Young pedophile convicted of murder and sentenced to 22 years in prison

The rapist said at first that he had run over the girl while driving and took the body out of town in fear of being jailed

Last week, the Kamchatka (the Far East of Russia) court martial sentenced the contract serviceman Alexander Prokoshkin to 22 years in maximum security prison for murder and rape of a five-year-old girl, Katya Razuman. Investigators found out that on January 15th, 2005, Alexander Prokoshkin, 23, a corporal of the military unit No 2069, fraudulently lured a girl into his vehicle. Then he took the girl to the 10th km of the highway Petropavlosk – Razdolny where he raped and strangled her. The criminal buried the body under the snow. The body of the child was found five days later after the rapist and murderer confessed to the crime. The Razumans lost their other child, Katya's elder sister, in  similar circumstances ten years ago.

Katya lived with her parents in a small town of Dalny. Katya was last seen walking near her house that fateful day. Her mother did not see the girl when she looked out the window later in the evening. The woman first thought her daughter was visiting her mother who lived nearby. She called her on the phone only to find out that the girl was not there. Then the woman reported the child missing to the police. A lot of people took part in the search for the girl. During three days police officers from the city of Petropavlovsk and Kamchatka region, members of K-9 unit and their dogs, personnel of the rescue service, the loved ones of the girl and their neighbors were looking inside all the sewers, examined all the derelict buildings, entryways and basements in town. But the search was fruitless. They combed the vicinities too but to no avail either.

The police were questioning the girl's loved ones and friends of the Razumans as the search for Katya continued outside the town. They were also questioning all persons who might have seen the girl before her disappearance. Alexander Prokoshkin, a neighbor of the Razumans, was questioned too. The detectives took note of Prokoshkin because he was feeling ill at ease while answering their questions. They used special conversational methods and eventually got him to spill the beans. According to Prokoshkin, he hit the girl with his car during an accident that day. He then strangled her because he was afraid of the consequences. He took her body to an abandoned test ground outside the town and buried it in the snow. The police took Prokoshkin to a crime scene the following day. Investigators began to doubt Prokoshkin's confession after the body of the girl was uncovered. A few days later the forensic examination confirmed that the girl had never been hit by a car. She was raped and strangled.

Once he was told that he would be charged with rape aside from being charged with murder, Prokoshkin backed out of his previous statements and said he had an alibi covering the period of time during which the girl was murdered. He claimed that he was repairing his vehicle from 17.00 to 19.00 on January 15th. He made up a story about a tire he had to replace, and a guy who allegedly gave him a lift home and brought him back to the broken vehicle. The investigators painstakingly checked the allegations trying to locate the driver who gave the suspect a lift on the day of murder. But the search brought no results. Given the outcome of the search, the investigators concluded that the suspect's “flat tire story” was a fake. Prokoshkin used it to get away with the crime. In the meantime, Prokoshkin was subjected to a psychological and psychiatric examination. He was found to be a person of sound mind at the time of his committing the crime. The examination findings along with the conclusions of the investigators laid the foundation for an indictment which shaped a term of imprisonment for the rapist. 

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