A military town surrounded by a fence. Not far from the checkpoint, a young woman stands nervously fiddling with her scarf. A car drives up to her. The woman sighs with relief and sits in it. The car steps on the gas. Barely noticeable drops of blood remain on the road behind the car. Morning of December 31, 1993.
The city of Khabarovsk. Main Directorate of Internal Affairs for Khabarovsk Krai. A woman of about 60 years old staggers into the building and suddenly falls near the duty officer’s window. The police officers bring her to her senses. Of course, she came in such a depressed, depressed state. It seemed like , well, she didn’t even look her age, the age she was .
Panfilov Vladimir Vladimirovich, former head of the department of the Main Directorate of Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia. In the nineties, he worked as a senior detective in the criminal investigation department in the city of Khabarovsk. Her blood pressure jumped, she turned completely pale, and we were forced to interrupt our conversations.
We invited the doctor who was with us. Here. Well, the doctor brought her back to her senses. Zoya Nikolaevna Popova arrived from Krasnodar a few days ago to celebrate the New Year with her daughter’s family. But instead of a joyful meeting, a terrible blow awaited her. She learned that her Olga had disappeared without a trace , and most importantly, no one was looking for the woman.
To sort out the situation, the head of the department sends an operational team. A decision was made to start, as they say, the inspection from the very beginning. Missing Olga Lvovna Sentsova, 35 years old, city of birth Krasnodar. Lives in a military town in Khabarovsk Krai. Married, no children.
She works as a teacher in an elementary school. But where could Olga have disappeared to? After all, she knew that her mother was coming to visit her. Is it possible that her disappearance is connected with her husband’s work? He is a military man, holds a high position and is the bearer of valuable secret information.
Or the woman had an accident. So far, detectives have only questions and no answers. Three days later, Sentsov’s husband, Vadim Gennadievich, filed a missing persons report regarding Ol Sentsova. According to him, a search notice was drawn up . He provided a photograph of his wife. Vladimir Panfilov examines the status of the investigation and what steps local police have already taken .
Investigators called hospitals and morgues. No unidentified bodies were discovered during this period after her death. Not, as they say, in the area of responsibility of the railway police, which means in the area where she lived. When investigating a missing person case, calling the hospital morgue is a mandatory step.
The person may be unconscious or dead. Moreover, they call them several times at intervals of one day, because there is a chance that the person was not found and taken there immediately. In addition, the transport police were involved and notices were sent out throughout the Khabarovsk region. Photos of the wanted person are posted on the stand.
In the nineties, Gennady Eduardovich Nikiforov worked in the Moscow Department of Internal Affairs for railway transport. Let the stand be called: “The police are looking for them.” At that time, the police are looking for them, but at the bottom there is an explanation that this person is wanted for committing some crime, and this person left home and did not return.
On the same day, December 31, detective Panfilov goes to the apartment where the Sentsovs live and where the mother of the missing woman, Zoya Nikolaevna, is staying. There, the head of the family tells Panfil again about what the detective had already read in the case. Around 8:00 a.m.
on December 22, the officer was approaching the house, returning from a long training exercise, and saw his wife. He recognized her by her silhouette and clothes. The young woman was wearing blue jeans and a grey down jacket. She was in a hurry, almost running to the checkpoint. A military town is a special world. A territory separated from the rest of the country, separated by a fence. checkpoint posts.
Limanov Anton Aleksandrovich, military historian, publicist, author of books and articles about the Russian armed forces during the perestroika period. The disappearance of any resident of a military town is an emergency. The USSR ceased to exist in 1991. At that time, Soviet troops numbered about 4 million people.
In May 1992, the number of army personnel was already estimated at less than 3 million servicemen. Life in military units began to change. Funding has been cut sharply. In some garrisons, officers did not receive their pay for months. Military personnel resigned en masse. Nevertheless, people in military towns, despite all the difficulties, continued to live in harmony.
So, according to Vadim Sentsov, he saw his wife on the day of her disappearance. She was rushing to catch the train to her session at the institute. Sentsov did not call her and decided to meet her in the evening. He went to the regional center, but found no traces.
And then the thought occurred to him that perhaps she had stayed overnight with her friend. According to Sentsov, it became known that the day after his wife’s disappearance, he called several of her friends. Nobody saw Olga. The man found the phone numbers in his wife’s address book. Panfelov asks to show him the woman’s personal belongings.
