The Leningrad Region investigating bodies of the Russia’s Investigative Committee continue investigation in a crime under part 1 of article 105 of the RF Penal Code (murder) following disappearance of Head of Vsevolzhsk Office of the Leningrad Region Directorate of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadaster and Cartography Natalya Zakharova on 29 September 2015.
In the morning of 14 October 2015, four searches were conducted and five suspects were detained during a massive joint operation of Investigative Committee investigators and officials of the Crime Detection Department of Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad Region Main Office of the Russian Ministry of the Interior. The suspects are 3 ambulance drivers Mikhail Sorokin, Alexander Smirnov and Andrey Ivanov, ER medical assistant Vadim Kharvatov and local resident Vladimir Toldov.
On the same day, in addition to the suspects, Yulia Novodenskaya-Zhulidova, a former employee of the Vsevolzhsk Office of the Leningrad Region Directorate of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadaster and Cartography was also held. The investigators revealed that she had been an instigator of the crime. She had informed the suspects that there was a large sum of money in Zakharova’s flat and had provided them with some other information on the victim.
According to investigators, the crime had been planned since July 2015, and was carefully prepared. In the morning of 29 September, the accomplices abducted Zakharova on her way from her building to the parking lot. They used her keys to steal about 3 million rubles from her flat.
Then, the suspects strangled Zakharova and took her body to the town of Kronstadt and buried on one of the beaches. Later, when they started to fear that somebody might find the body, they reburied it in a swamp in Vsevolzhsk District, Leningrad Region.
The body was found and identified by Zakharova’s relatives during a search operation involving one of the accomplices.
The investigators classified the actions of the said individuals as abduction (paragraphs “a” and “h” of part 2 of article 126 of the RF Penal Code) and murder (paragraphs “c”, “g” and “h” of part 2 of article 105 of the RF Penal Code), and grand theft (paragraph “b’ of part 4 of article 158 of the RF Penal Code) committed by a group of people in conspiracy.
At the present time a court is considering requests made by investigators to remand the suspects in custody pending trial.
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