01x02 - This Doesn't Fit

[bunniefuu]

The coroner's report said

this was a m*rder suicide.

Vladimir Pokhilko
k*lled his wife Elena

and his son Peter,
and then cut his own throat.

So, if we are to believe

that Vladimir was the person
who k*lled his family,

then k*lled himself,

this is what
it would have looked like.

The night of the homicide,

Elena and Peter went to bed.

And Vladimir snapped.

He got a hammer.

He went into one room.

He used the hammer

to bludgeon Elena.

Drops the hammer.

And then he goes back out
to the garage.

He gets another hammer,
and he uses a different hammer

to bludgeon Peter in his head.

Then he goes and he gets a knife

and he goes back
to the other room

and he takes a knife
and he stabs his wife

11 times.

He takes that knife
and goes into another room.

Then he stabs his son 11 times.

Then he goes into the bathroom,

he washes the knife.

He wipes down the bathroom
so there's no fingerprints,

there's no blood evidence.

Then he goes
and he wipes down the hammers?

And then just leaves them
in these rooms.

Then he writes a note
and says the Devil is in him,

it's part English, part Russian.

He creates this fire,
he burns some paperwork.

Then he cuts his throat,
but he doesn't cut his throat

in a manner that we would think.

Like this.

But he takes a knife
out of his right hand

and he cuts his throat...
That was still awkward for me

to get my shoulder up like that.

And he cuts straight down,
four inches,

that leaves a three-inch gap

that's bleeding profusely.

He falls onto the ground

and he's clutching the knife,
and that's where we find him.

How do you cut yourself

and then when you go down,

the knife is still in your hand?

The coroner told us

that it was a cadaveric spasm

that when you k*ll yourself,

your body tenses.

But the report came back
that there were

palm prints

on the knife
but no fingerprints.

Here's the knife.

Here's part of my palm,

the upper part, the pads
underneath my fingers.

And there's your fingers.

So how do you
not leave fingerprints?

So, I thought that was odd.

That night, at the crime scene,

I'm looking at Vladimir,

I'm looking at the weapons,

the blood spatter is weird.

The knife is weird.

Everything, the overkill,

the note, "Davil."

It just doesn't fit.

It is almost like
somebody else did it.

And then they put it together

to make us feel like he did it.

And I wasn't the only person

who had some questions.

If it was just me,
that was saying that,

then I could say,

"Okay, well, my imagination
blew up."

But I'm not by myself.

Denson thought it was weird.

And he was
the investigating officer.

Normally, you find fingerprints
on the m*rder weapons.

But we also weren't able to
recover fingerprints on the hammer.

Which was striking me as odd
as well.

And the wounds
to Vladimir's neck

were also suspicious.

There was one major
slash wound to his throat.

That slash wound went

the majority of the way
through his neck.

It was really deep.

I didn't really believe
that it was self-inflicted.

There was also two
hesitation wounds.

And frequently, you'll see
those in suicides.

But, at the same time,

hesitation wounds
also occur when

someone's holding a knife
to your throat.

So, it didn't prove suicide.

I didn't buy that
Vladimir had cut his throat.

So I had the city hire

the second forensic pathologist

to go back over it again

and wait for her to make
her determination.

We were waiting to hear back

from the second autopsy

and during this time,
we're still investigating

and looking up information
on Elena and Vladimir.

Where did they come from?
Who did they know?

What relationships they have.

When I was going around,

doing a lot
of different interviews,

and according to people,

Vladimir Pokhilko was
a very easy-going person.

I don't think I talked
to any friends

who had ever heard him

even raise his voice
about anything.

Vladimir was not somebody

who was violently emotional

or had a violent temper.

There was nothing
that would hint

that he was capable
of this level of violence.

And, you know,
not just violence,

but I mean, brutality.

We were also looking
for suspects or information

about other people
possibly being involved

in the crime itself.

Vladimir came
to the United States

to start another business.

And we found that his company
had Russian employees

that were in the United States
on different employment visas.

In the 1990s,

people were coming from
all over the world

to Silicon Valley.

But the Russians
were a new phenomenon.

They had this idea that
people who moved to California

were gonna have a happier life.

They had this sense
that they would be safe there.

Moving from the Soviet Union,

even in its death throes,
to the US,

is a huge culture shock
to anybody.

The excess of consumer goods,

food, cars, and the technology

would have been
the complete opposite

of what life looked like
in the Soviet Union.

Vladimir and his family
probably had this hope

that they were gonna live
happily ever after,

but the dream darkened
pretty quickly.

