1- Maxim Taumanov 11 years old, 2- Galash Mamedgasanov 10 years old, 3- Alexander Lavrenov 12 years old, 4- Dmitry Makarov 10 years old, 5- Safar Aliyev 11 years old
Today’s case comes in as the craziest one covered so far. The case remains relatively unknown outside of Russia and, in fact, I only found three English sources. The rest of my sources were in Russian so I hope Google Translate did good. I originally encountered this case in a post on Reddit and since then I really can’t stop thinking about it! Do you have those cases that just sticks with you? I know I do! Not much public information exists about this case, and the police have remained really tight lipped and have closed the case. But too many unanswered questions remain and therefore the story needs light. Five families need answers and the story revolves around the lost Krasnoyarsk boys. This is their story.
As always let’s begin with a discussion of the legal system in Russia. The 1993 constitution defines the laws of the Russian Federation and came into effect after the fall of the USSR, Soviet Union. Possessing a civil law system with precedents established by higher courts “followed” by lower courts and as a general rule have to have consistency with the relevant codes. The system of government notes as a semi-presidential republic. The President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin has the highest executive authority and is head of the state, appoints, with the support of the parliamentary majority the Prime Minister and its government and the collegial executive body. That is enough legal talk so let’s get into the Crime Story!
This crime story is like nothing I have covered before because officially we do not even know if a crime took place! Technically classified as an unexplained death, but the details of this case, however, make me think something fishy and criminal took place. Five young and healthy young boys do not just wind up dead together of natural causes. The story takes place in Krasnoyarsk, Russia in south- central Siberia an area north of Mongolia. Interesting fact—Ulan Bator, the capitol of Mongolia has the distinction of being the coldest capitol in the world.
Krasnoyarsk lies on the Yenisey River and the Trans-Siberian Railroad runs through the town. In 2013, over one million people lived in the city and that does not include the surrounding suburban area. Known for aluminum production and stunning views the weather remains a huge negative. With the story taking place in Siberia my curiosity looked it up and the record low in the city—- NEGATIVE 52 degrees Celsius or a whopping negative 63 degrees Fahrenheit! Average temperatures year-round trend from -15.5 degrees to 13.4 degrees Celsius is or -4 degrees to 65 degrees Fahrenheit, sounds like a perfect place to beat the August heat found in my native Texas.
On April 16th, 2005 a woman named Oksana Korshunov greeted her 11year old son Maxim home after a day at school. Maxim quickly rushed out of the house to go play with his friend, Sasha who lived in the same apartment building. Oksana stated that Maxim went to Sasha’s around 4 to 4:30 pm. When Maxim did not return home for dinner Oksana started to panic and she went looking for her son in the apartment courtyard without success. At the same time Oksana searched for her son, Sasha’s parents were looking for him as well as were the parents of three other young boys. Maxim Taumanov, Alexander (Sasha) Lavrenov, Safar Aliev, Gal-ash Mamedgasanov, and Dmitry Makarov all aged 9-12 were missing. All the boys lived in the same apartment complex and often played with each other. The apartment complex sits next to an abandoned once-top-secret Soviet era chemical plant as well as a heating plant and other factories. According to an article in the LA Times the Stalin era complex originally served as housing for a Siberian labor camp and by 2005 could best be described as being decrepit, chilly and badly lit. None of these families had financial resources to fund a search as these working-class families toiled in the local factories.
Before continuing, I want to provide some background for missing children in Russia to help provide context for our story. Every year about 50,000 Russian children go missing and less than 10% of the cases are reported to authorities. Mainly charities and NGO’s do the footwork on finding these children as opposed to the police. My research found that nearly 80% of these children ran away under their own volition. Most end up making their way to Moscow where they live in the train stations and abandoned buildings. Sadly, many end up turning to sex work to make money to survive. The children often runaway due to parental neglect and even if they get returned to their home they will runaway again. Not only do children runaway but every year nearly 100,000 people vanish in Russia and 25% are never heard from again. It’s a huge problem!
Back to our Crime Story, people saw the boys for the last time walking together in the courtyard on Glinka Street in front of house 16. Later that night the parents alerted the police. Not taking the case seriously the police classified the boys as runaways and put them all on the Federal Wanted list. The parents and those who knew the boys doubted that they had runaway. Four of the boys had not reason to runaway while the fifth had a poor home life and had a previous runaway attempt. The public rallied around the family and this caused the police to take the case more seriously. Two weeks after the disappearance, on April 21, authorities changed the case to falling under Article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, also known as a murder investigation.
This caused the case to become massive in scope as all units in the regional police, some 5,000 officers took part in the search for the boys. Tactics included using police helicopters, searching abandoned construction sites, forests, landfills and every other place they could think of searching. The head of the Krasnoyarsk Police, Alexander Gorovoy took charge of the searches, promising the parents to look for the boys until they found them. Today, Alexander Gorovoy serves as the first deputy minister of the Interior Ministry. During these early searches teams found six other bodies including a newborn child and two people who showed signs of violent deaths. Authorities also discovered a 6-month-old child lying in a sewage pipe near a factory, nearly starved, but alive. This suggests to me that law and order did not occupy a top priority in Krasnoyarsk.
