Those crime sleuths at the NY Post have gotten to the bottom of the appalling double murder of a mother and daughter in Sheepshead Bay, which was possibly perpetrated by a knife-wielding "Russian Rambo" who escaped to Moscow before the bodies were found. In today's article, the tabloid declares: "The vodka made him psycho." How do they know this? Because the apartment Nikolai Rakossi left behind on Sunday morning wasn't just filled with the "butchered" bodies of his wife and her daughter; it was also "littered with vodka bottles." And so the motive is clear—it was the vodka! If that's the case, there's a psycho killer lurking inside every Russian, just one shot of Stoli away from chopping you into hamburger.
And yet there may have been more to Rakossi's possibly homicidal rage than just spirits. Police sources tell the Post that Rakossi, who worked as a day laborer, had recently lost his job, and from the looks of things, he also "lost his mind." The Post talks to the Aeroflot airline attendant who sold him his ticket on Sunday, after spending about 24 hours in the apartment with the dead bodies. She says Rakossi showed up at the counter around 3 p.m. with a broken hand and nose, and "was a little bit nervous. I told him the ticket was expensive, like $1,600, and he said, 'I have to be in Moscow tomorrow.' "
The attendant, Olga, adds, "He looked like he didn't take a shower. His right hand looked broken. It was in a hard cast, like you get at the hospital." The cabbie who drove him to JFK told the Daily News, "After he got in the car, he started talking about hunting in the forest." Rakossi also reportedly told the driver he has a house outside Moscow where he was planning to go.
The NYPD has not formally identified Rakossi as the suspect. "We are still in the process of compiling evidence," Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told reporters yesterday. "Obviously, we want to talk to that individual. We have not, as yet, come to the point where we have probable cause to expect an arrest." A spokesman for the Russian Embassy tells the News that extradition is out of the question, but if New York authorities provide "verifiable and correct" evidence, Rakossi could be prosecuted in Russia.
A funeral service and burial for Tatyana Prikhodko and her daughter Larisa is taking place this morning at the Nevsky Yablokoff Memorial Chapels in Brooklyn.