AnimaTek was having
financial difficulty.

And if Vladimir's employees
were laid off,

then they don't have a job,

then, you know,
they could get deported.

And in addition to people

that he was gonna
have to send back to Russia,

he was laying off

the employees
in the Russian office.

Vladimir began getting

angry email messages
from the employees.

And that was quite disturbing.

But we didn't find anything
significant that we could say

positively we have
an outstanding suspect here.

Nothing came of it.

And so, there was nothing there.

But then, two days
into the investigation,

this case gets
even more interesting

when we get a call from the FBI,

wanting to offer their services.

The FBI is at
another level. Right?

Which opens your mind to,

"Why is the FBI
getting involved in this

little old m*rder-suicide,

here in Palo Alto?"

You wanna talk about me
being really suspicious now?

So we're working
this case for two days,

we're collecting evidence.

And then we get a call
from the FBI.

I suspect that they had seen it

on the news,
it was extensively covered.

Investigators walked
into a shocking

and bloody crime scene.

The special agent, who was
the Russian interpreter,

actually was the one
who called me

and initially he offered, um,

"I can do any Russian
interpretation for you."

And they sent the crime scene
unit to assist, as well.

But the problem with that
is it's backwards.

Most federal law enforcement,
even if they knew of the case,

they will say,
we can't get involved

until local law enforcement
invites us into the case.

But in this case,

the FBI called us.

I got to be honest with you.

That's strange.

When I first heard that,
my initial idea was,

"Wait a minute.

Somebody knows something
more than we know."

I did take the suicide note.

I gave it to the FBI

and I asked them to do
a handwriting analysis on it.

And they were able to determine

that the handwritten note
was written by Vladimir.

You know what
I felt at the time?

That that note is

It's like someone's telling
Vladimir what to write,

and he's writing it down.

I'm thinking he was
forced to do this.

At the same time,
the FBI was now involved.

And new information
is coming in.

Way more information
that we're unaware of.

In Palo Alto,

there was quite
a Russian community

that were all involved
with each other,

that all knew each other.

And many people

who were familiar
with the Pokhilko family

were very suspicious.

They believed
it was not possible

for Vladimir Pokhilko
to k*ll his family

and k*ll himself.

There weren't enough reasons

that would make that something
that made sense to anybody.

Rumors started circulating,
and a lot of these people

started mentioning
the Russian Mafia

being a part of these murders.

They felt that this was
a Russian mob hit.

My initial reaction was,

that's a little crazy,
that's a little far-fetched.

But there was too much
of that information

coming up in the case,

so I kept my mind open.

And this whole idea

didn't just come from
one person I talked to.

Russians being involved
was coming out... everywhere.

I recall one of my
colleagues saying that

someone told him,
"You guys just don't get it."

The Soviet flag was
the hammer and the sickle.

And the weapons

that was used on Vladimir
and his family

was the hammer and a knife.

This is a message.

So is it possible that
the Mafia sent a message

not only to the family,

but maybe to the community,
that this was a Russian hit?

From a Russian perspective,

and someone who's lived
in Russia for a long time

and investigated
the Russian Mafia,

this case has red flags
all over it.

Moscow's biggest mafia bosses
have begun to invade America.

To take power. To take profits.

When people say
that Russia is a mafia state,

this is not an exaggeration.

What people don't realize
is that before this m*rder,

in Silicon Valley,

Russian Mafia was already

well-ensconced
in the United States.

They'd already been active
for decades in the US.

In 1993,

the FBI showed me a map.

A map of the United States.

Each state where
they had a problem

with the Russian Mafia
was shaded in.

Thirty-eight states
were shaded in.

And not just mafia in terms
of gangs and gangsters.

But mafia in terms
of the Kremlin,

businessmen, politicians,
major gangsters.

And when we say major gangsters,

I'm talking about people

who're worth
billions of dollars.

These are people
who control industry,

drug trafficking,
money laundering,

weapons trafficking,
human trafficking

and every other thing
you can think of.

They use mafia
tactics and techniques

to get what they want.

The Russian people
that we were interviewing

regarding the Pokhilko case...

...their belief was that

any time anybody is involved
in business in Russia,

as Vladimir Pokhilko was,

that the Russian Mafia
demands payments

to continue your business.

Some people refer to it
as paying taxes

to the Russian Mafia.

The bottom line,
everything is money and greed.

When they smell money,
they become dangerous.

So one of the questions
we have to address

is why would Vladimir
be a target?