Documents are being studied , including the notebooks of the missing person. Well, photo albums are also the subject of such research . Panfilov notes: “In the photographs, the couple looks happy. Both are well dressed. Olga is wearing gold jewelry with amber and pearls. Apparently, her husband spoils her, the detective looks around.
The room in the apartment is also decorated with taste, and the operative’s attention is drawn to an unusual detail. On one wall in the living room, the wallpaper is brighter than on the others. Panfilov understands that there was a carpet hanging there for a long time, which is now gone. Sentsov confirms that he and his wife are going to renovate, they have started getting rid of junk.
But where do officers in difficult times have money for jewelry for their wives, let alone for renovations in the apartment? Well, in the nineties, it was generally not customary to throw away useful old things that could be used again. And carpets were an item that characterized any family, that is, its wealth.
Menchukov Dmitry Alekseevich, sociologist and political scientist, author of a publication on perestroika. and throw out the carpet. The nineties are It was unthinkable. In Soviet times and the early 1990s, a carpet was found in practically every home, just like Czechoslovakian wall units and crystal. Carpets were hung on walls and used to cover floors.
While henbane carpets with fairytale scenes or deer against a forest or mountain backdrop were more popular in the USSR, in the 1990s they were supplanted by Persian, Uzbek, and Armenian woolen items with traditional, intricate patterns. A natural wool carpet in stores in 1993 cost over 150,000 rubles, while the average salary was around 60,000.
While researching the case, Panfilov read the interrogation reports of neighbors, and nevertheless decided to question the Sentsovs personally. Overall, no negative characteristics were obtained. According to Sentsov’s neighbors, they lived like everyone else, no better and no worse. So what could have happened? Why did Olga disappear in broad daylight, just before New Year’s? Could the woman have had a huge fight with her husband? Or maybe she fell in love with another man and left? Investigators are also not ruling out the possibility that she was a random victim of criminals. The
nineties were, of course, a completely unpredictable time. Many people, figuratively speaking, lost their minds. Husbands abandoned their families, children, wives, teachers quit their jobs, and went to sell things at the market. In short, something indescribable was happening. On the morning of January 1, detectives go to the train station from which Olga traveled to Khabarovsk.
From the criminal case file, the cashier who was working on the day of Sentsova OL’s disappearance recognizes the missing woman in a photograph and confirms that she often traveled to Khabarovsk. However, it is difficult to say whether Sentsova OL bought a ticket for the right date . The next day, detectives get into the morning The commuter train.
They need to find those who saw Olga. In the 1990s, crime on the railroad was common, and anything could happen to a young woman on the train. There were train thieves, there were the so-called, well, Shlyar’s swindlers, who, well, sometimes gained this person’s trust, tried to start some kind of card game, and the person, well, has no money.
Oh, you don’t have money, then give me everything you have, and to keep you from babbling, they could have thrown him off the moving train somewhere. And that could have happened . Two days later, luck smiles on the detectives. One of the passengers, an elderly woman, recalls seeing Sentsov on that fateful morning.
According to her, Olga was arguing heatedly with a man, and he dragged her off the commuter train. Since the woman was with two children, she couldn’t intervene in the argument or help in any way. Could it really have been… Olga? But who was with her? Detectives and transport police begin searching in the area of Sadovaya station.
It was this station that the witness identified. Combing the area is a perimeter inspection of the missing person’s area. A combing is carried out along a designated route, regardless of the terrain, be it ravines or dense forests. Group members divide the area into squares and check every centimeter. If there are wells or abandoned buildings along the way, they look there too.
But there is always hope that the person is alive. No matter what they say, no matter what those , well, some circumstantial evidence, well, there is hope. On the second day of the search, 4 kilometers from Sadovaya station, in a forest belt, they find the body of a woman dressed in jeans and a jacket, roughly the same as the missing Olga.
The absence of the facial part and severe damage made identification difficult. Was Olga really murdered? But who could have done it and why? It begins An investigative procedure for establishing the identity of an unidentified body. In the 1990s, all methods except DNA analysis were used for this purpose .
During a corpse examination, the body was subjected to mandatory fingerprinting, after which the resulting fingerprint card was checked against operational reference records. If the person was registered, then, accordingly, we established their identity. Oleg Aleksandrovich Belov, Associate Professor of the Forensic Science Department at Moscow State Law University, PhD in Law.
In addition, the law required and still requires mandatory chest photographs to be taken so that the body can be subsequently identified using these photographs . The investigation determines that the body found near Sadovaya station belongs to 30-year-old Oksana Kolyazina, a resident of Khabarovsk. A missing persons report has already been filed with the police.
