Who killed Colin Madsen?

The family of American Colin Madsen, who died in Buryatia, asks Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of government Dmitry Medvedev to resume the investigation of the circumstances of his death. This is stated in the petition published on the website Change.org. The petition was placed by the Russian Iya Petrov on behalf of the Madsen family. It says that Parents of Colin received an expert opinion of American experts, which largely contradicts Russian experts.

The student from Missouri Colin Madsen was 22 years old when he came to Russia in Russia to study the Russian language in 2013. He dreamed of working at the UN or US Consulate in Vladivostok. In the spring of 2016, Colin Madsen died under mysterious circumstances in Siberia. The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation claims that he died of hypothermia, but the results of the examination conducted in the United States indicate that he was killed.

Colin Madsen studied at the Irkutsk State Linguistic University, he really liked Siberia. “We have a very good, creative atmosphere at our university,” the familiar Colin tells me. “The best teachers, creative, active students. And most importantly, he was a man of nature. He loved campaigns, he was conquered by local nature.”

The American student and his Russian friends went on campaigns many times, sometimes in extreme conditions ("by complex relief in pitch darkness, without any landmarks"). Colin was an experienced traveler, well knew how to behave in the mountains and forests. As of March 27, 2016, it was planned to rise to the peak of love in the Tunkinsky district of Buryatia, a route of 3.5 kilometers long. Colin and his friends from Irkutsk - an American and two Russians - stopped at night in a resort village

Arshan at the foot of the Sayan mountains. Young people came to only one weekend, were in a hurry, they did not communicate with anyone in the village. We went to bed at 2 a.m., agreeing to get up at 5, and hit the road at 7 in the morning. Everyone slept in the same room, but, waking up in the morning, they found that Colin had disappeared. At the same time, his backpack and other things remained in the house.

Arshan lives tourism, and on weekends, visitors feast on the riverbank. Is it possible to assume that Colin went out at night, saw a fun company on the shore, met them and left somewhere to have fun? “Definitely not,” comrade Colin, who was with him on that fatal day in Arshan, answers me. “But he was gullible. They could lure with deception (“ Young man, help ”), could force.”

When Colin did not appear by 7 in the morning, his friends began to panic, went around the whole village, but they did not find anything. We went to the supporting point of the police, but it was closed, no one answered the calls all day. Only in the evening they managed to find the police, and soon the employees of the Investigative Committee arrived in Arshan.

Colin's friends say that the investigators immediately began to insult them and, as if during the arrest, selected all personal belongings. SK employees had no doubt that the murder occurred, and the criminals were in front of them. Allegedly, the expedition participants got drunk and used drugs, quarreled, one of them killed Colin, and the corpse was dismembered and buried. They demanded to confess, threatened to send to Press Khata. When it turned out that none of the participants in the tourist trip was drinking alcohol, it seemed to the investigators even more outrageous. They were annoyed by everything: the fact that none of the young people drinks, and instead of alcohol, they took books, and the earring in the ear, and the pressed Puer tea, and all the claims were expressed on criminal jargon.

The investigation is finished: forget it

Colin’s mother urgently flew to Arshan from America, and the investigator talked with her as a criminal: he announced that her son was gay, because he went on a campaign in a male company and without alcohol. “He was boiling with hatred and contempt, because he believed that these guys should not live in a hotel together, without girls and without alcohol. He all the time tried to persuade me to say that Colin liked the boys, he was interested in how much money he spent a month and where they got,” says Dana Madsen-Kalkatt.

All these days there were searches that volunteers joined. Only on April 4, the corpse of Colin was found only a kilometer from Arshan. One of the participants in the search expedition immediately sent a photo at LifeNews. Colin lies in a strange pose, on his back: it seems that the body was dragged here and threw it. At first, a message appears with reference to the source in the Arshan administration that traces of violence were found on the corpse. But soon the official release of the UK is published. It says that before the disappearance, Colin and his friends could use drugs. Soon this assumption turns into a categorical statement. Allegedly, the examination discovered the decay products of marijuana, as well as Spice. The final version is also formed immediately: Colin used drugs, went out in the middle of the night to the street, got lost and frozen. The case is investigated, closed and handed over to the archive.

But why, a few days after the disappearance, although the search engines combed the surroundings, the corpse was found just a kilometer from the village? How could a young man freeze on a warm night? Why did it be on the shoes without socks? It is impossible to go far in such shoes, in addition, Colin had an ankle injury. And most importantly: the investigation completely ignored traces of violence on the student’s body.

Instead of looking for killers, slandered the victim, insulted Colin’s mother, intimidated his friends.

Mick Calcutt, Strack Colin, professor at the University of Missouri, and his mother Dana Madsen-Kalkutt decided to conduct a new examination in the United States in the Independent Forensic Services laboratory. The results of this examination, published in July 2017, confirm that there was a murder in Arshan.

First of all, it became clear that Colin died not on the day of his disappearance and not where he was found. Experts note that there are no traces of animal exposure on the body, although in eight days, during which the corpse allegedly lay in the vicinity of Arshan, the animals should have been, at least, the mild fabrics.

Colin was not robbed, he had an American passport and wallet with him, but there is damage on his body and clothes. Traumes of hands and wrists indicate that a young man was connected. He received a blow on the head and, most likely, was strangled. The examination found that underwear and trousers were worn after the death of the victim, and the clothes look like it washed. At the time of death, Colin clenched his fists: apparently trying to defend himself from the attack. In the photographs from the place of detection of the body, the jewelry that Colin wore on his neck is not visible. But then the police handed him to the mother of the deceased. Where did the police come from? The cord on which the pendant hangs is connected in two places, as if it were torn in a fight. In the audio recording of the autopsy made in Russia, there is a mention that there was a trace of the boot on the body, but there is no mention of this in the police protocol. The version of the Investigative Committee is completely insolvent: the American examination did not find any traces of drugs.

Parents of Colin Madsen now require the resumption of the investigation. They are sure that the Russian authorities hide the details of the crime.

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  Dmitry Volchek

  Radio Liberty editor

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