Dungeon Prisoner

A 14-year-old sadist beat 7-year-old Dima Telepnev and then left the child to die in the basement. The boy spent five days there and survived only by a miracle. The doctors shrug their shoulders - after all, he had no chance.

Barbed wire instead of toys
The basement of the house on the Southern Highway is damp, dark and rats are running around. You can easily go crazy in this stone bag. The ominous place almost became a grave for the little man. His tormentor really wanted this. It is impossible to believe that the naked baby lay on the dirty, icy floor for several days. He could freeze, die of hunger, bleed, and ultimately not be able to withstand the pain and fear. Maybe the child was saved by the pectoral cross he never parted with? One way or another, residents of the Avtozavodsky district of Nizhny Novgorod, where everything happened, never cease to be amazed.
On August 10, 1999, as usual, drunk Dmitry Stepanov went to see his friend Nikolai Telepnev. At the entrance he ran into his mother, Galina Nikolaevna. The woman had long since disliked the over-aged loafer and drunkard from the neighboring yard. She believed that he was a bad influence on her son. Therefore, the parent shouted at Stepanov and advised him to leave immediately. It would be better if she didn't do this! Dmitry, covered in alcohol fumes, literally boiled with rage. It was necessary to immediately take revenge for the insult. The anger needed an outlet. At this fateful moment, the teenager caught the eye of Telepnev’s younger brother, Dima, who went out for a walk. Making sure that the street was deserted at this time of day, the bastard headed towards the child. The boy knew his older brother's friend well and trusted him.
“I know a place where there are a lot of toys,” he said and took the baby by the hand. “If you come with me, you’ll see.” Stepanov then led the victim to the basement. A sepulchral cold blew from the black hole. “Take off your clothes!” demanded the brother’s “best friend” and pushed the child. Dima began to scream and call for help. But the thick walls of the dungeon did not allow any sounds to pass through. Stepanov began to beat the prisoner, tearing off his clothes. The boy tried to shield himself from the blows.
From the indictment: “Drunk Dmitry Stepanov, born in 1985, out of revenge against Galina Telepneva, lured her son Dmitry into the basement of house 54 on Yuzhny Highway, where he stripped the child naked, tied him up with wire, and then began beating the boy and burning his head and crotch with a cigarette. Wanting to hide the crime, Stepanov began kicking Dima on the arms, legs and body. Finally, he took a building brick and hit the victim in the head several times.
The groan stopped, Dima swayed and fell. The brick was covered in blood.
The criminal did not find out whether the child was alive or not, but calmly went home. He said to his mother: “Just think, I killed the younger Telepnev,” but she turned a deaf ear. While the boy lay in the basement, the torturer regularly visited the crime scene. But cowardice did not allow him to be sure whether the victim was breathing or had long since become a corpse.

“Let it lie and rot”
On August 14, Stepanov met his friend Stas Neklyudov and, in a drunken stupor, simply blurted out. He didn't believe it at first.
From Neklyudov’s testimony: “Stepanov said that the corpse is in the basement of house 54 and can be seen in the fifth window. And he added that, having killed Dima, he covered the body with a jacket and left. Then he went home and immediately told his mother everything. She washed her son’s bloody clothes. After that, for three days I went and checked Telepnev to make sure that he was dead. Stepanov said that if they found him, he would immediately run away, but otherwise let him lie and rot. By nature, Dmitry is very angry and aggressive, especially when drunk. I admit that this man could have killed the child.”
Soon Neklyudov met his acquaintance Kuzminov and retold what he had heard from his always drunk friend. The boys decided to check his words and headed towards the basement. Kuzminov pressed the metal window and immediately saw the baby’s leg. The teenagers called the police.
The half-dead boy was urgently taken to hospital No. 40. There the wire was finally removed from him. Dima had been in a coma for several days. According to the conclusion of the forensic examination, “as a result of his actions, Stepanov caused injuries to Telepnev - a severe head bruise, multiple fractures of the bones of the cranial vault, head wounds, bruises and abrasions of the face, burns to the perineum, ≈ life-threatening.” For almost two weeks Dima was between life and death. Doctors literally pulled the child out of the other world.
Lyubov Evstigneeva, one of those who fought for his life, a nurse in the intensive care unit of hospital No. 40, will never forget this little patient:
“He was so emaciated, tiny and covered in a layer of dirt. I remembered that there was dirt even under the nails - as if the baby was trying to crawl out of the hole. A terrible sight. In many years of work, this is the first time I have seen this. The legs and arms were tied with wire, all covered in scars and abrasions. The pulse is weak, the pressure is almost zero. I could barely breathe. We immediately began to provide him with first aid. Dima showed no signs of life. And he didn’t even react to pain. He was washed and placed in a ward. Only a week later he opened his eyes. But he didn’t say a single word; he mumbled and didn’t understand where he was.
Evstigneeva believes that if the boy were older, he most likely would have died:
≈ An adult would not survive this. And the child’s body, oddly enough, has enormous reserves of strength. Dima’s mother was on duty near the doors all the time. We were all shocked - we also have small children. What animal could do such a thing?
While the doctors, without giving up, were on duty around the former prisoner for days on end, Stepanov gave evidence.

