Trace Evidence - 193 - The Disappearance of Irina Malezhik - Part 1

193 - The Disappearance of Irina Malezhik - Part 1

04/08/22 • 54 min

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Forty-seven year old Irina Malezhik mysteriously disappeared from Brooklyn after leaving her Brighton Beach apartment in October of 2007. Employed at the time as a Russian translator for the Federal Court system, tackling cases involving the Russian mafia, many were concerned that Irina had been targeted by someone from the mob.
However, as the FBI began digging into the case they quickly discovered that someone was using Irina's identity to make large purchases; expensive clothes, watches and linens. They'd even gone and withdrawn thousands of dollars from her bank account. That trail did not lead to organized from, but to a married couple with a direct connection to the missing woman.
What began as a case surrounding identity theft quickly developed into something more intense. Soon, they discovered a second missing person tied to the married couple. Then, the dismembered remains of a third were also linked to the identity thieves. It became quite clear; this was not just a one off crime, but a series of murders and disappearances driven by greed at the hand of a yet unidentified serial killer.
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Previous Episode

192 - The Disappearance of Sandra Prince - Part 2

Sandra Prince was well known throughout Florida's Bay Avenue for her dedication to the community, her craft real estate acquisitions and for being one of the nicest and kindest friends and neighbors you could ever want. For much of Sandra's life, things had gone just the way she'd wanted them to until the night she vanished.
For months investigators struggled to gain a foothold on Sandra's life. Notoriously private, few people knew exactly what she was up to nor who she spent time with. Eventually, one name came to the surface: Earl Pippin. Pippin worked as a contractor for Sandra and, reportedly, had been in a relationship with her for close to five years.
Nine long months after her disappearance, the Temple Terrace Police officially named Pippin as a person of interest in the case. The hunt for Sandra's remains began in earnest as detectives had few reasons to believe the missing woman might still be alive. Pippin, allegedly the sole beneficiary to her estate, valued at nearly $3 million, quickly became the central focus of their investigation.
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Music Courtesy of: "Lost Time" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
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Next Episode

194 - The Disappearance of Irina Malezhik - Part 2

On a cool October afternoon in 2007, forty-seven year old Irina Malezhik walked out of her Brighton Beach apartment and mysteriously vanished. Nearly two years later, the FBI finally identified the prime suspect: Dmitriy Yakovlev. However, what they believed was an investigation into identity theft would quickly become something much more hideous.
While the FBI dug into Dmitriy they quickly uncovered a complex history in which Yakovlev had been the last person to see Irina alive, but also two others; Michael Klein and Viktor Alexseyev. Klein, like Irina, has never been found. Alexseyev's dismembered remains were found just a few weeks after he was last seen alive.
Quickly investigators uncovered a pattern; every two years someone Dmitriy knew vanished and within days he, and his wife, would reap the benefits of the missing persons bank account. It soon became clear that Dmitriy wasn't just an identity thief, but an active and previously undetected serial killer.
Trace Evidence Facebook
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Music Courtesy of: "Lost Time" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Sources
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/trace-evidence--3207798/support.