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low-yield murder |
"skull-brain trauma" |
podyezd |
really stupid criminal |
children |
Russian Sports Connection |
murder-suicide |
cries for help ignored |
"investigation continuing" |
carved up like a turkey |
related to victim's job |
cannibalism |
riddled with bullets |
old people |
Four-Ball Murder
Moscow's hired killers are becoming like professional jugglers, bored with the traditional three-object act, looking for new variations to keep 'em coming. It's not as easy as it sounds: already these guys are juggling the same five or six story elements over and over again. Commercial director on his way home, TT pistol, shadowy podyezd location, fruitless police investigation, 9-12 p.m. murder time-these are lot of elements to keep in the air already. In any case, Sunday, May 24 marked the first time in anyone's memory that a Moscow killer doubled up on one of his story elements, shooting not one, but two different, entirely unrelated directors of commercial firms at the same time.
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| "I don't see what the moustache has to do with it." |
The rest of the story was as usual: A Sunday night, about 10 p.m., in a podyezd (outside an elevator, to be exact), silence broken by three muffled shots from a TT pistol. According to police, the killer had been waiting outside the elevator door in a fashionable Evro-remonted apartment building on Kutuzovsky Prospekt for one of two people: either "Rapid-1" director Vladimir Dotsenko or "Promfin" director Yuri Bushev. As it turned out, however, both men returned home at the same time and got on the elevator together. The killer, faced with both of them, decided not to risk it and shot both. Dotsenko was killed with one shot, while Bushev was hit twice but only badly wounded. Police have yet to determine who the intended victim was, but believe the shooting may somehow have been connected with the financial activities of one of the two men. The investigation is, as they say, continuing.
The Old-Fashioned Way
And now for an old-fashioned murder. Enough of this sneaky hanging around in doorways and crawling through bushes. Want to kill someone? Just climb through the window of an apartment and shoot absolutely everyone in sight! That's the way it went last Thursday on Kostromskaya Ulitsa, when an unknown assailant climbed through the window of an apartment belonging to the Chicherov family, killed one and shot two. The victim was 25 year-old Irina Chicherova, while her parents were both seriously injured when they were shot in their beds.
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| "I don't know why I'm on this page, but it sure feels neat!" |
According to Moskovsky Komsomolets, the killer entered Irina's room, shot her with a silenced Walther pistol, then went into her parents room and shot up the place. Leaving two pistols on the floor, he then walked out the front door, leaving the elder Checherova to crawl on her hands and knees to her neighbors' apartment. Police were called and both parents were saved due to the wonders of modern medical science. Police now say Irina, who worked for the newspaper "Sovietsky Sport", was probably the intended victim, since she hung out at bars a lot and reportedly once dated a member of the Kuntsevskaya criminal gang. Although, on the other hand, they don't really know. But there is still hope the whole mess will eventually be cleared up, since the investigation is continuing.
It Sounds Like Bullshit
And maybe it is, but the magazine Dorozhny Patrul swears it's so, so...In any case, this story belongs to the hot new genre of "Maim the Accountant on Payday" stories, which started to appear in the papers with increasing frequency last year. This one took place on Semyenovsky Val on Friday, May 22, outside the offices of a still-unidentified commercial firm located in the area. According to the magazine, two members of Company X's accounting staff were on their way back to work carrying a box containing 400,000 new rubles, or the monthly salaries for the entire staff. No sooner had they exited their car when two masked men with guns ordered them to get down on the ground and lie face up while they robbed the car. For good measure, the culprits shot the legs of the two victims before they searched the vehicle, then as they fled, they shot in their general direction a few more times. And here's where the story stops sounding like just another run-of-the-mill
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| "Well, no wonder we broke down. The frigging van's been running on blood the whole time!" |
shooting-accountants-in-broad-daylight-on-Semyenovsky-Val story and begins to sound like fifteen-gallon bullshit. According to police, one of the last shots the crooks fired hit vic. #1 in the chest and lodged-get this-in his wallet. If it hadn't been for that wallet, police said, the accountant would have died. Hey, we believe it. Police, believe it or not, do not exclude the possibility that the criminals knew of the payday money delivery beforehand. However, who knows: the investigation is continuing.
The Investigation Is Not Continuing
In fact, nothing is continuing. The world is stuck in a violent Hegelian cycle of conflict and synthesis and there's not a fucking thing we can do about it. Even 34 year-old army Lieutenant Colonels aren't excluded. Thesis: After a drinking binge in your office at the Cheryemushki regional army base, you walk outside and spot a bouncy little twelve year-old girl entering a podyezd in an apartment building on Ulitsa Kedrova. You're drunk and horny and nearly out of control, but you know it's wrong. You must retain control. Antithesis: To hell with control! The beauty of life is to be found in the irrational. Right and wrong are arbitrary notions imposed by people with limited imaginations.
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| "I'll be up in just a minute, I promise. Just let me move this police vehicle off my bullet-ridden head..." |
Besides, you're a high-ranking officer, and no one will ever suspect you. So you enter the podyezd, follow the little girl into the elevator, and start strangling her. But then, just before you kill her, you get a better idea; take her outside under threat of death and bring her to a deserted garage area, where you rape her. From there, you bring her home, rape her some more, then finally release her, telling her that you'll kill her if she talks. That should be enough, right? Synthesis: Wrong. She tells her parents that very day, and before you can say "Voyenniy Sud" you've been picked up and charged with child rape. You are now, in June 1998, on trial and are looking at twenty years. Your life is changed forever. So is the little girl's. No further investigation is necessary.
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