Manager of the Moscow metro, former deputy head of Novokuznetsk received 12 years for the murder of his wife – “Miss Kuzbass-2010” and received 12 years

The Shcherbinsky District Court of Moscow sentenced Alexander Popov to 12 years in prison in the case of the murder of his wife Ksenia Sapozhkova, who won the Miss Kuzbass beauty contest in 2010. city ​​prosecutor’s office says.

Popov was found guilty under Part 1 of Art. 105 of the Criminal Code (murder), the maximum punishment for it is up to 15 years in prison. He will serve his sentence in a strict regime colony. The verdict has not entered into force, the department clarifies.

Popov was arrested in the end of January. According to the Investigative Committee, the man went to the police and stated that in August 2021 his wife went on vacation abroad, agreeing to keep in touch with him through social networks. However, investigators later found out that Sapozhkova did not cross the Russian border. Popov confessed that he had killed her, “and gave detailed testimonies“, said in the UK.

The man hid the murder of his wife for six months. As reported by the Telegram channel “112”, according to Popov, in the summer of 2021, Sapozhkova left for Dubai, but at some point she stopped communicating. All this time, posts appeared on the woman’s social networks, which, according to 112, were published by her husband.

February 4 in the forest in New Moscow found a body Sapozhkova. Soon the Investigative Committee showed footage from the scene of the investigative actions, in which Popov showed where he had hidden him.

According to Komsomolskaya Pravda, Popov in 2009-2015 worked in the administration of Novokuznetsk. In 2012, he was appointed to the position of deputy head of the city – head of the administration of the Central District of the city, wrote “Arguments and Facts”. At the time of his arrest, as 112 reported, Popov was the deputy head of one of the departments of the Moscow Metro.

[…] – In December 2021, Alexander Popov, 36, a former vice-mayor of Novokuznetsk, who now works in an administrative position in the Moscow metro system, applied to one of the metropolitan departments with a statement about the disappearance of his wife.

– According to Popov, in August his wife flew to Dubai for a vacation. One. Leaving her husband with a child in Moscow. 30-year-old Ksenia is a former model, Miss Kuzbass 2010. For a while, she communicated with family and friends through social networks, and then disappeared. The last message is that Ksenia is allegedly in South Africa, where she caught the coronavirus and is in the hospital.

– The first thing the police officers did was to check when and on what flight Ksenia Popova flew out of Moscow. And then it turned out that in 2021 the woman did not leave the Russian border.

– Popov was interrogated again. He answered uncertainly, confused in the testimony. In January 2022, he was detained and a few hours later the ex-official confessed that he had killed his wife, dismembered her body and thrown it into the river near the house. And then for several more weeks he corresponded from her social network account with relatives and friends.

The divers combed the bottom of the river, but found nothing. Popov, at first, refused to testify, allegedly they were beaten out by force. But then he confessed again. And he pointed out a place in the forest in New Moscow, a kilometer from the apartment that the family rented, where he buried Xenia’s body. The remains were dug up. DNA testing has already confirmed that the victim is indeed Ksenia Popova.

– A few days ago, the Investigative Committee completed the investigation, the prosecutor’s office approved the charge, the materials are being submitted to the court. All in record time. Less than four months have passed since the arrest of Alexander Popov.

“fell on the knife”

Here you need to rewind the film a few years ago. It all started with a beautiful love story. At least that’s what it looked like on the outside. A successful official is fascinated by the local beauty and is ready to put the whole world at her feet. Well, or a few square meters in New Moscow.

In 2011. A young student of the department of civil service at a local university, Ksenia Sapozhkova (she won the regional Miss title in 2010 at the age of 18), comes to practice at the Novokuznetsk mayor’s office. The head of one of the departments, Alexander Popov, begins to follow her. He is divorced, he has a small son from his first marriage, he himself is short, dense, balding early. Calling him a lover is a stretch. But, as we shall see, appearances are indeed deceiving.

Popov is very persistent. And he is also promising. In 2012, he is 27 years old, and he is suddenly appointed head of the Central District of Novokuznetsk. An incredible career take-off for such an age, because the head of the district is actually the position of vice-mayor of a city of half a million.

