The short version of the murder of 40-year-old Melissa is as follows: committed on the night of July 23-24, 2013 in their family home. The body was found two weeks later, on August 8, in the waters of the Rusenski Lom River, where it was dumped by her husband Todor and his accomplice in covering up the crime, Vladimir. During this time, the police launched a search for the missing Melissa, after Todor's daughter from his first marriage filed a report with the law enforcement agencies.
The couple have been married for 17 years and have a minor daughter. They live together in a family home, but for the last seven years Todor has been serving a sentence for document fraud. During this period, their relationship deteriorated seriously due to Melissa's relationship with another man. This was the main reason for Todor's jealousy, who began sending threatening letters with threats that he would "slaughter her when she gets out".
In early 2013, Todor was released. Even then, Melissa repeatedly shared with acquaintances, relatives and neighbors that she was afraid, because she believed that sooner or later Todor would carry out his threats. Her fears intensified in March, when the scandals between them became an everyday occurrence. Melissa did not hide from the neighbors in the block the increased violence and her growing fear of a fatal outcome, and they in turn repeatedly reported the incident to the police in order to provide assistance to the woman. In many cases, it came to beatings with fists, kicking in the stomach and legs, and choking with hands. There was a case where, after a physical altercation, Melissa's wrist had to be splinted. In some cases, their daughter witnessed the domestic violence.
Melissa herself also notified the police several times, and filed complaints, which led to her husband being detained for 24 hours once. However, Todor's acts of violence become more frequent and more serious. In addition to jealousy, he is also provoked to aggression by the financial difficulties of the family, in which only Melissa works, and Todor has no income of his own. An additional complication of family life is the daily care of Todor's mother, who is bedridden with an amputated leg.
All this worsens the health of Melissa, who suffers from "anxiety depressive disorder" and takes antidepressants. Her frequent crises become an occasion for her husband to file a lawsuit to deprive her of parental rights. He manages to convince their daughter to file a report against her mother with the police and the State Agency for Child Protection for neglect and beatings. However, the inspection carried out on this occasion establishes that there is no evidence of physical or mental violence.
On the evening of June 22, another scandal breaks out between Melissa and Todor, accompanied by beatings and threats of murder, which, however, will lead to a fatal outcome. Todor stabs his wife with a kitchen knife. The frightened Melissa runs away and, with the help of acquaintances, files a report at the district police station that “her husband wants to kill her”. The officer on duty sent to check on the spot takes her to her apartment. Todor does not object to her taking clothes and personal belongings to go spend the night with a friend, after which he systematically harasses her, sending her messages with cynical insults and threats that he will kill her and throw her in the container. In the morning, Melissa shows her friend the messages and on her way to work says that “Todor will definitely kill her”.
After the end of the working day, Melissa manages to call 112 and goes to the family home, accompanied by a friend and a neighbor. The three meet Todor, who is visibly drunk, in front of the entrance. Angry at the presence of a man around his wife, he loudly suspects that Melissa is his mistress and “gives him a blowjob”, kicking her in the stomach and legs as punishment. In front of the police team on duty who arrived at the scene, Todor does not deny that he kicked his wife, but states that she provoked him with her insults. He promises to stop the family quarrels and gives himself an outwardly calm appearance, thereby convincing the victim to go back to their apartment with him.
At the moment when the two are left alone, the man’s aggression escalates and he attacks her in the bathroom with one of the kitchen knives. He inflicts two serious stab wounds on her – in the heart and in the abdomen, which lead to her death.
Todor decides to cover up the murder and flee abroad. His actions over the next few days are aimed solely at deflecting suspicions of murder from him, erasing the traces of the crime and creating an alibi. However, the first day after the murder, he went to his mother and said that he had killed his wife after another argument.
Meanwhile, on June 28, neighbors in the apartment building where the murdered Melissa lived reported a strange smell to the police. His older daughter, who had learned about what had happened from her grandmother, also reported the incident to the police.
To deceive others that Melissa is still alive, her husband sends fake text messages in her name, saying that she has run away and will never return. He tries to cover up the crime, together with an acquaintance from prison – Vladimir – with whom they take the body out of the apartment and throw it into the waters of the Rusenski Lom River. When he seeks assistance in hiding the body, the killer says that he has “made a mistake”.
An investigation begins, which ultimately reveals the murder and the killer. Todor was only arrested on August 23 in Germany and extradited. The Ruse District Court gives the 56-year-old man a life sentence with the right to a replacement. The other defendant in the case – 56-year-old Vladimir, is sentenced to 6 months for the assistance he provided in hiding the body. Since he has a previous conviction – for the murder of his wife – for which he was released early, Vladimir must serve the remainder of 5 years, 4 months and 27 days for that crime as well.
More information about the sentence, as well as the full reasoning of the court, can be found here.