St. Petersburg Journal - Tale of Murder Spills Fake Blood and Spotlights Police Procedures

The killing was as baffling as it was vile.

As she arrived at work one afternoon in April, Kermen Basangova, the director of a small academy here, was stabbed to death in her car, the police said. A 34-year-old mother of two who was eight months pregnant, she was the victim of a contract killing, they said.

In television newscasts, a photo of the dark-haired woman was juxtaposed with images of police officers combing the academy’s grounds in a seedy corner of the city, seemingly searching for clues. Members of the faculty and staff at the school, the State Polar Academy, expressed grief and confusion.

They were even more confused the next morning, when Ms. Basangova returned to work. The killing had been a ruse. The police said they had staged her death to ensnare her deputy, who had been plotting to kill her.

Russia is crazy.

Such elaborate sting operations are not uncommon in Russia, where the police routinely manipulate the news media in criminal investigations, said Yevgeny Vyshenkov, a former police detective here who is now the deputy director of a St. Petersburg Internet news agency, fontanka.ru. In his previous career, Mr. Vyshenkov said, he once had a journalist agree to publish a fake article to coax a suspect to divulge information about accomplices.

“The journalist wrote an untruth, but this untruth helped solve the crime,” Mr. Vyshenkov said. “This method is used when necessary.”

Good to see the old Russian spirit is still alive?