The Krasnodar Regional Court acquitted 63-year-old Nikolai Mishin on suspicion of the murder of an 8-year-old girl (clause “c”, part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation).

This was reported to RT by a representative of the injured party, lawyer Alexei Avanesyan.

“The court ruled to acquit Mishin due to the absence of the crime event itself,” Avanesyan said.

The court made this decision on the basis of the acquittal of the jury in November last year.

Then the jury not only found the man innocent, but also came to the conclusion that there was no crime itself - murder.

Police scheme

8-year-old Sveta Dudina from the village of Zvezda, Krasnodar Territory, disappeared on June 20, 2016.

As established by the investigation, on that day, the girl's stepfather drove her on a combine, and then brought her to the village and dropped her off near the house.

More parents of the child did not see.

The girl was searched for by the police and volunteers from the search teams, but to no avail.

According to media reports, the mother and stepfather of the child were the first under suspicion of the investigation, then the police detained several more residents of the village, but these actions did not produce any results, and the investigation reached a dead end.

At the end of January 2020, handwritten inscriptions appeared on several buildings in the neighboring village of Pervomaisky, which spoke about how to find the body of the missing child.

On the gas installation it was written in chalk: “On 06/2016 the child was bitten by dogs in the field opposite the slaughterhouse near the forest belt” (the author's punctuation and spelling are preserved).

Another inscription appeared on the garage of one of the private houses.

An unknown person drew a diagram and marked the place where the remains were hidden.

Local residents turned to the police, in the evening of the same day, the body of the child was found at the same place.

  • A drawn diagram showing exactly where the child's body is buried.

  • © Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in Krasnodar Territory

Over the next month, law enforcement officers checked the handwriting of all residents of the village.

When the turn came to the Dudins' neighbor Nikolai Mishin, he was detained - the handwriting coincided with the inscriptions on the buildings.

During interrogation, the man confessed to killing the child.

According to him, on June 20, 2016, 8-year-old Sveta ran into his yard several times and interfered with his work.

He chased her away and at some point hit her on the head with a hammer.

Later, an examination established that the child died instantly from the injury.

According to the confessionary statements, when Mishin realized that Sveta was dead, he put her body in the trunk of a car, took her to a nearby village and buried her in a field.

“During interrogations, Mishin accurately described the moment of the murder.

He said that after the girl fell, he kicked her out of anger and broke her ribs.

Later, an examination showed that it was these injuries that were inflicted on the child.

The bones found also showed damage from combines that worked in the field where the body was buried.

Subsequently, the expert established exactly where the damage from the combine was and where not, ”said Anton Lopatin, senior assistant to the prosecutor of the Krasnodar Territory, to RT.

Justify, return the car

In June 2020, the jury began to consider the Mishin case.

By that time, the man had retracted his testimony and stated that he had confessed to the torture murder.

As RT was told in the prosecutor's office, a check was carried out on his complaint about torture, a decision was made to refuse to initiate a criminal case.

At the trial, Mishin said that the girl had allegedly been accidentally hit by his brother Vladimir in a car, who had died at the time of the trial.

According to the pensioner, in January 2020, he entered his late brother's house and found a note with his confession and a diagram where the girl's body was hidden.

Mishin said that he left notes on the garage and the gas installation to help the investigation find the body.

"This version does not stand up to criticism," Anton Lopatin, a representative of the prosecutor's office, explains to RT.

- The car on which the brother allegedly hit the girl was disposed of five years before the alleged accident.

In addition, all local residents told the investigation that Vladimir Mishin practically did not use the car - it was constantly standing in his yard and overgrown with grass. "

  • Nikolai Mishin during investigative actions.

  • © Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation in Krasnodar Territory

The jury had to answer two questions: whether there was a crime and whether the accused was involved in it.

The collegium ruled that there was no murder itself, despite the findings of the examination.

The second question disappeared by itself.

The accused was released from custody in the courtroom.

After that, he returned to the village and continues to live next door to the Dudins. 

The lawyer of the mother of the deceased, Aleksey Avanesyan, believes that several factors could have influenced the jury's decision.

“Within the framework of the criminal case, local police officers at different times detained first one resident of the village, and then another.

Both of them confessed, told where they hid the body.

In both cases, the corpse was not found, and suspicions were cleared from them, ”explains Avanesyan.

Now, according to him, these people accuse the police of being tortured to force them to confess to the murder.

“According to the law, it is forbidden to talk about torture of suspects before the jury, but lawyer Mishina did it anyway.

I think the jury was influenced by this information, they could have decided that Mishin was just another victim of unfounded accusations, ”the lawyer notes.

He adds that the mother of the deceased was on the ships only a few times, since she does not have the money to regularly travel to Krasnodar from her native village.

“It could also have made a bad impression on the jury.

They could assume that if the girl's parents believed in Mishin's guilt, they would come to all the courts in relation to the alleged killer of their daughter, ”the source said.

Finally, the jury could acquit the accused, because they believed in a different version of what happened, says Alexey Avanesyan.

The RT prosecutor's office reported that during the investigation, the operatives deliberately spread a rumor that the child was allegedly bitten by dogs.

The investigator in the case told eyewitnesses that the case would be closed as soon as the girl's body was found, since there was no reason to believe that she was killed.

That is why Mishin decided to draw diagrams and give out the burial place, the state prosecution believes. 

“It seems to me that the jury themselves believed this version that the girl was bitten by the dogs.

For four years, the field on which the killer hid the body was plowed more than once, so law enforcement officers found only body fragments.

However, this does not negate the conclusions of the examination, which established the cause of death - head injury, ”the source said.

On January 19 this year, Mishin made his last speech at the trial.

According to Avanesyan, this time he did not mention the version that the girl was hit by his brother.

The pensioner only once again declared his innocence and agreement with the jury's verdict.

On January 20, the court also ruled to return Mishin the material evidence in the case - a car in which, according to the prosecution, the man took the child's body into the field.

Over the next ten days, the regional prosecutor's office and the injured party will appeal the verdict.

If the appeal is granted, Mishin will be able to request that his case be reviewed by a jury again, but with a new composition.