vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #149 / Crime watch / Reading article...

Police found the tortured bodies of a Vladivostok couple buried in the woods near Shamora Aug. 25, seven weeks after they were abducted from the entrance of their apartment building.

Police say Vladimir and Galina Kucheryavenko, who ran a successful trading company called Galina, had been tortured and possibly buried alive, as there was soil in their mouths.

The Krai Internal Affairs Department says that circumstances of the case so far prevent the discovery of a motive in the July 9 kidnapping and subsequent slaying, but authorities have various theories. The Kucheryavenkos may have owed money to a criminal organization. Still, debtors are often left alive to work off and pay back their debts.

They might have been resisting Mafia demands for protection money. City markets are ruled by crime groups, which are strict about the exaction of payments.

Most likely, police say, the couple were the victim of extortionists. It's possible that the kidnappers were holding out for a ransom and then killed the Kucheryavenkos to cover their tracks.

Vladimir Kucheryavenko, who had served as the chief physician of the Pacific Fleet from the late 1980s until 1993, was fired following an international scandal on nearby Russky Island in which several young sailors starved to death. His superiors said he bore most of the responsibility for the situation.

After he lost his position with the Pacific Fleet, he and his wife, a businesswoman, formed Galina, a company which runs a downtown Vladivostok market.

Before forming the new company with her husband, Galina Kucheryavenko planned to build a hotel and international business center in the same spot where the Hotel Hyundai now stands. But she lacked the money and never got started.

The Kucheryavenkos are survived by a 13-year-old daughter, Anya, who had been studying on a month-long English home-stay program with a Los Angeles school.

On July 7, her parents sent the school a request to extend the girl's stay in California, but for her to live in a hotel, not with a family.

After her parents were kidnapped, the grandmother informed the school and asked them to put Anya with another family. She was moved again and told that she would stay in the United States for a year. The school immediately began receiving phone calls from strangers inquiring about her plans.