Translated material
Set it on fire and watched
In the summer of 2023, 39-year-old Oksana Kuzmenko from Yekaterinburg met Oleg Shchegolikhin in a grocery store. At first, he seemed like “the one” to her: he would pick her up from work, bring her coffee in bed, take care of her, but over time he became more and more jealous and controlling. After Kuzmenko decided to break up with him, Shchegolikhin kidnapped her, tortured her and was going to kill her. How she managed to break free and call for help is in the new material of the weekly true crime column “Cold”.
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On October 25, 2023, at four o’clock in the morning, an accident occurred on the EKAD highway in Yekaterinburg.
A dark blue Honda Fit car flew into the oncoming lane and crashed into a Chinese Exeed SUV. Immediately after this, a man jumped out of the Honda and ran towards the forest belt. However, other drivers who stopped due to the accident did not immediately notice his escape. Instead, they watched in shock as a woman approached them along the side of the road.
Without shoes, wearing only socks soaked in blood, with burnt hair and burns on her face, a passenger of the Honda hobbled to the scene of the accident, “like a zombie from a horror movie” - it was Oksana Kuzmenko. Coming closer, she asked : “Boys, please save me, they want to kill me.”
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"He was perfect"
Oksana Kuzmenko, a 39-year-old HR employee at a bank, was divorced and lived alone—according to her friends, she was unlucky in relationships—until in the summer of 2023 she went to a grocery store and accidentally met a man there. They smiled at each other, and he offered to carry her bag.
“He has open eyes and a pleasant smile. We got into a conversation, exchanged phone numbers along the way and decided to communicate,” Kuzmenko later said . The man's name was Oleg Shchegolikhin, he was also married in the past, but divorced. He moved to Yekaterinburg from Asbest, got a job as a welder in a car repair shop, rented an apartment, but dreamed of saving money and building a house.
At first, Kuzmenko thought that her new acquaintance was her age, but she soon found out that he was “very much” younger than her—almost eight years. Although this confused Kuzmenko a little, Shchegolikhin seemed reliable and charming, looked after him beautifully and knew how to make an impression. Soon they started dating.
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“In my eyes he was perfect. Coffee in bed in the morning is always the case. “Good morning” - always. I didn’t even have anything to get to the bottom of,” Kuzmenko later recalled . Shchegolikhin tried to make sure that everyday life did not “devour” the relationship: he offered to cook not every day and helped with washing the dishes. One day I went to the store for zucchini while Kuzmenko was at work, and when she arrived I made a surprise - I prepared pancakes. The couple went out of town with tents: Oleg fished and fried kebabs for Oksana.
He cared not only about his partner. When they saw a cage with a hamster in the entrance, abandoned by one of the neighbors, Oleg was the first to offer to take it home and made a house from a shoe box himself.
From his previous marriage, Shchegolikhin had two minor children. However, he did not tell Oksana anything about that relationship and stopped her attempts to find out the details. He explained this by saying that “women like to hype themselves up and make assumptions that didn’t actually happen.”
Shchegolikhin was also silent about the fact that he had been convicted six times in the past - for drunk driving, theft, hijacking, threatening to kill, robbery and causing harm to health of moderate severity. In 2018, he received two and a half years in a general regime colony for stealing three cars. He was released in March 2021, and already in July, in two days, he beat two acquaintances and robbed one of them, for which in December 2021 he received a second sentence and spent two years in a maximum security colony.
He was released from prison on July 28, 2023 and almost immediately met Oksana Kuzmenko.
Angry red emoticons
Kuzmenko later admitted that at the beginning of the relationship she was wearing “rose-colored glasses.” Even then, she planned to start a family with Shchegolikhin, telling her friends that it seemed that she had met a “worthy man.” However, none of them saw Shchegolikhin in person: for some reason he did not want to meet Kuzmenko’s friends and did not introduce her to his own.
Oksana managed to persuade him only once: together with her Shchegolikhin went to the dacha to her childhood friend Olesya Skiba. The evening ended badly.
