For seven years, the investigation into the murder in Alyaud has been ongoing: lawyers have once again requested a break in the proceedings.

In the Central District Court of Mykolaiv, judges continued the proceedings in the case of the murder of 35-year-old Alena Shcherban at the Ferry Descent, with the case ongoing for the seventh year.

The case is being examined by a panel of judges consisting of Svitlana Skrypchenko, Ivan Dirko, and presided over by Serhiy Medyuk.

During the session held on Friday, January 31, the court continued the interrogation of the suspects. Defendant Ivan Piharev appeared in court, while Arthur Vatsman was brought from the pre-trial detention center by convoy, and Yelizaveta Semerykova attended online.

Earlier in the session, a break was announced because during the questioning of Ivan Piharev, defendant Arthur Vatsman, who was present online, stated that due to poor connection, he could not hear the testimonies.

At the beginning of the session, defendant Ivan Piharev was called to continue the interrogation. However, defendant Arthur Vatsman expressed his desire to start the questioning from the beginning to hear the testimonies that were given in the previous session. Nevertheless, Ivan Piharev and his lawyer opposed this. Therefore, the panel of judges decided to include an audio recording of the testimonies during the session. However, upon listening, it turned out that the recording contained background noise, and the voices of the participants were poorly audible, with some sentences being unclear. After listening, Arthur Vatsman's lawyer requested the judges to allow the defendant to review the recording and formulate questions, noting that this would require time, thus they requested a break. However, the judges replied that the defendant could familiarize himself with the audio recordings of the session but should have come with prepared questions, as the defense was aware that an interrogation of the suspect would take place.

The prosecutor also presented a series of questions to defendant Ivan Piharev, particularly regarding the circumstances of the day they arrived in Mykolaiv before Alena Shcherban's murder, as well as his relationships with the other defendants. Ivan Piharev noted that this happened many years ago, so he no longer remembers the details, and thus was unable to answer some of the prosecutor's questions. The prosecutor also tried to ask the defendant questions regarding the investigative experiment in which he participated. However, the lawyer advised his client not to answer such questions. He suggested announcing a break in the session, as he wanted to prepare a video recording of the investigative experiment for the defendant to provide testimonies clarifying his actions on the recording during the interrogation.

The judges announced a break in the session.

As reported, the mutilated body of 35-year-old Alena Shcherban was found on the night of August 1 at the Ferry Descent, which is better known in Mykolaiv as Alyaudsky Descent. Three residents of Odesa were detained on suspicion of committing this crime: two young men (aged 18 and 22) and an 18-year-old girl. The victim was a resident of the Vytovskyi district and worked at "Epicenter." On that day, she received an invitation to meet from a familiar man. The romantic meeting by the river turned into a brutal murder: the acquaintance, along with his younger friend and girlfriend, brutally beat the unfortunate woman using a bolt cutter. It was with this tool that they fractured her skull, which was the cause of death. They also removed her gold jewelry, watch, and took her mobile phone.

During the investigative experiment, Arthur Vatsman stated that it was not he who dealt the blows to Alena Shcherban, but Ivan Piharev. In the same session, the results of examinations were studied, which indicated that on the bolt cutter used to kill the woman, in addition to the victim's blood traces, biological material belonging to Arthur Vatsman was found. No traces of Piharev or Semerykova were discovered on the murder weapon.