The Moscow Times
Thursday, October 21, 2004. Page 4.
School Troubles End in 2 Murders, Suicide
By Carl Schreck
Staff Writer Academic troubles have ended tragically for two schoolchildren:
A 13-year-old boy killed his parents after being punished for poor grades,
while a 14-year-old boy jumped to his death from a 12th-floor apartment
after being expelled.
The 13-year-old boy in the Altai region village of Talmenka walked into his
parents’ room last Thursday night while they were sleeping and shot them in
the head with his father’s 12-gauge shotgun, which he had taken from an
unlocked safe in the house, Russian media reported, citing police.
Altai regional police could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but a
police spokesman told Interfax that earlier that evening the boy’s parents
had punished him after a parent-teacher conference in which they were told
their son was falling behind in his studies. The boy told investigators his
father had beaten him, Gazeta reported.
The spokesman did not release the name of the boy, who is in the eighth
grade, or his parents, but Utro.ru identified them Wednesday as Alexander
Bykov, 50, and Galina Bykova, 47. Other news reports identified the boy as
Sasha or Shurik, diminutives for Alexander.
After killing his parents, the boy skipped school on Friday to clean up the
blood and hide the bodies in a closet, Rossiiskaya Gazeta reported. He went
to school on Saturday.
“I saw him in the hallway and asked why he hadn’t been in school on Friday,”
Lyubov Shapovalova, the boy’s class director, told the paper. “As he walked
by, he said something like, ‘I punished my dad, man!’ and went to class.”
The boy’s older sister, who does not live at home, stopped by her parents’
house Saturday and, seeing blood on the floor, called the police, Gazeta
reported.
The boy is now undergoing a psychological assessment, the police spokesman
told Interfax. Murder charges have been filed, but it is unlikely the boy
will face any jail time, as he has not yet turned 14 and is legally still a
juvenile.
Meanwhile, Gevorg Petrosyan committed suicide on Oct. 8 by jumping out of
his 12th-story bedroom window in the Moscow region town of Kuntsev, town
prosecutor Alexei Grigoryev said Wednesday.
Grigoryev would not comment on the details of the case, citing an
investigation, but Moskovsky Komsomolets and Komsomolskaya Pravda reported
that Petrosyan had been expelled from School No. 389 in Sergiyev Posad by
school director Lidia Kanchikova.
The newspapers said Petrosyan was kicked out after being wrongly accused of
bringing alcohol on a field trip.
Kanchikova denied that she had expelled Petrosyan, Moskovsky Komsomolets
reported. “I just turned him over to his mother and told him to come back on
Monday,” Kanchikova said.
Grigoryev said prosecutors are considering open a criminal case on charges
of driving a person to suicide.
Kanchikova cannot be tried if charges are filed. She died of a heart attack
last week, Grigoryev said.
Her age was unclear.