The criminal case file has established that the unidentified body does not belong to Olga Lvovna Sentsova. According to Sentsov VG, the missing woman’s jacket is gray, while the one on the discovered body is light brown. The distinguishing marks also don’t match. Olga Sentsova didn’t have pierced ears. The investigation into the murder of the woman from the commuter train is transferred to the local police department, and investigators begin calling Olga’s friends.
The country returns to normal life after the holidays . In the nineties, New Year’s was celebrated by gathering a large group of relatives or friends at someone’s apartment. The table was set by sharing. The women decided in advance who would buy what and who would cook what. On the table were always Olivier salad, herring under a fur coat, aspic, bright red sausage with salt and sprats, baked Bush legs, Royal spirit, multi-colored liqueurs with apricot, cherry, and kiwi flavors.
Russian champagne. Diluted Zuko and Invite juices were served on the table as soft drinks . In the nineties, we had three official days off : the first, second, and seventh. On these days, people tried to either take vacation, or take a holiday, or save up their days off. They tried to visit relatives, whoever had them.
They tried to visit without fail. The detectives spoke with Olga’s friends who were away. At first glance, they didn’t say anything out of the ordinary, but something was alarming Panfilova. The woman told us that in the clothes described in the wanted poster, she only took out the trash cans. But what could have happened? What compelled Olga to go to the exam in Khabarovsk this time in simple jeans? I worked with people who socialized in closed military towns.
Yes, there really is a certain social culture there. Olesya Vladimirovna Pokusaeva, a family and forensic psychologist, compiles psychological profiles of criminals and Victims, works with profiling techniques. The woman really should have been presentable, in their opinion. This often means some kind of styled hair, makeup, and, accordingly, clothing should also be appropriate for their status, especially if she was traveling to another city.
Was Olga really not going to an exam? Or did her husband, Vadim Sentsov, make a mistake, and that morning he mistook his wife for someone else and gave the police an incorrect description of her appearance? Panfelov decides to talk to the man again. And the man, once again, seemed to confirm the clothes she was wearing.
Speaking of women, they very often change their life scenario through their appearance. Obgarov Alan Vilmovich, a psychiatrist and narcologist, specializes in the treatment of neurotic disorders and addictions. In his work, he uses methods of transactional analysis and projective hypnotherapy. If a person reaches an internal impasse, as it is called in scientific terms, and they do not enjoy life, they need to change their perspective.
Yes, changing your life scenario is possible, yes, This often happens with people, where the beginning is first a change in form, then the content, and then it begins, well, it begins to influence the essence of his actions. The version that Olga decided to leave her husband and leave becomes the main one. Detectives are sending out wanted posters not only in the Khabarovsk Territory, but throughout Russia.
Olga’s photographs are hanging in police stations, at train stations and bus stops throughout the country. However, Panfilov is haunted by one small detail. In the conversation, Olga’s friend also mentioned that the woman was very jealous of her husband, which means she loved him and hardly looked at others. Panfilov decides to question the witness in more detail and asks an important question.
Did Olga have a reason to be jealous? Information suddenly surfaced that, well, she said verbatim that, yes, he has a mistress. According to the witness, recently Sentsov periodically returned from training later than his other colleagues, and Olga was beside herself. What if the officer was late this time too? Panfilov made an inquiry with the military unit command and received a reply that the soldiers had returned from training on the morning of December 21st, and Sentsov claimed to have seen his wife when he returned on the 22nd. The
criminal case file revealed that on the day of Sentsova’s disappearance, her husband, Sentsov VG, had returned from training a day later than his fellow soldiers. Where had the man been all this time? Military towns. Everything spreads very quickly . If the men had returned from training, it was known who had returned and who had n’t.
There weren’t that many of them there . Everyone knew each other. Could Sentsov really have a mistress? Who was she? A fellow soldier from the military town. Unlikely. In that case, everyone would know about the affair. You can’t hide anything from the John officers. So this woman is a civilian and lives somewhere else .
But how can you find her? The investigators decide to turn to the special forces, the special department of the military unit, for help. Military towns weren’t under the control of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. It was a special world there. You had to go to the military prosecutor’s office. The thing is, our Soviet officer had to be exemplary.
All cases were thoroughly investigated, everything was meticulously checked. And all of this was subject to an internal review. That is, it was their own people , their own boss, who were checking. Well, there, nothing would go missing and nothing would slip past them. That’s it. Well, accordingly, this woman was identified.
