By YAAKOV LAPPIN
Police believe Dimitry Olegovich Kirilik meticulously planned out his murderous attack on the Oshrenko family down to the last detail last month, but that a few miscalculations on his part left enough clues at the murder scene to provide a trail that would ultimately lead police back to him.
Police say Kirilik took several steps to prepare for the assault, such as oiling his bicycle chain and pumping up the tires before the incident. A week before the attack, Kirilik allegedly went on a "dry run," breaking into the Oshrenko's apartment, looking around, and leaving.
Police say he used a key to gain entrance to the apartment that was made available to him by his wife, Nataliya, who worked as a shift manager at an Oshrenko-owned restaurant - the same restaurant Kirilik was fired from in 2007.
Nataliya allegedly had little trouble in temporarily stealing a key to the home and making a copy of it without her employers noticing, and handing the copy over to her husband.
On Friday evening, October 16, Kirilik allegedly packed a bag, placing a change of clothing, flammable liquid, a long knife, and handcuffs inside.
At approximately 2:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, October 17, police say Kirilik, donning a ski mask, broke into the home using the key his wife had made.
After allegedly killing Ludmila and Edward Oshrenko, both 56, who were keeping watch over their grandchildren, and knifing three-year-old Revital Oshrenko and three-month-old baby Natanel Oshrenko to death in their beds, police believe the suspect made his first miscalculation.
Kirilik allegedly used Ludmila's cell phone to send a text message to Tatiana Oshrenko, 28, the children's mother. Posing as Ludmila, Kirilik urged her to return home, saying her children were feeling unwell.
"Ludmila never sent text messages," a police source told The Jerusalem Post on Monday. Nevertheless, the ploy worked, and Tatiana rushed home, only to face the same cruel fate as her children and in-laws.
According to police, Kirilik waited for hours for his final victim, Dimitry Oshrenko, 32, to return home. When Oshrenko walked through the door, Kirilik pounced and a struggle ensued. Oshrenko managed to use his helmet to strike Kirilik, causing him to cut his own hand with a knife. But Kirilik gained the upper hand, killing his victim. His clothes drenched in blood, Kirilik hastily stripped and put on the change of clothing he had brought with him, police said. He left the old clothes on Ludmila's bed, poured flammable liquid on the pile, and set fire to it.
Attempting to spark a fire that would engulf the entire apartment, Kirilik then made his most serious error, police say. After pouring flammable liquid around the home and setting it on fire, he switched on a gas stove and left the apartment, slamming the door shut behind him. Kirilik was sure the combination of the gas and fire would result in a fireball that would destroy all evidence of the atrocity he had committed.
But from the moment Kirilik slammed the front door shut, the apartment was sealed off, and the fire quickly ran out of oxygen and died out, said Dep.-Cmdr. Avi Noiman, head of the Central Police District's Central Unit.
The gas stove, a relatively new model, automatically shut down its own gas supply after sensing that it had not been lit.
As a result, the clothes the suspect allegedly left behind were not turned into ashes by the fire, and were recovered by forensic officers.
A DNA sample taken from the clothes was compared with a DNA sample taken from Kirilik's car, which officers had discreetly broken into as it sat in the parking lot of the Nesiha Hotel in Eilat. A perfect DNA match allowed officers to place Kirilik at the apartment.
After his arrest, Kirilik claimed the large gash on his hand resulted from an accidental fall on a beer bottle. But a medical examination carried out on Friday, October 23, ruled out Kirilik's explanation, and found that a knife was responsible for the injury. The doctor estimated that the injury was a little less than a week old, placing the wound at the time of the murder, six days beforehand.
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