ULAN-UDE, December 27 The body of a pine nut collector who disappeared in October in the taiga in the Bichursky district of Buryatia has been found; his friends who distributed the legend of his disappearance, reports the press service of the regional SUSC of the Russian Federation.
At the end of October, a 53-year-old resident of the village of Bichura went to the taiga to collect pine nuts and disappeared. Three fellow villagers with whom he was in the forest stated that the man left the winter hut drunk and did not return. The crime was solved using a polygraph: the reaction of one of the trio indicated that he knew about what happened in the taiga. During the interrogation, the man said that two acquaintances from their company were involved in the murder. He also showed the place where the body was found.
“»According to the investigation, three previously convicted residents of Bichura offered to work off a debt to a fellow villager and together with him at the end of October 2023 they went to the taiga to collect pine nuts. They settled in a winter hut in the Maloe Bogidaevo area near the village of Sukhoi Ruchey, where «one evening, after drinking alcohol, two men, due to personal hostility, began to beat the debtor with a wooden stick, and then alternately stabbed him in the stomach and chest. The victim died from the injuries received at the scene,» the report says.
It is noted that the attackers hid the body in the forest, after which they agreed to tell everyone that the victim had left the winter hut in an unknown direction. A few days later they returned to the village, along the way asking other nut collectors and local residents about their partner, imitating a search for him and telling a made-up legend about the missing man.
The attackers were arrested and confessed. They were charged under paragraph «g» of Part 2 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (murder committed by a group of persons by prior conspiracy).