The murder of a teenager in a Tambov village in the 70s helped uncover a letter from a stranger

Anonymous message

A letter from a stranger led to the criminal’s trail.

“And then an anonymous letter is sent to the prosecutor’s office. It said that, most likely, the crime was committed by father and son. It was to them, to the family of this 16-year-old boy, that the deceased often came to visit. The author of the letter wrote that he saw how these people were walking from the river that day and hour, all wet,” says M. I. Afanasov.

Using his handwriting, Mikhail Ilyich found out who wrote the letter! First, he went to a local school to compare the handwriting of the anonymous letter with the handwriting of the job applications.

“Based on the handwriting, we were able to quickly identify the author of the letter. The teachers looked at the letter and immediately said who wrote it. And the woman wrote, she worked at a school as a cleaner. I checked the handwriting, yes, it looks similar. I came to this woman. “We need to tell you everything,” I tell her. And she tells me that she is afraid of these people, afraid that they will kill her. But I finally persuaded her and she gave evidence,” said Mikhail Ilyich.

A father and son suspected of murdering a 15-year-old boy were detained. We held a confrontation with the witness who wrote the letter and the suspects. A confrontation was held between father and son. The young man immediately admitted that he and his father killed the guy, and then his father confessed to the crime. And father and son blamed each other.

This family was dysfunctional, the man abused alcohol and abused his wife. And Nikolai, when he came to their house, stood up for the poor woman. Once he stood up, twice. The man was tired of this intercession and he and his son, who claimed that Nikolai called him names, that is, he also harbored a grudge against him, decided to get rid of the guy forever. They lured him to the river by deception and killed him.

All evidence has been collected. The court found the father and son guilty: the father was sentenced to death, the son, as a minor, was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment.