Story By: Anna Casap, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder, Agency: Central European News
Video Credit: CEN/@dayana.baar
This woman was robbed, raped and then thrown off a 27-metre high bridge as she walked to meet her boyfriend to save on a taxi fare.
Dayana Bartashevich, 24, was on her way back from work and was heading to meet her boyfriend when she crossed over the Vereshchaginsky bridge in the winter Olympic resort city of Sochi in southern Russia.
She never arrived, however, after being intercepted on her way there and attacked. Her body, with massive head injuries, was discovered underneath the bridge and police say she had been sexually assaulted and robbed before being thrown to her death.
Her friends told local media that she had decided to walk to meet her boyfriend to save money, and that the route included crossing over the Vereshchaginsky bridge, located between the Central and Khostinsky districts of Sochi, which is it is 220 metres (721.7 feet) long and 18 metres (59 feet) wide, as well as being 27 metres (88.5 feet) high. It is the biggest in the city.
Her bags, that she had with her, as well as a phone, were missing, and police, who had studied surveillance camera footage, said they were looking to track down a man dressed in a black tracksuit with a hood, black trainers with white stripes, and who was wearing a backpack who had been seen watching the girl.
They said he waited for the moment where there was no one nearby, and then attacked her before throwing her off the bridge. An autopsy is expected to be carried out shortly to confirm whether she died before she was thrown from the bridge or from the fall.
A close friend of hers, identified only by the first name Polina, said: “Dayana was a somebody who always avoided confrontation, and she was well liked by everybody who knew her. It must have been a stranger who carried out the attack.”
The death has reportedly caused panic among locals following the murder of another young woman who was found two days earlier in the city.
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