vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #157 / Crime watch / Reading article...

In the third such attack this month, a maniac threw acid in a beauty queen’s face at Far Eastern State University and escaped, leaving her eyes seriously damaged.

Yelena Iozhits, 18, a Japanese economics major, was going up the stairs at 7:50 a.m. to the fourth floor of the Oriental department. It was dark. An unknown man ran by her, turned and splashed acid into her face.

Early this month in the Vladivostok suburb of Trudovoye, an assailant splashed acid in the face of an old man heading for the electric train. And on Dec. 17 an unknown passerby on Gamarnika Street attacked the manager of the Royal Park casino, striking the middle-aged woman on the head with a bottle with nitric acid. In the latter cases the victims couldn’t give an accurate description of the criminal, and the type of burns is different in all the cases.

The attack stunned Iozhits. As the pain burned her eye, she screamed "Why?"

Many people heard her screaming, but nobody paid attention to the man running downstairs – students often run before lectures. Shocked girls surrounded her. They understood something when her face started turning into a mask and holes from the acid appeared in her coat.

She felt her way to the bathroom to wash herself. Students and tutors came out of the rooms. There was a general confusion, but somebody called the ambulance and the police. They arrived soon, took Iozhits to the hospital and interrogated the students.

Iozhits was widely known for her beauty. Last spring, 1997 won the title Princess of the Spring during a beauty contest in the House of Negotiations organized by photographer Andrei Burmakin. During the contest she had a pseudonym Nikol.

All the newspaper covered the competition. The local TV station Uchebnoye Televidenie made a 40-minute film about the contest, which ran a few times last summer. Iozhits was one of the main char!cters in the movie.

The Oriental department is stunned by the case. The students feel lost, and teachers are warning them to protect their faces and dress modestly.

Iozhits is in the eye department of the fishermen’s hospital. "I don’t know who did it or why," she says. There are friends in her room constantly. She showed that she is a unique person: Doctors admire her strong spirit and willpower. Iozhits realizes that recovery depends only on her, and she is ready to struggle. She only asked the newspaper to thank her relatives and friends for their support. "Without them I wouldn’t be able to handle that," she says.

Victor Skripka, Iozhits’ doctor said it is too early to say whether she will be able to see. The right eye is in a good condition, the left one was seriously injured. She will have to undergo a lot of operations. The doctor said the skin on her face will be restore, there is not even need for plastic surgery. Iozhits will stay in the hospital at least for another ten days.

The detectives have nothing to start with. Iozhits refuses to name a circle of her friends. She mentions nothing about the beauty contest.

Police are also hindered by inconsistencies in witnesses’ recollections. A composite drawing based on accounts of the man running from the building differs from Iozhits’ description. The witnesses say he was dressed in a knitted hat and leather jacket. She describes him as wearing mink hat and knitted coat.