Ural Man Faces Trial for 2007 Murder of Schoolgirl

At the Prigorodny District Court of Nizhny Tagil, the parties gave their closing arguments in the criminal case concerning the murder of a minor committed 19 years ago. The defendant is local resident Sergei Berezovich.

According to the investigation, in May 2007 the man was in the village of Nikolo-Pavlovskoye. There, he quarreled with his 11-year-old acquaintance Lyuba and then strangled her inside his own car. To cover up the crime, Berezovich burned the girl«s body and threw the remains into a river. The case was investigated by the 4th Department for Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Investigative Committee for Sverdlovsk Region, which specializes in historical crimes.

«During the closing arguments, the state prosecutor asked the court to sentence Sergei Berezovich to 14 years in prison, or a total of 23 years in prison taking into account a sentence he is already serving for crimes against a minor,» the Sverdlovsk Regional Court clarified.

Berezovich had previously been convicted of lewd acts directed against the murdered schoolgirl and another underage victim. In his final statement, the defendant fully admitted guilt.

The prosecution states that after the murder, the man transported the corpse to a forest belt, having prepared two canisters of gasoline and a sheet of metal in advance. He burned the body on this sheet for 2–3 hours, constantly adding more flammable liquid. Berezovich then took the incompletely burned remains to his home and continued burning them in a bathhouse stove for another 4–5 hours, breaking the bones with a poker.

The verdict for Sergei Berezovich for the murder of the schoolgirl will be announced on January 27.

It is recalled that a similar crime occurred in Nyagan in 2011. The suspect in that case was only detained in 2025 in Pervouralsk.