MOSCOW, December 29 (RIA Novosti) – A Russian man has been found guilty in a Russian jury trial of a double killing committed in the United States in 2002, a Moscow region court reported on Saturday.
The jury found Yury Solovyov, 43, guilty of murdering and dismembering his two roommates in their rented flat in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in order to steal $19,000 in cash – the payroll for the business they were running.
The victims, a Russian man and Uzbek woman, met Solovyov in 2001 and shared an apartment with him.
According to the Russian investigators, Solovyov killed them with a Jennings handgun and then dismembered the bodies with a saw in the bathtub. He packed the remains in plastic bags and dumped them in a ravine near the Little Pigeon River. The crime only came to light a year later, after locals came across a skull fragment.
Later, in 2004, Solovyov got a job at a gas station in Rahway, New Jersey, where he stole $8,800 in cash and cigarettes, investigators said.
Solovyov was put on a US wanted list, but remained at large until 2009, when he was finally arrested in Khimki outside Moscow, after which US investigators passed the case to Russia. Solovyov confessed to the thefts, but denied the murder charges.
The judge will announce the sentence at a later hearing. Solovyov could get life in prison.