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The jury have recognized the evidence gathered by the Main Investigations Directorate of the Russia’s Investigative Committee sufficient to return a verdict to Valery Sidlyar. He was found guilty of crimes under paragraphs “a” and “c” of part 2 of article 105 (murder of two children) and paragraph “c” of part 3 of article 132 of the RF Penal Code (sex abuse).

In May 2007 two bodies of slaughtered girls aged 3 and 8 were found in the woods not far from the town of Taganrog in the Rostov Region. From the very beginning the investigation was supervised by the Chairman of the Russia’s Investigative Committee. On his order the case was passed over to one of the best and most experienced investigators of the Main Investigations Directorate. After that the probe began to move forward, the investigators managed to find and prosecute the perpetrator.

Some biological traces were found on one of the bodies allowing finding the DNA of a man possibly involved in the crime. For four years investigators tried to find a match among the men in the town of Taganrog, the Rostov Region and neighboring regions. Over that period more than 10 thousand expert examinations were run. Along with that version the investigators also looked into possibility that the biological trace had been left by someone not connected with the crime. Of all the men checked during the investigation attention was drawn to a resident of Taganrog matching most of the distinctive marks. Thanks to consistent and careful work the investigators were able to establish his involvement in the crime. It was Valery Sidlyar, a self-employed taxi driver.

The investigators and court found that in autumn 2005, near one of the schools in Taganrog Sidlyar met a 6-year-old girl and during two years sexually abused her multiple times. Sidlyar intentionally chose his victim from a single-parent problem family, who couldn’t tell about the crimes. On 20 May 2007, the man met that girl on a walk with her 3-year-old sister. He decided to kill both of them. He put the girls in his car and set off for the woods. On his way he changed the cars. He led the girls deep into the forest and there beat them one after another. He hit him bashed the girls with his hands and stones, he had got ready in advance. The girls died on the spot. To turn the investigation on a wrong way and feign a rape Sidlyar injured the older girl in her genitals and planted biological traces of another man on her underwear and body. Then he changed clothes and got away on his car. The bodies were found shortly by two students, who witnessed the crime. They gave detailed description of the man.

It should be said that Sidlyar was checked as a possible murderer during the first month of the probe, but his DNA did not matched the one found on the crime scene. In addition, at the moment of the crime his cell phone was working somewhere else. Later it was found that Sidlyar had though over all tiniest details and gave one of his phones to an acquaintance of his telling to speak on it all the time. To find proves of Sidlyar’s guilt, the investigator went through every detail in his biography, starting from school, army service and work and ending with his interests and hobbies. After that the investigators held several identification parades. Even four years later the two students confidently recognized the man as the murderer and a man recognized him as the man going out from the forest after the murder. Besides, the investigator studied all the footage from all cameras on all nearby traffic police checkpoints and found photos of the Sidlyar’s car where the girl he had sexually abused several days before the murder, was sitting next to him. Thanks to careful work the investigators also found the pictures made by the two students with the Sidlyar’s car on the background. Forensic tests confirmed that the two girls had been in the car. This way the investigators restored each minute of Sidlyar’s movements that day and a full picture of the crime.

The court will pass a sentence based on the jury’s verdict.

Head of Media Relations                                                                                                     V.I. Markin