Killer Confesses After 19 Years to Strangling and Burning Schoolgirl

Eleven-year-old Lyuba from the village of Otradnoye, near Nizhny Tagil, has no grave. Nothing remains of the curly-haired schoolgirl. In 2007, the killer took her to a deserted place and strangled her in his car. He doused the dead girl with gasoline and set her on fire in the forest. For three hours, he tried to dispose of her body. The remains that survived the fire he brought home and burned further in his bathhouse, breaking bones with a poker. And in the morning, he scattered Lyuba«s ashes over the Chusovaya River.

For many years, no one except a resident of a neighboring village, Sergei Berezovich, knew what happened to her. It was he who killed the schoolgirl and kept the secret for almost two decades. During this time, the man sold his house in the village and moved with his family to another region, where he lived peacefully until 2023, when he ended up in the dock for another crime.

Once in prison, Berezovich unexpectedly confessed to Lyuba«s murder and wrote a confession. The confession was a shock to his relatives, who were unaware of the dark past of the family head.

We spoke with the killer«s daughter and visited the village where they still remember how schoolgirl Lyuba disappeared.

«They Said the Gypsies Took Her»

Lyuba disappeared on May 10, 2007: she left home at nine in the evening and did not return. The schoolgirl with short curly hair was declared missing, and operational reports noted that the girl stuttered.

After 19 years, her classmate told E1.RU that Lyuba had problems not only with speech.

«She was a kind child, but special. They say about such children – children with a certificate. But I don»t know if she had a diagnosis. She seemed cheerful, always positive, but didn«t befriend anyone, always kind of in herself. She sat alone at the back desks,» said Lyuba«s classmate.

Lyuba studied poorly, lagged behind her peers, and what she did after school – none of her classmates really knew. Sergei Berezovich, who was already 44 at the time, was never seen by the children near the girl.

«We never heard that she was hanging out with men anywhere. There was no hint of vulgarity. She didn»t behave in a way to attract a man. She was just a child,« said Lyuba»s classmate.

When Lyuba disappeared without a trace, there was a commotion throughout the village. Investigators opened a criminal case under the article «Abduction.» Rumors spread through the school that the girl had gone to Moscow. Among the neighbors, there were other versions.

«They said that the Gypsies took her or her mother sold her somewhere. Their family was troubled. She grew up without a father, Vera raised her alone, always beat her. The girl was unwanted, lived on her own, one could say. She was always running around the streets alone,» said a neighbor of the family.

In the house where the schoolgirl lived, her older brother now lives with his family. Alexei refused to communicate with journalists. It is known that he accepted Berezovich«s apologies in court and did not demand compensation for moral damage from him.

The girl«s mother, Vera Gennadyevna, did not live to see the verdict for her daughter»s murderer. She died several years ago.

Why an Adult Man Killed the Girl

Sergei Berezovich served in emergency services and retired early due to length of service. By 2007, he was already on pension and started his own business in the village of Nikolo-Pavlovsk – he was engaged in electrical installation work.

He had a family, a wife and an adult daughter, when he became involved with 11-year-old Lyuba and corrupted the schoolgirl. This was before her disappearance. The girl«s mother wrote a statement to the police, and a case was opened against Berezovich, and Lyuba began to blackmail him. According to Sergei, she demanded money, otherwise threatened to report new harassment.

«Berezovich explained that the intent to commit the crime arose spontaneously, during a conflict with the victim,» said Berezovich«s lawyer Larisa Sekisova. »During the conflict, the victim began to scream, squeal, which provoked strong negative emotions in Berezovich.«

For corrupting Lyuba, Berezovich was convicted in the same 2007 and given a suspended sentence. He was not even suspected in connection with the girl«s disappearance. After seven years, he sold his house in the village and moved with his family to the Krasnodar region. His relatives had no idea what past he was fleeing from Tagil.

That Sergei killed the schoolgirl, he confessed only in 2023, when the Crimean court sent him to prison for lewd acts against another child.

«He No Longer Exists in My Life»

Berezovich«s daughter was 18 when Lyuba died. That the girl from the neighboring village was killed by her dad, she learned as an adult woman. In a conversation with E1.RU, Sergei»s daughter admitted that his testimony was a real blow to her.

«Honestly, I didn»t know anything, because in 2007 I was a teenager,« Berezovich»s daughter told E1.RU. «Now, for me, my father is dead. He no longer exists in my life.»

In court, Berezovich did not explain what made him confess to Lyuba«s murder. Cellmates told investigators that in the detention center, he asked them about the statute of limitations for such crimes and consulted whether he could avoid punishment. Speaking with his last word at the hearing, he asked not to be held criminally responsible.

Despite the fact that many years had passed since the murder, experts found traces of Lyuba«s DNA on the covers of the very car where Sergei strangled her. He did not sell his »Volga,« which helped investigators gather evidence of his guilt.

«The solving of the crime was facilitated by the improvement of forensic techniques, which allowed for examinations, including molecular-genetic, after a long time,» said Dmitry Trofimov, assistant prosecutor of the Prigorodny district of Sverdlovsk region.

For Lyuba«s murder, Berezovich faces up to 23 years in prison – such a term was requested by the state prosecutor (taking into account that Sergei is already serving time for another crime). The Prigorodny court in Nizhny Tagil will sentence him today, January 27.

All news on this topic we collect in a special section.