The three of them sat at the table and “had a good time” until the friend went to bed. After some time, her husband Alexey arrived at the dacha and joined Kuzmenko and Shchegolikhin’s feast. Soon a conflict broke out between the men, and they went outside to fight. Kuzmenko ran out after him. She shouted to Shchegolikhin: “Why are you behaving like this, they invited us to visit,” but he did not listen. Shchegolikhin beat the owner of the house until he lost consciousness, after which he took the car keys and drove away.
The next morning Skiba saw her beaten husband and told Kuzmenko that she didn’t need such friends. She advised Oksana to break up with her boyfriend, but she didn’t listen. And after two months she began to notice problems.
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Throughout the working day, Shchegolikhin constantly called and wrote to Kuzmenko. At first she perceived it as romance: Oleg declared his love and sent TikToks with “bunnies and kitties.” However, over time, this increasingly turned into a way of control.
Shchegolikhin began checking calls and messages on her phone every day. “He said: “If you have nothing to hide, give me your phone, I’ll look at your correspondence,” Kuzmenko recalled . “I voluntarily let him look at the phone.” If a person doesn’t trust me, and I have absolutely nothing to hide, then please look at it.”
On one of these days, Shchegolikhin saw in the phone the number of his colleague, who was engaged in painting cars. Kuzmenko saved it just in case: a useful contact that might come in handy. Shchegolikhin did not like this: he said that Oksana’s phone should not contain contacts at all that are “associated with men’s names.”
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Regularly checking his phone did not calm him down; he continued to be jealous. When Kuzmenko was at work and did not immediately respond to messages, Shchegolikhin sent “evil red emoticons.”
In the office, Kuzmenko usually wore Crocs, but changed into heels if she left the room. When Shchegolikhin called her again and heard the clicking of heels, he began to demand a photo - to make sure that Oksana was not deceiving him and was definitely at work. Such situations were repeated, and Kuzmenko sent him photo reports more than once, although she believed that this was a “kindergarten.” “He said that he has a very wild imagination, he can imagine a lot of things in his thoughts,” Kuzmenko later recalled . Shchegolikhin explained to her that, in principle, he did not trust people.
"You should never leave"
At the end of October 2023, Kuzmenko heard Shchegolikhin talking on the phone with a girl. After her question “who is this?” a quarrel began. “When we made peace, he honestly told me that there was such and such a madam, and they walked with her around the city center - “But don’t think anything, we had nothing with her,” Kuzmenko said . Then she thought: most likely, Oleg has other relationships. “We have a big age difference, so I said: “If you’re more interested there, let’s not continue anything else and aggravate the situation,” she recalled .
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Kuzmenko packed her things and wanted to temporarily move home to her mother - to be alone while Shchegolikhin “resolved the issue” with the girl. But then he began to behave aggressively. “He opened the doors, called the elevator, threw all my bags there, put me out into the corridor in his slippers and said: “You are now going to see your mother like this,” Kuzmenko said. She asked to be given shoes and a coat. Shchegolikhin refused. And when Kuzmenko entered the elevator, he threw a cast-iron cauldron at her - she barely managed to dodge. Kazan smashed the mirror in the elevator with a crash.
Kuzmenko got scared and decided “not to develop the conflict.” She said she wasn't going anywhere, returned home, and they went into the kitchen to talk. Shchegolikhin admitted that he was wrong, but told her: “No matter what happens, you should never leave.” Kuzmenko did not answer anything to this.
“I used to chalk it up to age: hot blooded, 32 years old. But after the saucepan, I made a tick for myself that we had to make a decision so that we would separate,” she recalled . “I came to the conclusion: damn, if you push this person, there will be physical violence.” But what happened to me next, I couldn’t even wrap my head around the idea that one could be a maniac to such an extent.”
Bad feeling
After waiting for Shchegolikhin to leave home, Kuzmenko packed her things and went to her mother. She told Shchegolikhin about this over the phone, after which he began to “call” her: during the day he called every 15-30 minutes via video link. The next morning, Oksana went to work by metro and left the car in the yard.
