Murderer of schoolgirl sentenced to 20 years in penal colony

In Sverdlovsk Oblast, a court has sentenced Sergei Berezovich, found guilty of murdering 11-year-old Lyuba from the settlement of Otradny near Nizhny Tagil. For this crime, he has been sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment in a strict-regime penal colony. The total term was set taking into account other offenses against minors.

The murder was committed in May 2007. Berezovich took the girl to a deserted place where he strangled her in his car. Then he doused the body with gasoline and set it on fire. He burned the remaining fragments in a sauna, crushing the bones with a poker. The next morning, the child«s ashes were scattered over a river. Lyuba»s body was never found, and for almost 19 years she was considered missing.

The investigation was only completed recently when Berezovich, already serving a sentence for other crimes, gave a confession.

The Investigative Department of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) for Sverdlovsk Oblast said: «As a result of painstaking work, we managed to identify the person involved in the girl»s disappearance and subsequent murder. Under the weight of the evidence presented, the accused gave a confession, detailing it during an on-site verification of his testimony.«

As the head of the press service of the Sverdlovsk regional police department, Valery Gorelykh, told, the convict had previously been convicted of crimes against children.

• In the 2000s, he received a suspended sentence for lewd acts against a minor.
• After moving to another region, he again committed a crime against the sexual integrity of a minor and in 2023 was sentenced to a long actual term of imprisonment.

In his final statement in court, Sergei Berezovich fully admitted his guilt in the murder of Lyuba.