The prosecution presented evidence today linking Anatoliy “Tolik” Valenko to the purchase of a chain saw that may have been used in the murder and dismemberment of his two roommates 16 years ago.
The prosecution presented a $75 credit card receipt in Valenko’s name and with his alleged signature for a 7.25-inch Skil circular saw. They also put on the stand a store clerk who described the customers in terms resembling Valenko and Vladimir Balachov, an alleged accomplice who is still at large.
Valenko worked as a construction worker and would have been familiar with the electronic tool.
The victims Larisa Jakovleva and Fakhat Askarov were killed in an apartment in Little Odessa, Brooklyn and their bodies chopped apart. The pieces were stuffed into two suitcases and thrown into local waters and a New Jersey park.
“There was one with sandy blonde hair, kind of greasy looking,” testified Mitchell Weingand, the clerk who sold the saw at Colony Hardware Supply in Brooklyn. “The other [was] stockier, but other than that, similar looking.”
The former description fits Valenko.
“Were you able to discern anything from voice or inflection?” prosecution attorney Timothy Gough asked.
“It was a predominantly Russian neighborhood in Brighton, I was very familiar with the area,” he said. “They did have a particularly Russian inflection so I determined they were Russian. As a matter of fact, their English wasn’t very good.”
Valenko was born in Ukraine and used to live in Russia.
Judge Goldberg later noted that many nationalities “sound Russian” and the men could have been any ethnicity.
The lawyers didn’t ask Weingand to point out if one of the men were in the room.
It took authorities over 13 year to capture Valenko who fled to the Netherlands after the crime was committed. He was apprehended in 2008 and returned to New York on Nov. 19.
After a series of physical examinations determined he was legally insane, a New York judge found Valenko unfit to stand trial on two occasions. Gough said the assailant was held in a mental institution in Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Center until he showed signs of improvement.
Aside from the receipt, Gough offered eight photographs as evidence for the jury’s consideration.
The prosecution’s first witness Karen Frohboese, who found the luggage with mutilated body parts, confirmed that photos taken at the scene of the crime “fairly and accurately depict the location of the suitcases and suitcases themselves.”
However, defense attorney Robert Shanley presented a report Frohboese filed with authorities that contradicted her court testimony, comprising her credibility as witness.
Frohboese said she received a call on Nov. 14, 1995 from a friend who told her she would be interested in something he’d seen at a wildlife park near Newark. She said she picked him up from a gas station, headed to the destination, parked her car at the reservation and walked into the woods.
She stumbled upon the first suitcase after walking 50 yards.
“The suitcase was very obvious, visible,” Frohboese said. “It was not too far away from the trail. … [Inside] I saw a shoulder and part of a torso.”
Frohboese returned to her car to wear rubber gloves and examine her finding. She later spotted a second silver suitcase 20 yards away.
“You as a citizen, as an EMT volunteer, you wanted to help the police, right,” Shanley asked.
“Correct,” Frohboese said.
However, Frohboese provided a different testimony when questioned by authorities the day she found the suitcases. According to the police records signed by Frohboese, she went to the park for a stroll on her own accord, instead of going to see something her friend convinced her she would find intriguing. She also identified her friend with a different last name.
“He told me to tell them his name was Timmy Joiner so I did,” she said. “For all I know, it could have been anything. … I don’t know, he was homeless. He could have had a record.”
When asked why she didn’t know the name of someone she’d been friends with for three
years, Frohboese said he was an acquaintance she occasionally spent time with, someone she pitied — not a best friend.
The prosecution’s second witness Ludmila Iodko also verified photo evidence. She confirmed the assailant’s relationship with the victims, corroborated the improbability of Valenko’s claim that his roommates moved to another state and said she saw Valenko with scratch marks days after the victims disappeared.
Iodko befriended the victim, Jakovleva, who she had first met in college in Latvia, when visiting the United Stated. She said Jakovleva moved to her Brooklyn apartment with her boyfriend “Oscar” — whose real name is Fakhat Askarov — in September of 1995. Valenko and Balachov moved in with them later.
Iodko said she saw the couple last on Nov. 12, 1995 when they spent the day together running errands and visiting friends. The group parted ways around 10 p.m. and Jakovleva and Askarov walked home together.
Iodko said Jakovleva asked her to call her the following day. No one picked up when she called around 8 a.m. on Nov. 13. She began to worry and called at least once every hour until Valenko answered around 8 p.m. and said the couple had moved to another state.
She spoke to him again a few days later when he called to ask her for part of the rent that the couple was supposed to pay. She agreed to pay almost $200-250 in exchange for a camera she took as deposit. When they met for the transaction, Iodko said she noticed diagonal scratches and bruises on Valenko’s face. Feeling suspicious, Iodko went to check if Jakovleva and Askarov’s car was gone and found it parked at the exact spot it had been on Nov. 12.
As part of the evidence, Gough showed the jury a picture of Iodko wearing nothing but underwear, a tank top and cowboy hat while straddling a suitcase — the same luggage in which the victims’ bodies were later found. The picture proved that the luggage belonged to the victims.
“We were playing around,” she said laughing at her outfit. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, at least you remember it,” Judge Goldberg joked.
Court will reconvene tomorrow for the fourth day of trials.
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