On the evening of October 24, Kuzmenko’s mother Natalya Cherepanova was watching TV when the lights in the apartment went out. “I go out into the corridor [of the entrance], the light is on. I'm going to the counter. I go into the apartment, close the latch and hear rustling in the large room. I went into the large room. We have a wardrobe and a hanger there. He’s crawling out of there, this young man,” Oksana’s mother said : while the lights were off, Shchegolikhin made his way into her apartment. He did not answer the question “why” - he silently looked at Cherepanova and smiled. She said she would call the police. Then he tied the pensioner’s hands behind her back and took the phone.
Around the same time, Kuzmenko finished work and left the office. She didn’t want to return home: she had a bad feeling. She called her friend Elena and agreed to stay with her for a few days - and then planned to rent an apartment.
Kuzmenko was worried that her mother was not answering calls and wanted to pick up the car, which was left in the yard. Together with Elena, they went to her mother’s house and were there at one o’clock in the morning.
Kuzmenko asked her friend to drop her off at a neighboring house. Then she went on foot, and Elena remained sitting in the car. There was no one suspicious in the yard. After some time, Elena went to the store: her friends had agreed on a meeting place in advance. She waited for more than 10 minutes, and, according to her calculations, Oksana should have already had time to look at her mother, warm up the car and come - but she still didn’t show up. Then Elena went back.
Arriving at the house, she saw that Kuzmenko’s dark blue Honda was nowhere to be found, the metal gate was open, and tire tracks led outside the yard.
Silently listened to the music
Kuzmenko herself later recalled what happened. “There was nothing threatening. Quiet, calm in the yard. Still, I looked around,” she recalled the minutes when she approached the car. Kuzmenko opened the door and sat inside. Before leaving, I turned on the headlights - and regretted it. “Where he [Shchegolikhin] flew out from, where he jumped out from, I didn’t understand at all. I understand that he is running at speed, runs up, opens the doors and immediately starts punching me,” Kuzmenko said. “I bend over and he just starts pounding me.” Immediately everything was swollen, my nose was askew, my nose was bleeding.”
Shchegolikhin ordered Kuzmenko to move to the passenger seat, and he sat behind the wheel. He took her salary card, keys and earrings and demanded that she take them off “so that they would not be identified.” After that he told me to open the gate. Kuzmenko replied that the key fob does not work, you need to ask your neighbors. Then Shchegolikhin got out of the car and opened them by force. And then he returned to the car and took Kuzmenko to the auto repair shop where he worked as a welder.
On the way, Shchegolikhin took her mother’s phone number out of his pocket and showed Kuzmenko. When asked “why” he answered: “To keep you under control.” He then opened his call history, where he saw his friend’s number, and called her to tell her that everything was fine with Kuzmenko - she confirmed this, afraid that he would hit her again. She said into the phone: “I’m with Oleg,” hoping that if something happened to her, Elena would know who was to blame.
On the way, she tried to calm Shchegolikhin. “I tell him: “Why are you behaving like this? Let’s talk about what didn’t suit you, tell me the reason, explain.” He turned the music up louder. He drove, listened to music, and didn’t react to me at all,” she said .
“So big, but you believe in fairy tales”
The workshop where Shchegolikhin worked is located in one of the areas that is called “ depressive ” in Yekaterinburg. Wooden one-story houses lined the road until the car turned into a garage complex.
Shchegolikhin went out to open the garage, and then pulled Kuzmenko out into the street by her collar, began beating her and pushing her towards the garage. This was caught on CCTV footage.
Kuzmenko found herself in a cramped room, littered with things. Inside there were tables, sofas and cars waiting to be repaired. There were tools hanging on one of the walls.
“He turned on the music at full volume, took a bat, and beat me a little. “The whole left side of my back was just one continuous bruise,” Kuzmenko said on the talk show “Beyond the Borders.” When he was tired of beating, Shchegolikhin drank vodka, listened to music and sang songs.
At some point, he turned the music down and told Kuzmenko: “Take off your shoes.” When asked “why,” he replied: “I’m going to nail your legs now.” Oksana didn’t believe it - she thought he just wanted to scare. However, he actually picked up a wooden block.
