Two parents in Russia asked a truck driver to take their two young daughters to a babysitter. The girls later claimed the truck driver touched them inappropriately, leading the parents to track down the driver, rape him with a metal pipe, and then beat him with it.
Valeria Dunaeva, 25, is the mother of the three-year-old who picked up the two girls. The two told her Chikvarkin “had touched them below the waist,” police said, according to the Daily Mail. Dunaeva became enraged after the accusation and told 33-year-old Sergey Chabin, the father of the 10-year-old girl. The parents called three male friends to find Chikvarkin and attack him.
“They found the man who previously gave a lift to the children,” a police source told Znak, a Russian newspaper. “First, he was raped in the anus with a metal pipe. Then they smashed his head with the same pipe, breaking his skull.”
Chikvarkin’s friend – an aunt of Dunaeva’s ex-husband who had babysat the children – was injured in the attack as well while she tried to defend her friend. Chikvarkin was still alive after the attackers left but later died from his injuries. One of Chikvarkin’s friends told the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper that the truck driver “just wanted to help by giving the kids a lift, but he was killed,” according to the Mail. The friend added that Chikvarkin “would never harm children.”
The driver, 48-year-old Dmitry Chikvarkin, is believed to be innocent, the Daily Mail reported. Police said they believe the two girls, aged 10 and three, lied about Chikvarkin touching them as a “joke.” Police made the determination after interviewing both children, suggesting it was the older girl who made up the claim.
The parents, Dunaeva and Chabin, along with an alleged accomplice, have been arrested and charged with “murder with special cruelty by a group of persons by prior conspiracy,” according to reports. Police are still looking for the other men who participated in the murder.
The four men involved face potential life sentences, the Mail reported, while the woman only faces up to 20 years in prison, yet another example of how the criminal justice system treats women differently than men.
The case is also another example of the consequences faced by those falsely accused of sexual assault. Chikvarkin was murdered, but many falsely accused men end up committing suicide. One of the most prominent cases in the past few years involved Jay Cheshire, who hanged himself after he was falsely accused of rape. A year after Cheshire died, his mother committed suicide in the same way.
Then there are the men that spend decades in jail for rapes they never committed. The most recent example comes from New York, where Rafael Ruiz finally had the charges against him drop. Ruiz was released from prison earlier this year after spending 25 years in prison for a 1985 sexual assault conviction for which he was innocent. Ruiz is one of the hundreds of men who have been helped by the Innocent Project.
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