The wife of the defendant in the murder of a Muscovite woman for real estate announced his death.

Maria Sokolova, accused in the case of the murder of Moscow businessman Svetlana Halapova and fraud with her apartments, said that her husband Vyacheslav was dead and blamed her lover for his death. This was reported on May 19 by a correspondent of Izvestia from the courtroom.

Vyacheslav Sokolov is wanted, the investigation considers him the main person involved in the case. Speaking in court, Maria said that her husband was no longer alive — he was allegedly killed by a man whom Sokolov met in a restaurant. At the same time, during the court session, it became clear that after the disappearance of her husband, Maria entered into a romantic relationship with him, but in 2023 the man died.

Khalyapova disappeared in 2016. For a long time, her friends were unaware of her disappearance, as messages continued to arrive from her phone. The woman was put on the federal wanted list only in 2022, her body has not yet been found.

According to investigators, the businesswoman, who owned three apartments in Moscow, became a victim of "black realtors." Sokolov rented one of Halapova's apartments and helped her with the renovation of other facilities. The man and his wife had planned an attack on the businesswoman in advance: Sokolov invited the woman to "discuss the deal," and then strangled and dismembered her, gaining access to her phone and banking applications.

After the massacre, the couple withdrew money from Halapova's accounts and created the appearance that she was alive and abroad. Soon they decided to sell the property — during the transactions, a disguised Maria with a fake passport in the name of Halapova tried to impersonate the murdered woman. One of the deals was disrupted by a notary who suspected forgery and called the police.

The jury found Sokolova guilty of real estate fraud, but the panel found her involvement in the murder unproven. Vladislav Kuznetsov, for whom one of the apartments was registered, was acquitted by the jury and released from custody in the courtroom.

Criminal intent: a wife helped her husband in a murder for the sake of five apartments in Moscow

A witness in the case of "black realtors" became the accused, and her daughter told how her parents hid the corpse in the couch.

In February 2025, realtor Natalia Kotova and her assistant Nadezhda Yeremenko were convicted in this case — they were found guilty of fraud on an especially large scale and the legalization of property acquired by criminal means.