MOSCOW — Russian police have sensationally arrested and charged a suspected New York double murderer who fled to Moscow soon after his wife and stepdaughter were knifed to death in April 2011.
Former Soviet paratrooper Nikolai Rakossi, now 60, is wanted in the US for the brutal stabbings of his wife Tatyana Prikhodko, 56, a nurse, and her glamorous daughter Larisa, 28.
Nicknamed ‘Russian Rambo’, Rakossi took an Aeroflot flight back to Moscow using a one-way ticket on April 17, 2011 before the blood-soaked bodies were discovered at the Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn family home.
After returning to Russia, he vanished – until now. Police revealed he had been on the run for more than two years, partly protected by unnamed relatives.
Rakossi was detained in the industrial city of Novomoskovsk, Tula region, 140 miles south of Moscow, and charged with double murder under Article 105 Clause 2a of the Russian Criminal Code.
He denied the accusation but was ordered to be held in custody by judge Alexandra Bezdetnova in Sovietski Court, Tula.
A source said: “He was on the run for two and a half years, and there was a risk he could flee again to Ukraine.”
Court spokeswoman Olga Dyachuk: “The court has taken into attention that Rakossi is accused of a grave crime which can result in him being jailed for 20 years, or for life, and concluded that there is every reason to believe that the charged person might try and escape investigation.
“The court therefore satisfied the investigator’s petition and Rakossi will spend two months in Tula detention center number 1.”
The case is now under the supervision of the Russian Investigation Committee, equivalent of the FBI.
Russian laws forbid the country’s citizens being extradited but it is understood he will face trial in his homeland based on evidence supplied by the US.
Andrei Yartsev, chief spokesman of Tula police, said: “The results of the American side’s investigation were passed to the Russian General Prosecutor’s office so that the person can be charged with a criminal offence.
“Thanks to the efforts of Novomoskovsk police Rakossi was detained on October 2013.”
Neighbors in New York believed the family to be close and happy, with Larisa living in the same block as her mother and stepfather.
The knifings were said to have been carried out clinically, without a single scream to alert neighbours.
Larisa’s son Ryan, then three, was left motherless by her murder.
Russian police announced that Rakossi – believed to have served for the Soviet special services in Afghanistan – was detained on 20 October but did not reveal exactly where or in what circumstances.
In the wake of the killing, neighbours living close to Rakossi’s home in Novomoskovsk said they had spotted the fugitive.
But there was no reply to his door or his phone.
Tatyana’s other daughter Svetlana Prikhodko, 33, claimed he was being shielded by relatives and friends, and urged police in the US and Russia to cut red tape to find him.
Rakossi’s sister Lydia, 62, who lives in Novomoskovsk, denied hiding him, and claimed it was likely her brother had killed himself after fleeing to his motherland.
Admitting he had telephoned her soon after the killings, she said in 2011: “He was in tears.
“He told me: ‘Please don’t keep any offence in your heart about me. Forgive me. You will never see me again.’
“Then he ended the call.”
She added: “I don’t think he is alive now, after what he told me.
“Knowing him, I don’t think he would be able to live with himself and carry the burden of having killed the person he loved more than himself, and her daughter.
“I think he would follow them to death very soon.
“But if not he must pay for what he has done. No-one should do what he has done to his family.”
The suspect’s daughter Yevgenia, 31, also denied her father could be the killer, and insisted she was not concealing him.
“It is complete nonsense. He really wouldn’t have done anything like this.”
Rakossi was held following a formal US request for assistance, said Russian police in the Tula region.
Relatives of the dead mother and daughter are seeking answers to the mystery of the sudden slaying, having claimed that Rakossi appeared to have a sinister double life in New York.
Svetlana said she no longer believes that death was a “a domestic brawl that escalated into a physical fight.”
She stressed: “The facts point to something far darker and more sinister than anyone could have imagined.
“The quiet subdued Rakossi was living a double life ever since the moment he landed in the US.
“Arriving on a tourist visa, he charmed Tatyana and soon asked her to marry him and became part of the family.”
The family did not have “a clear picture of what Rakossi was doing during these 11 years. He never held a regular job and claimed that he did construction
work on the side.”
She expressed suspicion of his annual trips to Russia where he kept an apartment and car.