Ryazan woman fights for 25 years to overturn murder conviction
On the outskirts of Sekirino village in Ryazan Oblast, near a picturesque forest and a church, lives Lyubov Vizenkina. Now she is an activist, helps her fellow villagers, and lives a measured life. But for more than 20 years, she has been trying to achieve justice—she served 7.5 years for a murder that, according to her, could have been committed by her partner Viktor Pchelkin—a possible member of the Slonovskaya gang.
Sekirino village is located 13 kilometers from Skopin and 110 kilometers from Ryazan.
Now Lyubov is trying to get her criminal case reviewed, but only receives formal replies. Journalists from YA62.RU investigated what is happening.
The Demon Arrived
Lyubov met Viktor Pchelkin at a young age—when she was 18. She worked as a milkmaid, and he often came to drink milk from the colony-settlement, which was in the neighboring village of Komsomolsky. There he was serving a sentence for another minor offense.
Over time, Pchelkin started paying attention to the girl: he brought chocolates or flowers that he picked by the river. And after his release from the colony, he showed up on Lyubov«s doorstep with a checkered bag.
«We didn»t discuss it. My relatives were against it because he had been in prison, but on the other hand, people end up in colonies for various reasons. When my grandmother saw Viktor, she said: «The demon has arrived,» he was all «blue»—covered in tattoos,« recalls Lyubov Vizenkina.
At first, life together went well, but the rose-colored glasses quickly shattered against reality. Viktor Pchelkin, according to Lyubov, often beat both her and the children.
«He had a daughter from his first marriage, Tanya; while he was serving his sentence, his mother took custody. I said it was wrong and the child should be with her father, visiting her stepmother. We took the girl, she studied here at school, but then we had to urgently take her away; he beat her too,» says Lyubov.
Viktor Pchelkin, the woman claims, displayed aggression very often.
«Want to see my back? It»s cut up and beaten; I was never out of bruises: either my head was split open or my ribs broken. And that«s still nothing,» stated Vizenkina.
«And that»s with all us women barely managing to fend him off. Otherwise, he«d toss us aside like kittens, and that»s it,« her sister Svetlana immediately adds.
Life divided into before and after in the spring of 2000. When the murder of a neighbor—Viktor Svetushkin, who was considered a well-off man in the village—occurred. He had his own farm and never spared feed for the villagers« animals.
Officially, Lyubov Vizenkina and Viktor Pchelkin were not married. But they have a common daughter—she is 25 years old. Lyubov voluntarily stopped communicating with her once she got an education—to «not ruin her life». The girl works in law enforcement structures, and her mother«s past could negatively affect her career.
After her release from the colony, Vizenkina worked as a security guard in Moscow. There she met her second husband—a retired Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) employee. This marriage is still full of love, and Lyubov gave birth to a second daughter. She is in the ninth grade.
«In One Hand a Knife, in the Other—Bloody Money»
According to Lyubov«s account, on the morning of the murder, she met Svetushkin on the street. He complained that Pchelkin was allegedly stealing meat from him and taking it to a moonshiner at the other end of Sekirino village.
After the unpleasant conversation, Vizenkina went to work, and when she returned a few hours later, she tried to ask her common-law husband why he was doing this. But the dialogue was short—Viktor Pchelkin, according to her, went to sort things out with the neighbor.
«He said it didn»t happen and went to deal with Uncle Vitya. I had already peeled potatoes and put them on to boil, milked the goat, but he [Viktor Pchelkin] was still not back. I went to see where he was. When I approached the house [of Svetushkin], I saw through the window that they were drinking. Fine, I turned around and went back; my little daughter was alone.
I walked home with small steps, it was slippery, and I heard the door slam. I turn around: Pchelkin has in one hand a Finnish knife, and in the other—bloody money. The road home was like a dream with gaps in memory,« recounts Lyubov Vizenkina her version.
But she remembers how on the way home Viktor Pchelkin asked her to take the blame. Saying that Lyubov had a newborn daughter, so no punishment would threaten her. Vizenkina kept refusing, and then, according to her, threats began.
«He said: »You will [take the blame]. Otherwise, the first one I«ll kill is your sister; I»ll twist her head off.« As if in a fog, we reached home, I start to undress, but he stops me, demands I get dressed. I take my daughter in my arms, and we go to my mother»s,« recalls Lyubov of that day.
According to Lyubov, after she gave her daughter to her mother, she returned home with Pchelkin. Immediately, he suggested going to Ryazan; she refused, but Viktor dragged her to the neighboring village of Chulkovo anyway.
«There used to be a store there, run by Artur: maybe Armenian or Georgian. I was piercing him with my gaze in hope that he would help me, since I couldn»t move anywhere. Most likely, he understood anyway and called the police. But maybe because there was blood on the stolen money. Pchelkin paid with it in the store,« remembers Lyubov Vizenkina.
The police arrived only the next day. They found Lyubov at home; she wasn«t hiding, but Viktor Pchelkin, as she tells it, hid in the attic. But they couldn»t find him, so only Vizenkina was taken to the station.
«They put me behind bars and then took me for interrogation. The detective leads me into the office, grabs me by the scruff like a kitten, and says: »Write a confession, you«ll get less time. Otherwise, your daughter will be taken to an orphanage, and you know yourself how it is there [Lyubov»s mother worked in an orphanage], think about your daughter.« And he grabs me by the scruff and slammed my head against the table—sparks flew from my eyes!» declared Lyubov.
Thus, as Lyubov Vizenkina claims, she wrote the first confessional statement, which was considered the most weighty. How to behave during the investigative experiment, according to the woman, Viktor Pchelkin had shown and told her in advance under threats.
Lyubov asserts that she took the blame out of fear for her relatives. No one could protect them, and the neighbors allegedly also feared Pchelkin and didn«t get involved.
