Man confesses to murdering schoolgirl 19 years ago in Ural village

Eleven-year-old Lyuba from the village of Otradny, 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 this way. The remains that survived the fire were brought home and burned further in his bathhouse, breaking the bones with a poker. In the morning, he scattered Lyuba«s ashes over the Chusovaya River.

For many years, no one except Sergey Berezovich, a resident of a neighboring village, knew what had happened to her. He was the one 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.

After ending up in a colony, Berezovich unexpectedly confessed to Lyuba«s murder and wrote a confession statement. The admission came as a shock to his relatives, who had no idea about the family head»s dark past.

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

«They Said Romani People Took Her»

Lyuba disappeared on May 10, 2007: she left home at nine in the evening and never returned. The schoolgirl with short curly hair was declared missing, and operational reports noted that the girl stuttered.

19 years later, her classmate told E1.RU that Lyuba«s problems weren»t only with speech.

«She was a kind child, but special. People say such children have special needs. But I don»t know if she had a diagnosis. She seemed cheerful, always positive, but didn«t befriend anyone, always somewhat withdrawn. 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. The children never saw Sergey Berezovich, who was already 44 at the time, near the girl.

«We never heard of her hanging around with men. There was no vulgarity about her. She didn»t behave in a way to attract men. She was just a child,« said Lyuba»s classmate.

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

«They said Romani people took her or her mother sold her somewhere. Their family was troubled. She grew up without a father, Vera raised her alone, and always beat her. She was a girl nobody needed, lived on her own, you could say. She was always running alone in the streets,» said a family neighbor.

In the house where the schoolgirl lived, her older brother and his family have now settled. Alexey refused to communicate with journalists. It is known that he accepted Berezovich«s apologies in court and did not seek compensation for moral damages 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

Sergey Berezovich served in emergency services and retired early. 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 got involved with 11-year-old Lyuba and molested the schoolgirl. This was before her disappearance. The girl«s mother filed a report with the police, and a case was opened against Berezovich, and Lyuba started blackmailing him. According to Sergey, she demanded money, otherwise threatening 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 started screaming, screeching, which provoked strong negative emotions in Berezovich.«

For molesting Lyuba, Berezovich was convicted in the same 2007 and given a suspended sentence. He wasn«t even suspected of involvement in the girl»s disappearance. Seven years later, he sold his house in the village and moved with his family to Krasnodar Krai. His relatives had no idea what past he was fleeing from in Tagil.

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

«He Doesn»t Exist in My Life«

Berezovich«s daughter was 18 when Lyuba died. That the girl from a neighboring village was killed by her dad, she learned as an adult woman. In a conversation with E1.RU, Sergey»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, father has died. 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 pre-trial detention center, he asked them about statutes of limitations for such crimes and consulted on whether he could avoid punishment. Speaking his last word at the hearing, he asked not to be held criminally liable.

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

«The solving of the crime was aided by the improvement of forensic techniques, which allowed for examinations to be conducted after a long time, including molecular-genetic ones,» said Dmitry Trofimov, assistant prosecutor of the Prigorodny District of Sverdlovsk Region.

For Lyuba«s murder, Berezovich faces up to 23 years in a colony— such a term was requested by the state prosecutor (taking into account that Sergey is already serving time for another crime). The Prigorodny Court in Nizhny Tagil will deliver his verdict today, January 27.

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