On May 8th the boys were found only 300 meters from their apartment building. Encased in a concrete sewage well, all five were dead. The police never publicly confirmed who found the bodies but most believed metal collectors interested in the piece of metal covering the hole. The discovery, unfortunately, seems too predictable. But the case takes on twist that makes this case absolutely mind boggling.
On May 5, just three days prior to the discovery Sasha’s father searched the exact spot where the bodies were found. He looked down the hole but found it empty. Authorities found the bodies badly burned, in fact, just a little more than blackened bones and fragments of bones. Burning bones requires temperatures between 1100 to 1500 degrees Celsius and no evidence in the sewage well exists. A 300ml spray can was found in the well by the boys.
Debate exists about the state of the boys’ remains. What I just shared comes from the official police accounts but different accounts soon emerged. Allegedly, a local drunk helped the police carry the bodies out of the sewer and he claims that the bodies showed signs of strangulation along their necks and did not appear burned at all. If only found as bone fragments this story could not be true, or could it. Authorities could not determine the cause of death except for Dmitry who died of carbon monoxide poisoning, perhaps as a result of being burned alive. A person who dies as a result of being burned alive, they did in a certain position kind of looks like a boxer’s stance.
Officials never released if they found the boys in this stance but with official statements stating they only found fragments it seems unlikely. What we do know however, that it took authorities some time to positively identify the boys. Among items found that led police to a preliminary identification beyond finding five bodies include an apartment key of one of the boys and gold necklace from another boy. DNA testing confirmed the identity of only four of the boys but only ash existed from the fifth boy. One Russian source I read stated that all five boys were completely bloodless when found but an English source states that only three bodies had been drained of blood before being set on fire. They state that a fourth body was believed to be partially drained of blood, and it was also the only body with a specific type of fungus present on it. Authorities determined the fungus dated from April 17 to 19 and this suggests that the boys died within 3-5 days of disappearing.
After finding the bodies authorities said nothing else about the case except that it looked like an accident. Police posit that the boys climbed down into the well themselves and accidentally touched something that set off a firestorm of methane gas and old fuel oil. Perhaps the boys sniffed aerosol fumes or just lit a small bonfire that set off the cascade of fire. The 300ml spray can authorizes found provides evidence for this theory. I have serious problems and serious doubts with this line of reasoning. The theory imagines five boys climbing down into a well and crowding together in a space no larger than five feet in diameter. Most problematic, could a fire originated in this manner generate the heat necessary to essentially cremate five bodies? The police state that the murder theory poses issues as well. How could five strong, lively boys be rounded up in broad daylight with no one noticing? If the criminal was someone known to the boys it would easily explains how the boys became isolated without notice.
For me, enough evidence exists to suggest that a crime took place. Varying sources state that no evidence exists that a fire occurred in the sewer and this seems simple enough to figure out whether the boys burned to death in the sewer well or not. In addition, how could the boys have removed the top, gone down into the well, and closed the top. The boys closing the top defies logic and without a closed top it becomes even less likely that fire could reach the heat necessary to burn the boys beyond recognition. Also making the theory about it being an unfortunate accident involves a large amount of trash existing above the sewer well.
It seems too obvious to me and one eyewitness account places a foreign made black car with no license plate near the apartment building on the day of the boys’ disappearance. The person making this claim later recanted their statement. Some strange speculation about ritualistic killing exist, based on the drained blood.
The boys’ families are not the biggest fans of the police. Sasha’s mother stated that much evidence may have disappeared in the time it took police to launch an investigation. To quote, “They didn’t take it seriously. They were confident that our children had simply run away for a better place to play and they would come back soon,” she said.
Some theories I have read about the case state that a group of pedophiles kidnapped the boys, had their way with them, then killed them and placed them in the sewer well between May 5th and May 8th. Another story states that someone forced the boys down the sewer and then the boys could not escape due to the trash placed on their only escape route. The boys then lit a fire to try to keep warm or were set on fire, died of carbon monoxide poisoning, then burned while they were all unconscious/dead. But if this happened on April 16 some evidence should exist near the sewer well at least enough that Sasha’s father would have noticed when he searched the area on May 5.
Another theory opines that a serial killer committed the crime. In fact, the week before the boys disappearance the charred bodies of two 13-year-old girls were found in Volgograd, some 4,000 kilometers away. No real evidence connects the two cases. The Volgograd case resolved with the arrest of three men. A minor theory suggests that school bullies could have killed the boys but no evidence exists and young kids would have a hard time stumping policy for this long.
I do not have a theory on this case; I am completely stumped. In the Reddit thread about this case many believe it an accident. I do not agree, the bodies placed in the sewer well between May 5th-and May 8th and how could the children close the top of the well? It’s 10ft high! The police investigated the case until December 18th, 2007 then closed the case due to no resolution. No suspects have been identified in the case of Maxim Taumanov, Alexander (Sasha) Lavrenov, Safar Aliev, Galash Mamedgasanov, and Dmitry Makarov.
Sources
Russian sources, translated by Google Translate
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