The killer exposed by investigators is “deceitful, aggressive, unscrupulous”
“This is not a trial, but a circus. Chapiteau. I'm not to blame for anything. My son conducted an independent examination.”
The “righteous” anger of an elderly wrinkled man in the “aquarium” of the Moscow City Court looks very natural. Yuri Khomchenko is an excellent actor. Over almost 60 years of his stupid life, he learned to mimic any situation. And only after hearing the expected verdict – life imprisonment for the death of seven people, including two children – does the scumbag seem to take off his mask.
“Wait, broom.” “I’ll come for you again,” he mutters to the investigator and relatives of the victims.
Last Friday, the court put an end to the case of the worst Moscow fire of the last three years. MK found out the details of this sad story.
Late in the evening of February 21, 2023, the fifth floor of the multi-story Moskabelmet hostel on Mezhdunarodnaya Street caught fire. The fire was very strong: the entire corridor was instantly engulfed in flames. The residents of apartment 62 were trapped in the fire. The Lebedev sisters lived there with their children: there were eight children for the two women, seven of whom were in the apartment at the time of the fire. Not everyone managed to escape. Seven residents died in the tragedy, including two girls aged 5 and 12. Several more people received burns.
That night was long and terrible. The day before the frost hit, people ran out of the fire in their mother's clothes. It is not surprising that in the confusion, not everyone paid attention to one of the first to leave the entrance, an elderly man in slippers on his bare feet and an old jacket, with burnt hands. He wiped his fingers on the snow, snatched a cigarette from a passerby, watched the hostel burn, and trotted towards the Rimskaya metro station.
The speed of the fire’s spread and the first testimony of witnesses immediately made us think about arson. But who to look for? Chaos reigned at the site of the fire; it was impossible to even immediately understand the layout of the burnt-out apartments of this “humanitarian.” Who lived with whom, who ended up in the hospital, how to look for witnesses – many residents chose to immediately go to their friends and family. And we had to act quickly.
Witness interviews showed that the man from apartment 61A, a long-time recidivist Yuri Khomchenko, may have been involved in the tragedy. He was the one who was calmly smoking against the backdrop of the building engulfed in flames. But investigators learned later who this guy was. The main task at that time was to find him.
Valeria Bashaeva, an investigator for especially important cases of the 1st Directorate for the Investigation of Especially Important Cases of the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation for Moscow, tells us.
– Difficulties immediately arose in identifying the suspect. Khomchenko lived in this hostel illegally, he was allowed in, as they say, out of the kindness of his heart – he did not have his own source of income. And since Khomchenko immediately fled the scene, efforts had to be made to establish his identity and find him. The coordinated actions of operatives and investigators helped establish his path to the metro and then to the construction site, where the man was temporarily employed.
Khomchenko told his colleagues and construction guards a heartbreaking story. He presented himself… as a victim. Allegedly, Yuri himself suffered in the fire, everything he had acquired through back-breaking labor burned, and his partner died (the latter, by the way, was true). But Yuri did not meet any sympathy. “Why did you leave there? – the guards were surprised. “Why didn’t you ask for help?” It was obvious to the naked eye that Khomchenko needed a doctor: the burns on his hands could not be hidden. But calling an ambulance means revealing yourself. And Khomchenko, like a cowardly dog, licked his wounds in the quarters.
Towards the middle of the day on February 22, workers, having learned from the Internet the terrible details of the fire at Moskabelmet, retold them to Khomchenko. He literally turned white with horror – apparently, he realized what he had done. And investigators, through the arsonist’s acquaintances, were already on his trail and detained him right there, at the construction site.
Let us note right away: Yuri did not show any remorse or even sympathy for those who died in the fire. Apparently, these human emotions are not at all familiar to him. Moreover, the arsonist put forward numerous versions, one more fantastic than the other, the essence of which boiled down to one thing: he slept with his girlfriend, woke up from the burning, ran out into the street, and got burned along the way. The roommate did not have time to leave and died.
But even such a primitive lie had to be refuted with evidence. And here science came to the rescue.
Valeria Bashaeva says:
– Khomchenko had burns on the outside of his hands. These types of burns are typical for arsonists. He stated that he was burned when he opened the metal door, but when demonstrating his actions during interrogation, he could not show how he received them. In addition, the defendant underwent a polygraph test, which also showed that Khomchenko was involved in the crime.
What happened that evening?
Khomchenko and his girlfriend were drunk – already in that state when you either love or hate the whole world. For Yuri, the second stage was more familiar. In the next apartment, where the sisters and their many children were busy, they suddenly started knocking: the children decided to nail the back wall of a recently purchased chest of drawers. Note that it was 21.16, at this time it is not forbidden to make noise. But the drunken neighbor no longer cared. He swore at the kids who opened the door and demanded silence. A few minutes later, Khomchenko again went on an unfriendly visit – they didn’t open the door for him. A neighbor living opposite the sisters saw through a peephole how the repeat offender grinned unkindly and returned to his room.
A few minutes later, smoke began to emerge from the common corridor. The neighbor looked out the peephole again and saw that several bags of clothes were blazing in the vestibule. Some of them belonged to sisters with many children: women periodically threw out garbage. But one – unaccounted for – clearly just appeared. The examination showed that it was from this bag, doused with a flammable mixture, that the terrible fire started.
“Deceitful, aggressive, unscrupulous. No conscience, no other normal human qualities,” is how those who communicated with him over the years speak about Khomchenko. He was born into a peasant family in the Belgorod region and was engaged in agriculture. He was convicted, including for escaping from a colony, and fathered three children (two are already adults). For the last 10 years, he has been cohabiting with a woman who was destined to die at Moskabelmet: Yuri actually abandoned her in a burning building.
The couple moved to the capital in 2022. Here, Khomchenko pretended to be a refugee who had fled the SVO zone, constantly lived in debt, and spent money only on food and alcohol. Periodically, he would show up drunk at a homeless center, where they would reluctantly give him rations – they wouldn't kick out a vagabond.
Although Khomchenko was certainly not a vagabond. About a year before the fire, through acquaintances, he asked to become a tenant of the Moskabelmet Hotel: he and his girlfriend moved into one of the empty rooms that was supposed to be rented out. There he lived, working part-time at a construction site and cursing all those who poisoned his worthless, but relatively comfortable life with their existence. Until the fateful evening of February 21.
Valeria Bashaeva says:
– He is a wonderful actor. He perfectly gets used to various social roles, adapts to various situations. He can say nice things to your face, but behind your back – everything is bad. His true face is revealed only when you leave the room…
Unless a miracle happens, Khomchenko will never leave prison. And this is absolutely deserved: people like him do not deserve a better fate. It is a pity that seven people paid for this difficult truth with their lives.
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