Daughter recounts family violence after father kills and dismembers mother

Late in the evening, 58-year-old Sergei, a former merchant sailor, shot his wife, then dismembered her and tried to hide the remains in the Volga River and near a garage cooperative. He went to the police himself, not with a confession but to report his wife missing. However, he became confused in his statements and went from being the reporter to a suspect. In the end, Sergei fully admitted guilt.

Neighbors of the couple were in shock. Not only had none of them ever noticed conflicts between 58-year-old Sergei and 59-year-old Svetlana (name changed – Editor«s note), and they say that practically no one heard the sound of a gunshot on the night of 14 December. The couple was described as quiet and calm. Their 24-year-old daughter Marina (name changed – Editor»s note) strongly disagreed with these statements, telling what was really happening in the family, about her father«s difficult character, and her sense of guilt for not being able to save her mother, who had not been working recently due to health issues.

What happened?

A conflict between the spouses, according to law enforcement, occurred at their home on the evening of 14 December. Sergei shot his wife in the temple with an illegally stored «Osa» (Wasp) traumatic pistol. The woman died on the spot.

Deciding to hide the traces of the crime, Sergei dismembered his wife«s body, packaged the pieces into bags, then threw some of them into the Volga River and buried the rest on wasteland near a garage cooperative.

Two days later, trying to deflect suspicion from himself, Sergei went to the police, reporting that she had supposedly left home and not returned. During questioning, the reporter began to get confused in his statements, which aroused the police«s suspicion. He was detained and soon gave a confession.

In a video after his detention, he seems to be reading his confession from a paper:

— Why have you been detained?

— For murder.

— Who?

— I killed my wife by shooting her in the temple with a traumatic pistol. Then, frightened, I dismembered her, took her to the Volga River and tried to drown her there. I realized I couldn«t drown her: I took two parts to the garage area and hid them in a ravine, in the reeds.

A criminal case has been initiated against Sergei under Part 1 of Article 105 of the Russian Criminal Code (murder). The Kirovsky District Court has chosen a preventive measure: the man will remain in a pre-trial detention center until 16 February 2026.

«As if you«re faced with a psychopath, not your own father»

Marina is 24 years old. Since she was 19, she has lived in St. Petersburg, where she studied to become an environmental scientist. She communicated with her father extremely rarely and called her mother once a week.

— Apparently, we weren«t as close as families are supposed to be. Since I couldn»t predict the murder, — says Marina. — In reality, everything was not as rosy as the neighbors describe. It«s very bad that my parents seemed quiet to everyone. It»s that generation that «doesn»t air its dirty laundry in public.« Even in childhood, it happened that my mother and I had to suddenly leave the house at night. We would go out late at night and just swing on the swings for several hours. And that happened many times. I didn»t understand anything then. When I grew up, she explained to me: Dad is a binge drinker. When I was about 18, I myself saw him «catching the white mice» a couple of times (having hallucinations from alcohol). It was very scary: a person in an insane state, with red, furious eyes, trying to prove hysterically how much he loves you and your mother and how you don«t deserve him. As if you»re faced with some kind of psychopath, not your own father.

When Marina was 18, her parents divorced. A year later, the girl left for the «Northern Capital» (St. Petersburg) — by that time her father had already retired and wasn«t working anywhere.

— After moving to St. Petersburg, I moved into a dormitory, and for two years my father had nowhere to live. He bought an apartment here and was able to move out from my mother«s. While I lived in the dorm, he was doing renovations all that time and wasn»t drinking — maybe only when he went to my mother«s for the New Year or in the summer when he helped her at the dacha. Then, most likely, he would start all his drinking sprees again. I»m sure: all of my mother«s close friends know that dad loses control when he drinks. He was such a difficult person that when we were together in St. Petersburg, I complained to my mother, said I couldn»t live with him and we needed to do something, I planned to get a mortgage. Apparently, he heard these conversations and went to live with my mother, moving in simply on a precarious footing. I even rented my own apartment to not live with him — and this was during his sobriety.

«She couldn«t abandon him. She felt sorry for him...»

After Sergei returned to Volgograd and began living with Svetlana again, Marina saw him extremely rarely.

— I was last in Volgograd about a year ago. I saw my father in the summer, at my graduation. It«s great, of course, that he seemed good to everyone, but about what was going on at home, I can only guess. I blame myself for not being able to get my mother to move to St. Petersburg. I offered several times, said there was a place if she couldn»t live with him. But she couldn«t, because in Volgograd she had friends, relatives, a dacha. She didn»t really like the St. Petersburg climate.

Although Sergei and Svetlana, after their divorce, lived together in an apartment on one of the streets of the Kirovsky District, their relationship, according to Marina, did not resemble that of a husband and wife in the usual sense.

— For a long time, they really had almost brother-sister relations while they cohabited. I probably also couldn«t have kicked a person out if they were that close to me, no matter how bad they were. Until the last moment you hope that it won»t happen to me: how could this person even commit murder? But you can«t think that everyone is good. Mom simply couldn»t throw him out of the apartment because she is a very kind and good person. She probably hadn«t loved him for a long time, but couldn»t abandon him, felt sorry for him. Perhaps she wasn«t as strong a woman as they raise now: »I should come first, I am my own person.« No. For my parents, my well-being once came first. Perhaps recently they lived together so as not to bother me, I don»t know.

«She was an unbearable person for him»

Marina doesn«t know exactly why her father committed murder, but she rejects some of the classic motives that are often assumed.

— I don«t think it»s even appropriate to talk about any kind of jealousy, because my mom really has a disability and an illness similar to lupus, — says Marina. — She always told me that her immune system was devouring itself. She had problems with her joints, psoriasis, and problems with her fingers: she even held a phone with difficulty. She often went to hospitals for IV drips. The neighbors said she was admitted to the hospital in the autumn: I hope it was some kind of planned inpatient stay, because I wasn«t let in on all the horrors. Mom, apparently, was protecting my mental health and didn»t tell me about all the conflicts.

Sergei came to the police station two days after the murder, on 16 December. The day before, Marina had spoken with him, and her father reassured her: Mom will return, everything will be fine. By that time, her mother was already dead.

— On Monday, when he was apparently solving the problems of hiding the body, I called him and cried. I said I was worried about my mom, asked him to file a report, — recalls Marina. — He said things like, yes, tomorrow-tomorrow, it«s already happened that she went somewhere, she»ll definitely come back at night, I«ll call you back, don»t worry. It turned out he was just lying, trying to «get off scot-free,» calming me down. At the same time, he said: «You have no idea what it»s like to live with such a person.« Mom was an unbearable person for dad. »You«ll be in my place — you»ll find out,« — something like that. Honestly, I don»t know what the last conflict was about, but I«m sure he was drunk.

Marina is currently in St. Petersburg but will return to Volgograd in the coming days. The girl hopes her father gets the maximum possible sentence for the crime he committed.

— I think the problem with this murder was only that dad has problems with his head. I know that alcohol brings a lot of trouble for the mind, but maybe it started earlier, I don«t know. It»s hard to believe that he could have actually planned the murder. I don«t want to go to prison to talk to him. I just hope that somehow, as if by magic, they can give him a longer sentence, because 15 years — that»s little for a murder charge. If he gets out, he can calmly continue to drink, nothing will stop him anymore, no moral principles. And he«ll also commit all sorts of crimes. I don»t know. Maybe he«ll even come to St. Petersburg and at some point want to kill me?