand the suspect in custody pending trial. In addition, the investigators are going to check if the suspect was involved in other similar crimes.

Head of Media Relations                                                                                                                                  V.I. Markin