The perpetrators were identified after 27 years. The SK revealed the details of the case of the murder of a young Minsk woman

In January 1999, a bloody 20-year-old girl with more than 20 stab wounds was found near one of the residential buildings in Minsk on the Avenue of the Newspaper "Izvestia" (in 2005 it was renamed into the Avenue of the Newspaper "Zvyazda"). The criminal case of murder had different versions, but it was not immediately possible to solve the crime. Almost three decades later, the perpetrators were found. About how this crime was solved, said the senior investigator of the investigative Department of the UCK in Minsk Alexander Markevich, writes BelTA.

The victim was a 20-year-old Minsk woman who rented an apartment in one of the houses of the Moscow district. Investigators later found that the girl was engaged in illegal currency exchange. It was the large sums of cash she regularly carried in her bag that brought her into trouble.

A resident of Minsk for some time was hunted by a company of local guys. They were 15, 17 and 22.

“They calculated her habits, studied the route,” notes Alexander Markevich. In the place where the victim lived, at that time there were deaf yards with a lot of trees. Because the terrain was poorly visible, the attackers felt superior to the victim.”.

On January 16, 1999, around 19:00, when it was already winter darkness, the guys waited for the Minsk woman to enter the entrance, and followed her. On the stairs, the 22-year-old and 17-year-old accomplices tried to snatch the girl’s bag. She started screaming desperately and calling for help.

The youngest of the attackers, a 15-year-old, found the screams too dangerous for their criminal case. Fearing that the neighbors would run to the noise, he, without colluding with the others, took out a knife and decided to get rid of the victim, causing her more than 20 stab wounds. The other two, according to the investigator, did not participate in the murder.

A fatally wounded Minsk woman from the last forces was able to get out of the entrance and fell on the street a few meters from the entrance.

Confession years later

The reason for the reopening of the investigation in 2026 was the candid confession to the crime of one man. At the time of his confession, he was serving a life sentence in prison for another crime - triple murder. He was 17 years old in 1999.

The police understood that these statements must be carefully checked. To begin with, it was necessary to find the other accomplices that the man indicated in the confession. The eldest of them lived in Mogilev, and the youngest worked as a trucker and at the time of the resumption of the investigation was on another flight, so it was necessary to wait for his return to Belarus. However, both were soon arrested.

Working with suspects

At first, the detainees did not want to cooperate with the investigation and denied their participation in the crime. But in the end, under the weight of the evidence collected and the testimony of their accomplice, they confessed to the crime. Nevertheless, they said cautiously, maximizing their role.

“It would be strange to expect another from them, each of the three had previously been convicted of murders committed after 1999,” he said.

After that, an important stage of the investigation was the verification of testimony on the spot.

“We placed extras to accurately restore the events: where the elder stood, where the victim was, where the killer was,” says Alexander Markevich. And when the youngest of the attackers demonstrated exactly where he had stabbed, these places exactly coincided with the wounds recorded in the forensic report back in 1999.

Despite the long period of time since the crime, the memory of the killer was accurate. He calmly showed how he and his accomplices entered the entrance, how they snatched a bag and how he, fearing exposure, struck blow after blow. The killer appeared before law enforcement officers completely cold man. Given that the defendant for so many years concealed it, he forced himself to treat the crime completely indifferent. In his eyes, investigators noticed no remorse or regret.

Investigating the crime, law enforcement officers also studied the organization of the group. The oldest of the guys came to the capital from Mogilev in the 1990s, so he felt like a stranger in the new city. Two other young men had known each other for a long time, they grew up in nearby porches. The average of them accidentally met a visiting neighbor and invited him to the company.

Interestingly, the leader of the criminal trio was the youngest participant. Leadership in the group he won aggressiveness and assertiveness of character.

Justice without statute of limitations

Thus, after 27 years, the picture of the crime was restored, and the names of the perpetrators were named.

“Dealing with criminal cases of past years requires a special professional approach. The investigator needs not only to examine the materials thoroughly, but also to restore the logic of the investigation conducted by colleagues many years ago: to understand what circumstances were established, what versions were checked and what questions remained open. To reconstruct the picture of the crime that happened years ago, I, for example, go to the place of its commission, even if it has changed a lot. Such work helps to more accurately present the circumstances of the event and determine the directions of further investigation, said Alexander Markevich.

Investigators and operatives regularly check traces on databases, study new information that comes from citizens, colleagues from other regions, from archives. The Department of the Investigative Committee for Minsk is constantly analyzing and evaluating this work, taking comprehensive measures to identify criminals aimed at restoring justice and implementing the principle of inevitability of punishment for each person who has violated the law.