The Girl
In The Red Coat
Late in the afternoon of December 22, 1978, in the
small coal-mining town of Shakhty, southern Russia, Svetlana
Gurenkova sat waiting for a streetcar to take her home. As she
waited in the cold, her attention was drawn to a plump young girl
who stood a short distance from her. The girl was wearing a
distinctive red coat with a hood trimmed in black fur. As further
protection against the cold, she wore a brown rabbit-fur cap and a
woollen scarf.
What attracted Svetlana's attention wasn't so much the girl or
her clothing but the man she was with. He was a tall, grey-haired
man in his forties wearing a long black overcoat and carrying a
shopping bag. The man had a long face and nose and wore oversized
glasses. It wasn't his appearance that made her suspicious, it was
the way the man was looking at the young girl and whispering to
her. The girl didn't seem to know him but still seemed interested
in what he had to say. Sometime later the man walked away. The
girl followed shortly after, looking happy and content. As
Svetlana watched them walk away, her streetcar arrived and she
lost sight of them.
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Lena
Zakotnova
victim |
The young girl's name was Lena Zakotnova, a bright, happy
nine-year-old who was on her way home from school when she met the
man at the trolley stop. She had told a school friend earlier that
she might be getting some "imported" chewing gum from a "nice old
man" that she'd met. Perhaps that was what enticed her to go with
the man to his "secret house," a small run-down shack, a short
walk from the trolley stop.
Shortly after reaching their destination, the man unlocked the
door of the shack and switched on the light before leading the
girl inside, locking the door behind them. Once inside, the man
wasted no time in pushing her to the floor and removing her coat
and panties. As she began to scream, he pressed his forearm across
her throat and leaned his body weight against her until she lay
still. Her eyes were still open, so he blindfolded her with her
scarf before attempting to have sex with her.
Unable to achieve an erection, he began to violate the girls
genitals with his fingers, finding that the attack stimulated him
to orgasm like never before. As he continued with his assault, the
girl began wriggling under him, struggling to draw breath through
her damaged throat. Concerned that the girl would report him for
what he'd done, he produced a knife and stabbed her three times in
the stomach. When she lay still, the man picked up her body and
belongings and left the house, heading across a vacant lot to the
Grushevka River. In his haste to leave, he failed to notice two
things. The blood of his victim that had dripped onto the doorstep
and the light that he had left burning.
Upon reaching the river he hurled her body into the freezing
water and watched it disappear downstream. Throwing her school bag
after her, he turned and headed for home, not realising that the
girl was still alive.