A few days later, Panfilov receives a list of addresses where the officer had visited. Among them is the apartment of a certain Lyudmila Zhilina. She lives next to the military town and works there, in the Cheburechnaya. [applause] Cheburechnayas became popular back in the Soviet Union.
Back then, you could buy six chebureks for one ruble. In the 1990s, even more appeared. It was a filling and fairly inexpensive snack. Chebureks in the 1990s They were n’t that expensive, generally speaking. A little more than a loaf of bread. Well, that was logical, really, because there was meat in it. There wasn’t much meat.
It was mostly onions. That’s it. But it was still delicious. And as a bonus, it all came with a piece of toilet paper instead of a napkin. Continuing to investigate my mistress, I visited the Cheburichnaya where she worked and saw a slant on her that resembled the one our missing Olga had. We asked her mother to look through all the photos in the album again.
The detectives were convinced that one of Olga’s photos showed the same chain and amber pendant. Where did Lyudmila get this jewelry ? Is it the same chain Olga wore? Or did the officer give his wife and mistress the same jewelry? Or maybe it was a coincidence? And Lyudmila bought the pendant herself? To find out, we needed to learn more about the relationship between the barmaid and the officer.
The circle was carefully questioned. acquaintances of this Lyudmila’s mistress. It was established that she really did meet some officer and dreamed of courage, demanding that he divorce. Was Sentsov planning to divorce his wife and marry Lyudmila? The investigation suddenly takes a completely different turn.
Is it possible that Olga was killed out of jealousy? Naturally, any divorce is a blow to a career. Naturally, an officer, well, especially if he is already a major, lieutenant colonel, sub-colonel, he simply did not want a divorce. Why? Because, naturally, the path further up was closed to him. Well, in those years, divorce was still not really approved.
And indeed, again, this shows from the point of view of a military man that he is unstable. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, crime in the country increased sharply. Many felt a taste of permissiveness. It was then that the phrase “No man, no problem” entered into widespread use. According to statistics, starting in the 1980s, men began Killing wives and mistresses four and a half times more often, but women weren’t far behind.
They would order hitmen to kill their rivals and often decided to commit murder themselves. Well, in practice, there were cases when women were sharing a man and, in the heat of this passionate showdown with each other, one killed the other by stabbing her in the carotid artery with scissors. So, operatives are establishing surveillance on Vadim Sentsov’s mistress.
Suspect number one. Zhilina Lyudmila Kirillovna, 36 years old, from the town of Bekin in Khabarovsk Krai. Secondary education. Works as a barmaid, bakes pies for sale at the market. Single. Panfilov needs to find out. Did Lyudmila try to contact Olga? He questions the military at the checkpoint. From the criminal case materials, the duty officers at the checkpoint showed that recently Zhilina LK had received a temporary pass to enter the The territory of the military camp.
The application for a pass and her passport details at the checkpoint were submitted by Sentsov VG. There is no longer any doubt that Lyudmila is Sentsov’s mistress. But could she have been involved in Olga’s disappearance? And if so, was she really so foolish as to take her jewelry? What was she counting on? But to draw definitive conclusions, Panfilov needs to rule out all possible coincidences.
They checked jewelry stores for the sale of certain similar items, but received an official response stating that nothing similar was sold in jewelry stores or shops in the region. Accordingly, the conclusion was that this item was purchased somewhere else. Or, perhaps, brought there by the couple from a business trip.
Panfilov once again asks the missing woman’s mother to inspect Olga’s personal belongings. He doesn’t find the amber pendant in the jewelry box. But there it is on the woman, in photographs of a family celebration, and the shots are recent, taken with a film camera. Soap dish. Where did Olga’s pendant go? Her mother, Zoya Nikolaevna, insists that her daughter couldn’t have given the jewelry away.
She loved her husband and cherished all his gifts. In addition, the woman complains about her son-in-law’s behavior. He’s always disappearing somewhere and hinting that it’s time for his mother-in-law to leave. It’s clear that he’s not at all worried about where his wife is. That is, there was no factor of her expectation in his behavior.
Meanwhile, another witness appears in the case . The Sentsovs’ neighbor from the house across the street was on vacation with her husband for 10 days. She returns and, upon learning that Olga has n’t been found yet, says something. She remembered seeing a blanket on the balcony ,
a light blanket, but I… she almost speaks verbatim, but I know that he’s such a person that he did n’t even wash spoons, there are plates, and here is a washed blanket, there they call forensics, look for it, so to speak. That’s what it should be. This was a signal that we weren’t dealing with a missing person after all, but rather a criminal case.