“I hit him on the head with a brick to keep him quiet.”
At the trial, Stepanov said that he did not think about the consequences: “He took Telepnev to the basement to beat him. Dima walked forward, I hit his shoulder with my hand from behind, the boy screamed. Then he hit me on the head with a brick. He didn't stop crying and screaming. To keep the child quiet, he hit him on the head two more times. The boy fell. I thought that Dima died and did not check if he was alive.”
The criminal was given ten years in a general regime correctional colony.
The Avtozavodsky district police always had a lot of work to do. District prosecutor Alexander Borovkov believes that the Avtozavod’s “bad heredity” is to blame for everything - even at the dawn of Soviet power, “tumbleweed” individuals from the countryside, adventurers of all stripes and experienced criminals poured there. The prison bunks have also been crying for Dmitry Stepanov for a long time. The teenager did not study, did not work, and wandered around the basements in the company of the same idiots. In his youth, he had already been to the police station more than once. And therefore, when the slob was brought to testify about Dima Telepnev, this visit did not particularly surprise anyone.
Even before the attempt on the life of a neighbor’s boy, he and his friends brutally raped and beat minor Alexei Boldin for a whole year (last name changed at the request of the investigation). At the end of April 1998, after drinking alcohol together, Stepanov’s company dragged the boy into the basement. They bullied him there. During the interrogation, one of the rapists said that the victim was threatened with a knife and a used syringe: “Stepanov began to say that he would fill the syringe with dirty water and pour it into his blood.” Next, the scum began to blackmail their former friend - threatening to tell everyone about the shame they had experienced. They demanded that some property be removed from the victim's apartment. This evening became the first link in the chain of humiliation that befell Alexei Boldin. For almost a year, the bastards tortured him and also forced him to rob his own mother. The scoundrels did not disdain anything - they appropriated everything that was lying around the house - from bags of sugar and the wine they drank to videotapes. But one fine day Alexey could not stand it and told his mother everything. The woman immediately contacted the police. The victim of drunken scum almost committed suicide.

Humiliated and raped for revenge
During interrogations, it turned out that Stepanov mocked an acquaintance in order to take revenge. Once he committed a theft, and Boldin gave him away. But for some reason, after his confession, the teenager did not languish in captivity for long. The police who were involved in this case considered it possible to release the criminal. Apparently, then the feeling of his own impunity matured in him. After all, a little later the teenager will take revenge again. To the mother of his friend Galina Telepneva. Only an innocent child will become the object of revenge.

The victim was unable to attend the trial.
“I saw the child after the hospital,” recalls investigator Tatyana Guryanova. “He was in the hospital for a month and a half. The doctors couldn’t even explain how he was lucky enough to pull through. Apparently, this boy’s inner will is unusually strong. After all, the injuries were very serious. While he was in the hospital, the doctors forbade us to communicate with him. The child was developmentally delayed and only his mother understood him. Therefore, he was unable to attend the trial. Dima's brother also felt guilty.
The interrogated boy was able to say that he went to play with the neighbor’s girl Masha in the yard, and followed his brother’s friend into the basement. I only remembered how they hit him on the head with a brick. I woke up in the hospital.
Dima Telepnev was registered in a mental hospital. That is, this is a doubly defenseless child - with underdeveloped speech, unable to stand up for himself.
“When I saw the parents of the criminal, I was surprised where such a little animal came from,” says Tatyana Guryanova. ≈ They are both skilled workers. There was complete mutual understanding in the family. At first, father and mother tried to control Dmitry, forced him to study lessons, dressed him and put him in shoes. But in the end the son was left to his own devices. I did what I wanted. He disappeared on the street for days on end. And when he came, they fed and watered him, put him to bed - and that’s it. Stepanov was not ashamed to talk about his crimes during interrogations. If other participants in the story repented, then he was not ashamed of anything.
Dmitry has been drinking since he was thirteen. Sometimes he did not come home and spent the night in basements. Life there was in full swing, although it consisted of drinking, sex and fights. But for some reason, the adult inhabitants of the Automobile Plant turned a blind eye to this.