Let's talk about the history
of Vladimir and Alexey.

Okay? Let's talk about that.

They decide to leave Russia.

And then started
their business here.

How do we know
that someone in Russia

was a little disturbed by that?

How do we know
that perhaps organized crime

want to get involved
in all the money

that they were gonna make
in America?

In Russia, the concept
of protection,

especially in the 1990s,

was central to doing
any kind of business.

By 1998,
Alexey was controlling Tetris.

In Tetris, you're dealing
with a company

that's generating millions
and millions of dollars.

And Alexey became involved
with an oligarch

who's in a position
to protect him.

'Cause your oligarch
will take care of

gangster issues that came up,

political issues that came up,

and Alexey would be okay.

But at this point,
Vladimir is out of Tetris.

Vladimir is not under
that umbrella.

Vladimir's now off to the side
in his own company.

It could be the mafia

wanted to take over
Vladimir's company.

I did interview

the AnimaTek company controller.

I was looking for anything
that would be considered

possibly a extortion payment.

She said there was
three checks per month

that would go out

in various denominations.

And there was one check that
was frequently going out

into offshore accounts.

And she didn't know what
those accounts were about.

It was weird to her,

and so, if it was weird
to her, it was weird to me.

She did not know
if any Russian Mafia

was involved at AnimaTek,

but she was suspicious
that Pokhilko's company

was involved with Russian
organized crime

because of some recent
conversations with Pokhilko.

She said Pokhilko mentioned
some investors

but refused to talk about them
in detail.

Who were these investors?

If they were gangsters,

then he's always under threat.

They don't know how
the software industry works.

They don't know how a business
in America works.

They don't understand
the expenses of running

a business in the United States.

Which was very different

from the expense of running
business in Russia.

They might have been getting
itchy, saying,

"Where's our return?
Where's our return?"

Or changed their mind and said,

"We want our principal back."

Vladimir not being
in a position to provide that,

could become a target.

You think about someone
like Vladimir Putin.

Two months before the family
was k*lled in California,

in 1998, Putin becomes
the head of the KGB.

His closest connections
are legitimate gangsters.

He's been tightly
interconnected with gangsters

from St. Petersburg
for the last 30 years.

His mentality is much more
of an authoritarian

gangster mentality
than anything else.

One thing that Putin did do,
and does do to this day,

is he keeps track
of people's money.

Was he keeping that close
an eye back in 1998?

And then I found out
there's another guy that died

years before Vladimir,

and here's the strange part
about it.

This case sounds
familiar to ours,

and it's all tied
to Russian Mafia and Tetris.

Tetris is one
of the most popular

and most successful games
in video game history.

And in the early 1990s,

there was another
high-profile death

that's connected
to the Tetris story.

Robert Maxwell
was a media mogul in the UK.

He was the '80s UK version
of Rupert Murdoch.

And he was the father
of Ghislaine Maxwell,

who was attached
to Jeffrey Epstein.

In 1991,

Robert Maxwell
was out on his yacht,

sailing around
the Mediterranean,

the yacht named after
his now-infamous daughter.

And he just disappeared
one evening.

He was found dead,
floating in the water, naked.

There were three autopsies done,

and the medical examiners
could not agree

on how his death occurred.

There have been
a lot of theories

about what happened
to Robert Maxwell.

And one of them was
maybe he had been m*rder*d.

Because the Russians were
still sore at him

for something Tetris-related.

In the 1980s,

Robert Maxwell was making
cartridges of Tetris

and selling them

with his company Mirrorsoft.

Somebody saw
the Tetris cartridges

and said, "Hey, did you guys
sign off on this?"

And the Russians said,
"I didn't sign-off on this.

We didn't license this.

We haven't gotten
any money for this."

The Russians find out

and they're pissed off about it.

I mean, who wouldn't be?

Robert Maxwell was literally
stealing money.

That could be millions
of dollars that he's getting.

And the Russians get mad
at Maxwell and cut him off.

And then, years later, he died.

Tetris is the common denominator

between that strange case

and our case in 1998.

It's a strange relationship
with Tetris.

Which leaves me with,
you know, more questions.

It's just another
red flag, right?

This stuff doesn't happen

under the coincidences category.

And you always have to look

under the surface at this point.

There's this quote that came
out of a book by John O'Neill.

It said, in 1941,

KGB defector
Walter Krivitsky said,

"Any fool can commit a m*rder.

But it takes a true artist

to stage a natural death
or suicide."

We heard about this
in Russia all the time.