Shchegolikhin tortured Oksana, doused her with gasoline and set her on fire. Caution: the text contains particularly violent scenes.
He nailed Kuzmenko’s feet to it: the left one with a nail, and the right one with a screw piece of iron, similar to a corkscrew. Then he decided to unfasten the board from the legs: the nail came out immediately, but the piece of iron did not give way. Using pliers over several approaches, Shchegolikhin was unable to cope with it. “He walked and walked and then simply said: “What, am I not strong enough?” He took my leg and how he pulled... I screamed so much, it was hellish pain. My bleeding [came] from my right leg, because it’s a screw [piece of iron]… I have two through holes,” said Kuzmenko.
By that time, Kuzmenko was exhausted. Shchegolikhin demanded to stand up, but she could not - then he lifted her by the armpits and hit her on the back several times with a hammer. “Then he forced me to take an elephant pose: bend my knees to my chest, my hands behind my back, and tied my arms and legs. I was tied up with a tow rope,” said Kuzmenko.
Shchegolikhin dragged her into the next room when cans of gasoline caught his eye. He started pouring it on Kuzmenko. Somewhere along the way, she managed to free her bound legs. She wiped gasoline off her face and at the same time tried to talk to Shchegolikhin. However, this did not help: “I took out a cigarette, a lighter and brought this lighter to the stream of gasoline. I burst into flames like a candle, and Shchegolikhin took a fire extinguisher. But before he took it, he smoked a cigarette and watched me burn,” said Kuzmenko.
Oksana was burning alive, but was conscious. She ran around the garage and screamed. At some point, Shchegolikhin beckoned her with his finger and pointed to the fire extinguisher standing next to him. “I run up with these eyes, I’m all on fire. I run up to him like a kitten and ask him: “Please put me out,” she said. Shchegolikhin doused her with foam, and then began to tear the molten cable off her body. Then he brought a bucket with a rag and forced Kuzmenko to wash the floor from her own blood - and at the end he checked how clean the floors were.
After that, Shchegolikhin ordered Kuzmenko to get into the car, and she walked in her socks through the snow. Her whole body was covered in burns, her face and hair were damaged - she felt that she “smelled like something was burning.”
That night Kuzmenko asked Shchegolikhin: “You said that you have feelings for me. Where are our feelings? He replied : “You are so big, but you believe in fairy tales.”
“You will be digging your own grave”
Kuzmenko drove calmly in the car: according to her, at that moment she no longer cared what would happen to her next. Shchegolikhin drove onto the Ekaterinburg Ring Road (Ekaterinburg Ring Road) and drove her towards the Yagodnoye Cemetery. He said : “Now you’re going to dig your own grave,” and threatened her with a knife. He said that he was going to “deal with” Kuzmenko and sell the car - and asked where the documents were.
“I prayed. I prayed very hard. I thought about my mother first. I'm the only one with her. And it’s as if an inner voice is telling me: either now or never. Because his last words were that I didn’t have long to live: “I’ll cut your throat, ask God for forgiveness,” Kuzmenko told reporters.
Seeing a dense stream of cars moving in the oncoming lane, she realized: this was a chance for salvation. “I’m lying and thinking: “I’d rather die under the wheels of an oncoming car than from him,” Kuzmenko recalled .
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She opened the door and tried to jump out of the car. Shchegolikhin grabbed her by the hood and began to pull her back into the cabin, but lost control of the car - and it flew into the oncoming lane. Shchegolikhin let go of Kuzmenko and tried to avoid the accident, but did not have time.
“They crash, I’m apparently kubarim, therefore, I don’t get under the wheels,” Kuzmenko said . She flew into the fence, rose from her last forces and went to the drivers who stopped and got out of the cars.
Help!
“They were pumped up and tall. For some reason, I thought they would definitely help me. I shouted: “Help, they want to kill me! There is a man, and he has a knife, ”Kuzmenko recalled .
Witnesses of the accident called an ambulance and traffic police. “I was shaking from the cold, I was in socks, socks are bloodied. I began to ask for men to go into the car. But they did not let me into the salon. They said: "You are all in gasoline, you yourself must understand." I am already vaguely understanding at all, ”she said . Only one of the drivers gave Kuzmenko his shales.
