Monday 17 September 2007

Emigre at center of murder investigation remains missing

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Monday, September 17th 2007

BY MATTHEW KALMAN in Herzliya, Israel
and BILL HUTCHINSON in New York
DAILY NEWS WRITERS

The whereabouts of a Russian emigre at the center of a murder
investigation into the deaths of two New York women grew more
mysterious yesterday when his wife insisted she hasn't seen him in
years.

Detectives probing the deaths of Larysa Vasserman, 48, and Tatiana
Korkhova, 54, would like to talk with Eugene Perchikov, who is the
beneficiary in both women's life insurance policies.

But finding Perchikov might take a global dragnet as he jets around
the world from Russia to Israel and the United States.

"We have been separated for two years. He hasn't lived here since
then," Perchikov's wife, Natalia, told the Daily News from her
suburban Tel Aviv home. "We don't live together anymore."

The wife refused to answer questions about her estranged husband,
saying, "I can't tell you anything about him and I don't want to talk
about him."

While Perchikov has not been charged with any crime, he has been
accused in two lawsuits ofmurdering Vasserman and Korkhova.

In both cases, the medical examiner failed to determine the cause of death.

Meanwhile, the Manhattan district attorney's office is pursuing a
fraud investigation.

Perchikov collected more than $1 million on Vasserman's insurance
policy after she was found dead in her Manhattan home in 2004.

He was also named beneficiary on Korkhova's $1 million policy when she
was found dead in her Brooklyn apartment in 2002. Perchikov's Israeli
friend Larisa Yurkov-Shkolnik was listed as a beneficiary on a second
Korkhova insurance policy. Both insurance companies refused to pay.

Contacted yesterday by The News at her home in Raanana, Israel,
Yurkov-Shkolnik declined to discuss her involvement with Perchikov.

"I can't talk about anything to do with the court case in America,"
she said. "I don't want to talk about it."

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