Normally finding a vampire mask near a dead body would be pretty creepy, but that happens to be the least disturbing thing about the case of Dmitriy Yakovlev, who is on trial for stealing the identity of New York jewelry importer Viktor Alekseyev and two other people and murdering two of the victims. Alekseyev's body was found disarticulated and separated between three garbage bags in the woods in New Jersey in 2006, and prosecutors gave more gruesome details at his trial yesterday.
Alekseyev was last seen with alive Yakovlev. DNA testing didn't link the mask with Yakovlev, but prosecutors argued that as a former surgeon Yakovlev would have known how to disarticulate a body. Dr. Lyla Perez said, "The disarticulation was very clean. I thought the person who does that had anatomic knowledge." Yakovlev allegedly withdrew money from the victims' accounts soon after they went missing between 2003 and 2007.
Defense lawyer Michael Gold apparently tried to argue against Dr. Perez by saying that anyone with knowledge of how to carve a Thanksgiving turkey could have disarticulated a body, which we're not sure makes his defense any better. Yakovlev's wife, Julia, was also charged with identity theft.