She poorly remembers what happened next. He only remembers that she constantly asked where the ambulance - she arrived in 20-30 minutes. Only when Kuzmenko on a stretcher was loaded into an ambulance, she realized that she was under protection and could relax.
DPS employees detained Scheglikhin less than two hours after the accident. From the scene of the accident, he left only two kilometers, probably because he was in one boot .
At 10 in the morning, Scheglikhin again called Elena - said that her friend had an accident and now in the hospital. Almost immediately after him, Zhuravleva was written by Olesya Skiba. She threw off the screenshot of the newspaper’s material, which was written: “The roommate pinned the woman with nails, doused with gasoline and set fire to it.”
Scheglikhin called several times and the skibe itself, but she did not pick up the phone. Then he began to write to her: “Olesya take the phone I beg you very much” (punctuation is preserved) . He said that Kuzmenko was lying in the hospital and she had to take her pills - supposedly he himself could not visit her, because he "leaves for the season."
Get ready for the worst
Kuzmenko was put in the intensive care unit of the burn department of the city clinical hospital. She was diagnosed with through wounds on the feet, injuries of the eye socket, nose and finger on her right leg, hematomas. In addition, 20-30% of the body was in burns of the second and third degrees - the face was most affected by the fire. Doctors introduced her to the medication. Olesya Skiba informed reporters that friends called the hospital every hour. Doctors said “tune in to the worst”: “extremely serious condition. There is no face and no hair, so the head of the burn department told me, ” said Skiba.
A few days later, Kuzmenko came into consciousness. She continued to lie in intensive care: the doctors reported that her condition was “without special dynamics” and “stably difficult”. There were burns and serious injuries on his hands, and his face was completely wrapped in bandages.
On December 1, Kuzmenko was discharged from the hospital, and she moved to her mother. She lost a lot of weight and experienced several skin transplant operations.
Now Kuzmenko is shy of strangers: “When I go, I look in the ground, not directly. I even go into public transport in a mask, because everyone looks at me at once, ”she told Elena Pogrebizhskaya in August 2024.
“Now I have a lot of phobia inside. Hunting to hide in a corner, ” said Kuzmenko. Previously, she often went to the sea, went to alloys. Now this is almost impossible: the burns should be closed from the sun.
"Not Natalia Oreiro"
Scheglikhin remained in custody in the fall. By March 2024, the investigation ended. He was accused under three articles of the Criminal Code: of attempted murder committed with particular cruelty, in the theft of a car with the use of a life -threatening violence and in another episode of drunk.
Kuzmenko hardly decided to come to the meeting. Despite classes with psychologists, she was afraid to tremble: “My inner state was just terrible. It was very difficult for me to talk and remember all these events, ”she said . When in April 2024 Kuzmenko told in court the experienced court, Scheglikhin sat just a couple of meters behind her. Giving testimony, she tried not to look at him, and when she returned to her place, she hid behind the lawyer's shoulder. Scheglikhin covered his face with paper.
MHI does not cover plastic surgery. Kuzmenko and her lawyer estimated the costs of restoring 15–20 million rubles, but in court they demanded 10 million. In response to this, Scheglikhin said that Kuzmenko had not been Natalia Oreiro before. In court, he rude: “Yes, she is a demon in the flesh! I did not see people to die simply because they were put on the ass. ” At the same time, the lawyer of Tyschchenikhina claimed that he loved Oksana and was not going to kill her.
On July 15, 2024, Scheglikhin was sentenced to 12 years in a maximum security colony with restriction of freedom for a year and a half. As compensation for non -pecuniary damage, Dyschchenikhin should pay Kuzmenko one and a half million rubles.
Kuzmenko said that she was afraid that Scheglikhin would go to the war in Ukraine and escape the prison: “I would not want him to be sent to his. There are a lot of options for the future. Maybe these are my phobias, but [suddenly he] will return to the hero. Maybe he is angry at me now, unhappy, maybe a feeling of revenge on him, ”she said .
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Author: editors of the "cold" photo: ed