Suspect number two. Vadim Gennadievich Sentsov, 37, a serviceman, major. Place of birth: Nizhny Tagil. Duty station: Khabarovsk Krai. The detectives sent a request to the military prosecutor’s office and received permission to detain and interrogate Sentsov at the police station. But before they could even detain the suspect, they received another piece of evidence, not circumstantial, but direct.
From the criminal case file, Popova Zn, the mother of the missing Sentsova O., provided the investigation with an amber pendant and a broken gold chain belonging to her daughter. According to Popova, she found them between the armrest and the cushion of the sofa. The chain and pendant were exactly the same as those worn by Lyudmila Zhilina.
It seems the officer wasn’t bothered and could have brought Both women received identical gifts from their business trip. And, of course, when she showed it off, well, there was some confusion in terms of, why hadn’t they found it? They had inspected it, after all . But they inspected it, again, I see that inspections are different, yes.
It’s one thing when a forensic expert looks for cracks, blood, uh, traces, fingerprints, and so on. It’s another thing when, well, the detectives arrived, so they looked, there was no disorder. Here it is, it is, no one looked under the sofa. The missing chain and pendant, found by Olga’s mother under the sofa. The bedspread that the officer was drying the day after his wife’s disappearance. The carpet removed from the wall.
Perhaps the Sentsovs’ living room is the crime scene. That same day, the officer is summoned to the station. He can’t believe that he is now a suspect. Well, of course, he withdrew. Withdrew. It was necessary, uh, it was necessary through his wall, uh, here this silence and detachment to break through with some arguments.
Detail by detail, the investigators and operatives reconstruct the picture of what happened. Sentsov returned from training a day late. All this time he was with his mistress Lyudmila Zhilina. His wife made a scandal with him. The woman definitely had feelings for him, if she threw a hysterical fit, some kind of scandal, right? And he, well, already had different feelings for another woman.
The scandal was gaining momentum. The wife began to threaten that she would complain to her husband’s boss or file for divorce. And at some point Sentsov could not stand it, attacked Olga, began to strangle her. He did not notice how the chain on her neck broke and fell behind the sofa along with the pendant.
The investigator, like a psychologist, notices every facial detail, right? That is, if and when he noticed this trembling, it means that after all, the person does care when this picture It came up again, and yes, his stony face had lost its stony expression. Yes, that was the signal.
The officer had given in and was about to confess to the crime. He didn’t comment on anything else. He said, “Yeah, well, let’s go, I’ll show you where she is.” They did n’t have to go far. Olga’s body is found buried in the basement of the five-story building where Lyudmila Zhilina, Sentsov’s lover, lives. It’s wrapped in a carpet, the same one that was taken from the wall in the living room and supposedly thrown away.
Detective Panfilov can’t help but stare at the patterns on the carpet. The red, white, and yellow patterns have turned dark brown from the blood. The detectives find Lyudmila on her suitcases. The woman was getting ready to leave the city. An acquaintance couldn’t stand it and said that the police were interested in her.
Sentsov, meanwhile, agrees to give an official confession. He strangled his wife. At that moment the chain broke. At the moment of death, well, there was a kind of natural relaxation of the muscles. And so there were marks on the carpet. Not on the carpet, but on the blanket, which he later washed and dried. When Sentsov attacked his wife and began to strangle her, The women’s capillaries and blood vessels burst.
Therefore, the man hurried to wrap her body in a carpet so that there would be no traces of blood left at home. Sentsov also confirmed that he made up the story about his wife’s trip to the institute to divert suspicion from himself. After the murder, he carefully carried the body outside and placed it in the trunk of the car.
Took it out through the checkpoint. They didn’t search his car , because he is a permanent resident of the town. On the way out, his lover Lyudmila Zhilina was waiting for him; he called her and asked her to come help him hide the body. Now the investigation had to determine whether the man killed his wife in a state of passion or whether it was a premeditated crime.
The man decided to cover up the traces of his crime and, again, not just cover it up, but also pretend that she had disappeared. That is, he hoped that they wouldn’t find him after all. Therefore, from a psychological point of view, he acted quite cold-bloodedly. Officer Sentsov was sentenced by a military tribunal to 15 years in prison for premeditated murder.
The operatives’ intuition did not fail them. The answer was much closer than it seemed. Painstaking work and minor details that others might not have noticed led the detectives to solve this horrific crime. Lyudmila received a short suspended sentence. She turned out to be pregnant, and Sentsov tried to protect her until the very end .
At least here he behaved like a man.
