Three suspects have been detained in the murder of 70-year-old filmmaker and television producer Tamara Yakzhina, whose Moscow apartment was listed for sale for 10 million rubles ($200,000) shortly after she went missing last month, Russian media reported.
The man suspected of killing Yakzhina was her neighbor, Igor Drozdov, the Interfax news agency reported, citing a source in the investigation.
Investigators said in a statement without naming the suspects that the killer saw Yakzhina walking outside and offered to give her a ride home. She agreed, but during the ride she and the driver got into a heated argument and the driver killed her, the statement said.
The killer drove her body out of town to a spot in a northwest part of the Moscow region where he buried her before turning on her mobile phone and taking it to a different part of town to throw investigators off the trail, the statement said.
The Interfax report said the killer had confessed and showed authorities on Wednesday where he had buried the body. Interfax and Russian television networks cited authorities as saying Yakzhina was murdered for her apartment in northwest Moscow.
The NTV television channel said Yakzhina was the likely victim of a "black realtor," people who resort to crime to obtain apartments from their victims, who are often elderly people conned into signing over the property deeds, or at worst, killed.
Yakzhina, a member of the Russian filmmakers' and journalists' guilds, worked for decades in the television industry producing programs, films and documentaries. Her latest film was about the life of Pope John Paul II.
Contact the author at p.spinella@imedia.ru
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