«He terrorized the whole village! The old women here are still afraid of him, even when they see him on TV,» states Lyubov.
While under arrest, the resident of Ryazan Oblast tried to prove her innocence. But the first confessional statement by Vizenkina and the investigative experiment played a role. So the case went to court.
In court, the case was initially handled by a woman judge: she sent it back for further investigation several times. Later the judge changed, and the verdict for Lyubov Vizenkina was delivered almost immediately—10 years in a colony.
On parole (UDO — uslovno-dosrochnoe osvobozhdenie), Lyubov Vizenkina was released after seven years and six months.
By the way, Viktor Pchelkin was also sentenced in the same case. He served two years for the bloody money with which he imprudently paid in the local store.
«Day After Day I Wrote Requests to the Police»
In prison, Lyubov Vizenkina studied a lot: she completed secondary education in «master of construction and finishing works» and «master repairer of sewing equipment,» and also finished psychology courses.
While Lyubov was serving her sentence for murder, at home—in Sekirino village—her little daughter was waiting. She was under the guardianship of Vizenkina«s mother.
«From childhood, they drilled into her head: »You have such a mother.« Her sister takes her to kindergarten, and a man—a relative—takes a brick and throws it at them. Svetka shielded the child, but that»s still wrong. Children are not guilty of anything,« noted Lyubov Vizenkina.
And in general, she was very worried about her relatives.
«Day after day I wrote requests to the police, asking them to tell me if my relatives were alive. In Sekirino, I had left my mother, daughter, grandmother; I didn»t know what happened to them after Pchelkin«s threats,» says Vizenkina.
With about the same frequency, the heroine from the colony wrote applications for a case review, but received rejections. Vizenkina only had the article about stealing the bloody money removed after she wrote a letter to Vladimir Zhirinovsky.
But the «Murder» article remained until the very end.
«They Said He Was Dead»
After her release in 2008, Lyubov immediately went to the local MVD department. There they insisted that Viktor Pchelkin was dead, and a case review wouldn«t work. The woman believed it: after all, it was asserted not by some »random« person but by a law enforcement officer, so she didn»t write additional statements.
But everything changed in the fall of 2024, when the Ryazan woman saw her ex on Andrey Malakhov«s show. Lyubov»s current husband likes TV programs, and one such evening, she completely by chance saw a familiar face on a federal TV channel.
«I tell my husband: »Wait, wait, don«t switch.» He started to worry. I was white as a sheet; they said he was dead, but he«s alive [Viktor Pchelkin]! I found Tanya, his own daughter, online—we hadn»t communicated before—and thanked her for not being afraid to say on air that because of Pchelkin, another person served time—me,« recounts Lyubov Vizenkina.
Almost a year after that, Lyubov saw Viktor Pchelkin in person.
«You won»t believe it, my neighbor was in the hospital in Korablino. She fell and broke her leg in three places, and her husband asked me to bring some food. I went and was in shock! That two-meter hulk [Viktor Pchelkin] is walking, doing Nordic walking!« says Vizenkina.
In 2025, Lyubov Vizenkina personally appeared on Andrey Malakhov«s show and took a polygraph. Here are the questions asked there:
Are you lying when you say that Viktor beat his daughter Tatyana? No.
Are you lying when you say that Viktor beat his daughter Tatyana? No.
Did you invent the fact that Viktor Pchelkin beat you? No.
Were you in the house at the time of the murder? No.
Did you invent the fact that Viktor asked you to take the blame? No.
Did you invent the fact that Viktor threatened to kill your family? No.
Have you ever killed a person? Not one.
All answers, as announced in the TV program, were truthful. Viktor Pchelkin refused to take the polygraph.
What Is Happening with the Case Now?
When Lyubov Vizenkina confirmed that Viktor Pchelkin was alive, she after many years started writing applications. The first—demanding a review of the «pinned» case due to new circumstances—that her ex is alive. The second—about holding him accountable for threats to kill his daughter Tatyana.
The first appeal has been under consideration since March 2025, but there is no end in sight.
«Organize a check of the arguments presented in the appeal,» states the official response from the Investigative Committee dated July 30, 2025.
The investigator, according to Vizenkina, stopped responding to messages, and in official replies, the case is still under consideration. A check is being conducted.
Hope remains for oversight by the head of the Russian Investigative Committee, Alexander Bastrykin.
At the end of December 2025, he requested a report on the possible illegal prosecution of the Ryazan woman over 20 years ago.
«In a legal program on a federal TV channel, a story aired that in Ryazan Oblast over 20 years ago, a woman was allegedly illegally prosecuted for a murder that, according to her, was committed by her former cohabitant. Chairman of the Russian Investigative Committee Bastrykin A. I. instructed the head of the Investigative Directorate for Ryazan Oblast Vasilyev O. A. to present a report on the arguments of the story,» states the official message.
The documents are at the disposal of the YA62.RU editorial office.
In the second case, the initiation of a criminal case was refused first due to «the impossibility of establishing Pchelkin»s whereabouts,« although, according to Lyubov, he wasn»t even hiding. And when he was finally found, it was refused due to the absence of a criminal offense.
«His daughter started calling him [Pchelkin], writing, provoking and accusing him of all sins. Citizen Pchelkin did not want to communicate with his daughter, asked over the phone and in SMS for her to leave him alone and not approach. He did not express any threats to kill his daughter and former cohabitant,» such testimony from Viktor Pchelkin is cited in another refusal.
After almost 26 years, Lyubov Vizenkina wants to achieve justice, not monetary compensation.
«Truth should be truth. If some money is due, I don»t need it; it«s not even discussed. I have every right to defend my honest name, which I am doing. The old me could be broken, but the new one—cannot,» concluded Lyubov Vizenkina.