“After discharge I had to relearn how to speak and walk”
We visited Galina Telepneva on the eve of the black date ≈ August 10th. Exactly a year has passed since the incident.
Dima is completely calm about talking about himself. While I was talking with Galina Nikolaevna, he was frolicking on the balcony, squealing something joyfully and posing with obvious pleasure for the “Interlocutor” photojournalist. Especially in an embrace with my mother.
During the five days they were looking for her son, the woman was overcome with grief. I didn’t write a statement to the police right away; together with my eldest son I tried for a long time to find the child. The mother did not believe that her Dima was dead. Hope glimmered in her on the third and fourth days of the search.
“I never left him unattended. That day he was with a neighbor girl. And Kolya was watching him out the window. He told me that he had just cut the bread, turned away for a minute, and Dimka was no longer there. At first, Kolya and I tried to find Dima on our own. They searched all the basements; the one in which the son was located was boarded up. They wanted to open it, but then they decided that the residents of the house wouldn’t like it. It was dark in that basement, Dima was lying far from the window, and therefore we did not notice him. Stepanov climbed in through the window; he is small and frail. All five days I was shaking with fear, flinching from every rustle. I was especially afraid, when they found him, to hear that he had died. On the day Dima was discovered, Kolya and I went to the pharmacy to buy sleeping pills. As soon as we returned, the grandmothers we knew shouted: “Galya, they came from the police, they took your brother away for identification!” Then my heart sank. Once for identification, I think that means he’s dead. I just asked: “Are you alive?” And I immediately went with Kolya to the intensive care unit. The son was already in the operating room. They stitched him up and raised his blood pressure. When they brought him in, I didn’t recognize Dima; he was bandaged from head to toe, and there wasn’t any blood on his face. And so skinny! The last stage of exhaustion, as I was told. But I no longer had any tears; they were probably all dried up. Then they fed him through a tube. When I opened my eyes, I didn’t speak for a very long time. After discharge, I had to teach my son to speak and walk again. Because the right side of Dimochka’s body was paralyzed. It took a month and a half to get the child back on his feet. The doctors didn't give us any hope. My son spent ten days in intensive care. After the attack, his head and heart hurt... I often meet Stepanov’s mother on the street. At first I didn’t want to talk to her at all - at the trial Dmitry said that she knew where my boy was. But Stepanova denied everything. Now I don’t hold any grudge against them.
Galina Nikolaevna is depressed not by meetings with the monster’s mother, but by the exaggerated attention to Dima from neighbors and local journalists. “As you walk around the yard, someone will definitely point a finger at us and start talking about that incident.”
Galina Nikolaevna is not embarrassed that her son is sick: she is determined to make him a full-fledged person. He takes Dima to doctors, consults with them and stays with the child around the clock. Although the Telepnevs live very modestly - on a disability pension. According to the court decision, she is entitled to compensation of several thousand rubles, but so far she has not seen a penny of this amount. Now the boy is going to school. Despite the nightmare he has experienced, what he likes to do most is play in the yard. Galina Nikolaevna does not work and devotes all her time to Dima.
When Stepanov is released from prison, he will be only 24 years old. People who know him doubt that he will improve.
“I think Dmitry will be released in ten years, still just as angry and aggressive,” says investigator Guryanova. “He felt very comfortable in the pre-trial detention center. You could put a basin in front of some criminals - so they cried and asked to be released. Stepanov just didn’t like the fact that there was no TV there and they weren’t allowed to go for a walk. He told his father not to worry - because his son is among his friends and he is even better there than at home.
Once released, will Stepanov take revenge on those who informed the police about his atrocities?
Nadezhda KELLER.
Photo by Andrey Strunin.
Nizhny Novgorod ≈ Moscow.