So, how do you make a m*rder
look like an accident?

How do you make a m*rder
look like a suicide?

And the Russian Mafia
studied that.

We always wanted to look
for that smoking g*n.

That somebody came in here
and k*lled these people.

There was nothing.

There was no suspects,
fingerprints,

everything came back
to the family.

All the blood came back to them.

In the 1990s,
there were Russian hitmen

moving into the United States
all the time.

If Vladimir thought

he and his family
could leave Russia

and go to the United States
and be safe,

because now they're far away,

it only took one phone call

from bad guy in Moscow
to bad guy in Palo Alto

to say, "k*ll them."

If this was a hit,

these people k*lled his wife
and child in front of him

as a punishment.

And then k*lled him.

And then to have the FBI get in.

Again, I'm gonna keep
repeating that.

You add the FBI
in with the Russian Mafia.

Millions of dollars
come out of Silicon Valley.

I'm telling you,
it doesn't smell right.

Something's going on.
Something's going on.

I was still working
on this angle

of was there a Russian Mafia
involvement.

And having worked
homicides frequently,

the suspect will show up
at a funeral.

So I asked Detective Bready
to go to the funeral

and to take photographs.

We're often curious about
who is gonna show up,

and we often show
those photos to other people

involved in the investigation,

maybe witnesses,
people close to the family,

to see if there's anything
that stands out.

We have interviewed

many of the family and friends
and coworkers,

so we were able
to easily recognize them.

But several gentlemen
that had shown up,

these figures didn't match
everyone else.

They were big guys.

They were all wearing these
long trench coats.

That in itself was odd.

The friends and family
who were at the funeral

didn't know them,
couldn't identify them.

If there was
a Russian Mafia connection,

it could've been them.

But we never knew who they were.

As we're sitting around,

discussing this
Russian Mafia hit,

that we're getting
from the community,

the second autopsy reports
come in.

When I saw that,
I was so shocked.

I was like, "What?"

County came out
with this very extensive

200-page report
expounding this theory

that it was a m*rder-suicide,

and that Vladimir had done
this and that was that.

And pretty much
that ruined the case.

Even if you walked in
and told me

"I k*lled that whole family,"

there's no way I'm gonna
be able to convict you of it

because you got
two pathologists saying,

"Nope, he k*lled himself."

I call it BS. I'm like,
this is not working for me.

And then I recall being told

we're done
on the evidence collection.

And I just remember going,
"What do you mean we're done?"

I had a lot of
officers mad at me

when I made my final conclusions

that it was
a double homicide suicide.

We weren't 100% sure that
this guy k*lled his family.

Why did it end so quickly?

Why did we close that case

with all this
other stuff involved?

That is the problem I've had
for more than 20 years.

And I cannot get that
out of my mind.

- 273.
- 273.

So this would be
the US Department of Justice.

At the header. At the top?

- Okay.
- Yeah.

Want me to read the whole thing?

Yeah.

Okay. "Gentlemen,

the attached federal grand
jury subpoena duces tecum

is issued in furtherance

of a federal
criminal investigation

being conducted
under the supervision

of this office.

Notification of the subpoena
and your compliance therewith

or disclosure..."

That's strange.

Okay. Okay.

Go to the next page, real quick.

You guys, I've never
seen this before.

This is basically
a subpoena form

from the US district court

of the Northern District
of California.

And this is two days
after the homicide.

Wait.

I don't remember
anything about this.

It's not the Palo Alto court.

It's not the county court.

It's not the state court.

It is the United States
District Court.

So you have a homicide
suicide two days ago.

Already we have a subpoena
for all records?

We didn't even get a subpoena
for all records by then.

It was pursuant
to a criminal investigation.

And I'm assuming,

because the name of
Vladimir Pokhilko's in there,

is that it was related
to our case.

And again, it's just a guess

'cause I don't have any
independent recollection

of this particular subpoena.

The FBI was working
on this with us

and the agent I was working with

never said anything about it.

A connection to any crime
that they were investigating.

It went all the way up

to the United States
Department of Justice

and the United States
district court.

This little case, which was
significant for us,

bedroom community, a family man

loses it and kills his family.

Yet two days later, the FBI,

the United States Department
of Justice is involved.

And you want me to believe
that this case is over?

That nothing happened?

No. I'm not buying it.

It's bigger than we think it is.

That subpoena from
the US Department of Justice

shocked me.

That's important.

There's something
more involved in this

that we were not privy to.

That nobody told us about.

