When you are a law-abiding, kind, person it’s hard to understand someone who seems to have been born evil, heartless, selfish, and without compassion. The woman in this case ticks all the boxes.
She was born in Russia, later moved to the United States. As a young woman, she befriended an elderly neighbor. The neighbor and her daughter who lived in the US spoke on the phone daily.
When her daughter thought about her recent conversations with her mother, her mother had told her about the young woman who lived next door. In one of their calls, her mother told her, the neighbor was going to the US and would take her daughter some gifts from her mother—two mink coats (a Russian thing) and over $6,000.
Then the neighbor kept postponing her trip but didn’t return the coats or the money to the elderly woman. The mother was growing concerned that the young woman had ripped her off—so to speak. Then the daughter was told the neighbor would be returning the coats and the money the next day. That was the last conversation with her mother.
The next day, when she called her mother, her mother didn’t answer. The daughter felt concerned. After two days passed without her speaking with her mother, she called the last phone number to call her mother’s phone (from her call log the daughter had access to)—the young neighbor answered.
She asked the young neighbor about her mother. The neighbor told the daughter her mother had gone on a trip with a friend. She knew that was a lie.
The daughter took a leave of absence from work and went to Russia to check on her mother. She found her mother not home, but her home was in order. Next, she asked the neighbor to meet her outside. When the neighbor approached, the daughter hugged her tight and told her … she’d choke her to death if she didn’t tell her where her mother was.
Of course, the neighbor claimed the elderly woman was alive, and she had done nothing to her. The daughter knew then that the young woman had killed her mother. She called the police. The police seemed to believe the woman that she’d done nothing wrong. Years later, the daughter found out the young woman had been in an intimate relationship with a police officer.
What further incriminated the neighbor in the eyes of the daughter was her mother’s life savings that she’d kept in a secret place in her home was gone—$50,000, family heirlooms, and expensive jewelry.
The daughter began her own investigation by posting flyers in town, searched for clues, checked hospitals, and drove roads looking for traffic cameras. She paid for copies of traffic camera videos and found the neighbor on a camera from a road leading out of town—with a person slumped in the front passenger seat. The camera recorded the neighbor on the first day the daughter tried unsuccessfully to call her mother.
She notified the police of the video footage and was surprised to learn they already had the video. They took the neighbor to the station, questioned her, and did a lie detector test. They released her. She fled Russia and headed to the US. They later learned she failed the test.
The daughter, back in the US, back at work, hired a private detective to find the neighbor who was hiding in the US. He did. And he found she had a new scam of meeting men with money, having sex at their home, poisoning them, and then stole anything of value. Lucky for her, none of her victims died and most of them were too embarrassed to report the crime.
It was when the young Russian met a woman who was similar in size and age and had similar features to her, she devised her plan to poison the friend and assume her identity.
The next day, a friend of the poisoned woman found her alive, unconscious, with pills around her appearing to have attempted suicide. Medics took her to the hospital where she recovered. She told the police the last thing she remembered was a friend brought her cheesecake. When they searched the victim’s apartment, they found items missing, including her passport. They also found the container the tainted cheesecake had been in with DNA matching the Russian woman.
The authorities arrested her. She went on trial. A jury found her guilty of attempted murder. A judge sentenced her to 21 years in prison.
The Supreme Court Justice who sentenced her said about her,
“She’s an extremely dangerous woman. Her scheme was diabolical.”
After she has served her time in the US, Russia would like US officials to send her to them to be tried for the murder of the missing mother. The Russians put out a Red Notice on the woman (similar to a Most Wanted List). They found the missing mother’s charred remains on the side of a road and identified her through her teeth.
Source: County District Attorney, New York Post, npr, CBS
All data and information provided is for information and research purposes only and not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, or individual. Criminal cases may have been appealed or verdicts overturned since I researched the case. All information is provided on an as-is basis.
Comments