Father admits killing three-year-old in Kuban
The man took the child from her mother before the reported disappearance.
In Krasnodar Krai, three-year-old Lyuda (name changed) from the stanitsa Arkhangelskaya (Cossack village; Krasnodar Krai, Russia, near Kropotkin) disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Her mother reported the child missing to the police. The girl was listed as missing in Kropotkin — 40 kilometers from her home. It soon emerged that the missing child’s father was clearly hiding something. Here is what is known about the complicated case.
Could not walk or speak
On 19 September in the city of Kropotkin, Kavkazsky District (Krasnodar Krai), a mysterious disappearance occurred: a little girl was lost. Where could she have gone? Where were her parents? How and where could they have left such a tiny child? There were more questions than answers.
Search teams search the river and shore, but the girl’s body remains unrecovered.
In the search bulletin distributed by the volunteer squad «Yug» (Volunteer Squad «Yug» — “South”), it was stated that the red-haired Lyuda at the time of her disappearance was wearing a red jacket and pink pants. Volunteers and local residents set out to look for her.
Shortly afterward, the story of the three-year-old’s disappearance began to acquire decidedly unusual details. At the time she went missing, Lyuda was barefoot. And she could not have ended up in Kropotkin on her own because of her disability. The girl required constant medical attention; she could not walk or speak. Doctors had diagnosed her with cerebral palsy.
The father did not drink or smoke
The girl was growing up in a large family. Lyuda’s parents were in a common-law relationship (not recognized by law as marriage). Together they raised two teenagers from previous marriages and two children in common — Lyuda and another girl.
Neighbors say the man did not live with his common-law wife and the children, but he visited periodically, helping with home repairs. The man himself, according to neighbors, worked as a taxi driver, did not drink, and did not smoke, writes «KP-Kuban» (Komsomolskaya Pravda–Kuban, KP).
On the third day after the search began, it became known that the girl was dead. Her father became the suspected killer. He was the last person to see the child alive. Later, during questioning, the 50-year-old man would make a shocking confession.
At the first interrogation, however, Aleksandr told investigators a story asserting his noninvolvement, constructing an alibi. He was allegedly taking the disabled child to a fortune-teller. He told the child’s mother the same thing, promising he would go to a znakharka (folk healer) in Kavkazsky District.
After returning home without the girl, he said the child had supposedly been abducted and he had been beaten. When he came to, Lyuda was no longer there. The mother believed her husband, and together they went to the police to report the disappearance. But events then took a different turn. Aleksandr’s account was too muddled, full of inconsistencies, and there were no signs of a severe beating on his face.
Put into a sugar sack
Soon his version collapsed, and he changed his testimony. During another interrogation, the man admitted to the crime. He told investigators that he killed the child with several blows of a stone to the head and, placing the body in a sugar sack, disposed of it by throwing it into the Kuban River.
Some volunteers had doubted from the outset the kidnapping story and believed the man killed the girl because she was crying loudly. While he was still at liberty, he even approached searchers himself to ask whether they had found the body.
In detention, the man appears subdued while awaiting further investigative and judicial procedures.
Later, behind bars in the courtroom, Aleksandr admitted he committed the crime because his daughter «was very ill». He added that he regretted what he had done immediately after the act. He will spend the coming weeks in a SIZO pre-trial detention center.
Local residents assist rescuers and divers in the continuing river search operations.
As of 24 September, the body of three-year-old Lyuda had still not been found. Divers continue to survey the Kuban River, and rescuers together with volunteers are combing the shoreline.
The girl’s father has been charged under point «v» of part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (UK RF) — murder of a minor. He faces up to life imprisonment.