And so I feel a little,
kind of pissed off about it.

I want to know
what that was all about.

I was the supervisor

of the Soviet
Counterintelligence Squad

before I retired.

I was on that squad,
called Squad 14,

for about 21 years.

And we investigated
the KGB at that time.

It was our job on the squad

to identify KGB officers.

They were trying to acquire
our intelligence.

We looked at them as the enemy.

And they were.

Yeah. No, I don't mind.

It appears that there was

might have been
an existing case, right?

An existing case that the FBI

and the US Attorney's office
was investigating.

And I don't have a theory
for you on what it's about.

To get a subpoena the same day
the case was opened?

That is unusual.

So what that tells me is,

the FBI was already
investigating Vladimir.

After this m*rder-suicide,

they showed up because
they were already looking

at this man.

They were already looking
at his company.

The case, in and of
itself, is interesting.

This guy comes over here,
forms a company.

Makes some money, right?

And kills his wife and himself.

And he's a Russian.

But homicide itself would not
bring the FBI into it.

Had to be some other angle.

There had to be some link,
some nexus there

that would cause the FBI

to get involved
in a case like that.

Yeah. I mean, that's always
possible, sure.

So, you know,

when you're working
in law enforcement,

part of your job is to be nosy.

Really, really, really nosy.

I want to know who the witness

is that was attached
to that subpoena.

Because this particular person
was interviewed

by the FBI.

I discovered that this witness

was a business associate
and person who considered

themselves to be a friend
of Vladimir.

So after looking through
the police report,

to find out who the person was

that was attached
to the subpoena,

I found them. Their contact
information was still valid.

I gave them a call.

They were very considerate
about their own safety.

I felt their concern,
and it was real.

It wasn't fake.

So I am not going to mention
their name.

But when speaking with them,
I got to be honest with you.

It was amazing what I heard.

We started to talk
about the case.

And they told me
some information that

I was not privy to.

This person said that the FBI
came to them, okay?

This person also said that
the FBI showed them a case

that was an FBI case.

Not a Palo Alto case.

They said that the information
they saw on this report

was different from what we had.

So the FBI,
outside of our investigation,

was interviewing these people.

Interesting. Very interesting.

The FBI did not
believe that this was

a m*rder-suicide.

That is key, and I was
shocked when I heard that.

I don't believe
it was a m*rder-suicide.

And so, it was very important

to me to hear that
because, again,

I feel like, "Wow!

I was on the right track
24 years ago."

This person also felt

this was a Russian Mafia
or mob hit.

When I heard
this person say that,

I tell you, things were
going off in my mind.

We know now that

the FBI had their own case file,

so we submitted a Freedom
of Information Act to the FBI.

We call it FOIA.

There are certain documents
that we should have access to,

but we got nothing out of that.

They refused
to give us information.

Well...

This FOIA request

reveals that it's a denial

and the indication is that

the FBI has no records
responsive to your request.

Therefore, it's closed.

You got to take it
at face value.

I would think that, um,

might be some indication
if it was classified,

they'd indicate that.

This is as far as you can
go with it, that's for sure.

I mean, it's been denied.

Yeah. Yeah.
I can't answer that, yeah.

So they took four pages
to explain that

we don't have anything
to give you

but this is what's, stands out
to me that's really important.

"The FBI can neither
confirm nor deny

the existence of those records."

Okay. What does that tell me?

Basically, what they're saying
is, "We have some stuff,

we know we have it,

you're asking for it,

you don't know if we have it,

and we're not telling you
we have it,

but if we did, you can't
have it anyway."

We know that the FBI
worked with us on this case.

We know they got involved.

If this was a joint case,

I don't understand why
we can't have what they have.

I find that to be very
frustrating and very suspect

on their part.

It's like every other
kaleidoscope

that I've dealt with in Russia.

You have a kaleidoscope,

you have pieces of the puzzle,
little chips of glass.

You give that one turn,

and all of a sudden,
the picture looks different.

All of a sudden,
there are new facts.

All of a sudden,

there's deeper, more nefarious

connections on the surface
than when you first started.

And that's exactly what
this case sounds like.

This case is becoming
so suspicious to me,

with the involvement of the FBI

and the Department of Justice.

I want to go back and I want
to go to Palo Alto

and I want to go look
at the initial evidence

and I want to take my time
and go through it to make sure

what I saw is what I saw,
then, over 20 years ago.

I want to prove that Vladimir
did not k*ll his wife

and his son and then himself.

And, I think the evidence
we collected

can help me to prove that.