Source: www.rucriminal.info

The fact that Bastrykin’s reception of the population is a whole ritual has been rumored for a long time. Here you have a careful selection of applicants (anyone to the body no, no!), and adjutant managers in the ranks of generals, and even a psychological service for the especially impressionable. The atmosphere is solemn and threatening, because everyone knows that Alexander Ivanovich is tough to kill. He doesn’t spare his own people, so the investigators and their immediate superiors calling for mercy are also part of the landscape. But is everyone able to reach the Chairman?

A case in point is the old case of the murder of genius programmer Anton Stepanenkov. His body was found on June 17, 2012 in the Butovo forest park. Forty stab wounds, no items stolen. However, there was nothing to kidnap - Anton was attacked while jogging, he was an avid athlete and spent many hours training in the fresh air at any time of the year. The only child of his mother, he came to Moscow from the Oryol region to study at Moscow State University. Lomonosov. They called him a genius of mathematics and programming, and they imagined a great future. Details are available from Rucriminal.info.

All these years, the elderly mother has been knocking on the doorsteps of the Investigative Committee. She doesn’t have money for lawyers, she doesn’t have high-ranking relatives to move the IC workers with one phone call. Despite repeated requests, she failed to get an appointment with Bastrykin. All the letters, out of habit, went down to the capital's headquarters, where over time the matter was simply forgotten.

It is noteworthy that the case of the murder of Anton Stepanenkov is not hopeless. They even established the DNA of the criminal, whose trace remained on the victim’s clothes, probably when the corpse was dragged. Later the so-called haplogroup - where the killer could have come from - a native of Moldova or Western Ukraine.

 

Initially, 4 versions were developed:

- the man could have been stabbed to death by migrant workers who then lived on construction sites in the Moscow region (now the territory of New Moscow); the reason is a domestic conflict;

⁃ a programmer-athlete became a victim of one of the nationalist groups; at that time, several skinhead gangs were operating in the Moscow region and Moscow; Maxim “Tesak” Martsinkevich was at the peak of popularity; Stepanenkov could be confused with a native of Central Asia due to his dark skin tone;

⁃ Stepanenkov could have been stabbed to death, for example, by one of the local residents who did not like the same runners or skiers;

⁃ the programmer could have been killed by his own acquaintances or work colleagues.

 

Everyone who knew him, as well as hundreds of migrant workers and local residents, were checked against his billing. DNA samples were taken from almost everyone, but there were no matches. Working on the “nationalist” version, CID operatives identified a group of young people convicted of a brutal murder. 14-15 year old teenagers Vladimir Alyautdinov, Viktor Kazimirov and Stelian Tsurkan beat a certain Aitbaev to death with a sledgehammer and hammers. It is interesting that the place of residence of the ethnic Moldovan Turcan was listed as the village. Kommunarka, next to which the programmer was stabbed to death. But further work showed that Tsurkan and his friends had an alibi at the time of the murder of Anton Stepanenkov, and the DNA of all three did not match the DNA sample found on the programmer’s clothes. The polygraph also gave a negative result.

 

A certain amount of hope was generated by the experts’ conclusion about the presence of an odor trace of an unknown person on the victim’s clothing, but this “evidence” could not stand up to the competition of facts and time. But in the summer of 2021, unexpectedly for everyone, DNA was found on a baseball cap seized in a murder case on Volgogradsky Prospekt in Moscow that matched the DNA of the killer Anton Stepanenkov. There was hope again for the old hang-up to be solved. But all efforts are in vain. None of the defendants tested in the case met the required parameters. It was “not possible” to find out the identity of the man who was wearing this cap.

 

12 years have passed since the murder of Anton Stepanenkov. The case lies quietly, without movement, in the archives of the district-level investigative unit. It seems like everyone just wants to forget about him.

Arseny Dronov

Source: www.rucriminal.info