On the sidelines, they gossip that Popov’s position was knocked out by his father – not the last businessman from the housing and communal services in the city.

Shortly after this, Alexander and Ksenia play a wedding. Popov held the post of head of the district for three years. Then for a year he headed the State Budgetary Institution, the head of nutrition in all city schools and kindergartens. After leaving the civil service, he went into business. In 2016, the couple had a daughter. In 2020, the Popovs decided to move to Moscow – Alexander got a job in one of the administrative departments of the metro. The family rents an apartment in New Moscow. Actually, everything happened in this apartment. A happy life was destroyed. But why?

“Initially, Popov said that he had quarreled with his wife because of a failed trip to Turkey,” a law enforcement source tells kp.ru. – We agreed that Xenia’s 30th birthday will be celebrated in a five-star hotel on the Mediterranean coast. But Alexander’s hotel reservation fell through, and the whole trip hung in the air. They had a scandal. Popov claimed during interrogation that his wife took a knife from the table, he grabbed her hands, they struggled and fell. Allegedly, Xenia herself fell on the knife. But when the body was taken out of the pit, the experts found several stab wounds on it, and not one, as Popov himself claimed …

Life on two fronts

“Already after the tragedy, relatives learned the secret that Alexander Popov hid from everyone,” the source continues. – For the last five years, he actually lived in two families.

It turned out that back in Novokuznetsk, the ex-official “came together” with his first wife. I visited often. Helped with money. Moreover, shortly after Ksenia gave birth to Popov’s daughter, another child was born from him!

But Xenia herself, according to relatives, knew nothing about this.

“Now it’s already known: first, Popov moved his first family to Moscow, settled them, and only then Ksenia flew in with their common child,” Valeria Lukina, a close friend of Miss Kuzbass 2010, tells kp.ru.

It’s amazing how Alexander Popov managed to pull it all off. Ksenia took a mortgage on one apartment. And Popov settled in her ex-wife with children. From the apartment that the Popovs rented on the Kaluzhskoye Highway, to the very mortgage new building – ten minutes by car.

“The money for the down payment, more than 1 million rubles, was given to Ksyusha by her grandmother,” says Valeria.

Popov never took his lawful wife to this apartment, arguing that the repairs were taking too long, that it was dusty and dirty, there was nothing to see. In fact, everything was great there. The former official furnished a spacious odnushka with furniture, bought equipment. And almost every day after work he stopped by to visit the “second-first” family.

Novokuznetsk Lovelace

It is clear that funds for all these adventures required a lot. Despite the fact that – according to the source – already in Moscow, Popov had a short affair with a third woman.

“Ksyusha herself could not understand why they constantly lack money,” another friend of Popova-Sapozhkova told us. – My husband seems to make good money. She, too, was not a freeloader, having come out of the decree, she herself tried to earn extra money. She was engaged in design, restored antique furniture. But in fact, it turned out that branded items or perfumes, which she could afford when she was unmarried, became a real luxury for her in marriage.

Many relatives of Ksenia Popova believe that the real reason for that fatal quarrel could not be a failed trip at all, but the truth that surfaced about the double life of the former vice-mayor, about his ex-wife living in an apartment for which Ksenia pays monthly, and, in the end after all, about one more child on the side.

“It’s beneficial for Popov now to present everything as if it were a spontaneous skirmish over some trifle, that they allegedly had a fight,” our interlocutor continues. – Who can refute his words if there were no witnesses? But I wouldn’t be surprised if he really wanted to kill her because she got in the way.

The version sounds crazy. Why not just get divorced then? Whether the killer had a preliminary plan, he himself can tell. But after the crime, Alexander Popov consistently tried to cover his tracks. Firstly, he was playing for time, texting on behalf of Xenia in social networks, allegedly she flew to Dubai. I tried to make sure that no one filed a statement about her disappearance. Almost immediately I moved out of the rented apartment (the hostess then made repairs there, destroying microtraces of blood on the tile in the kitchen where Xenia was killed), sold the car in which the corpse was transported to the forest …

The Popovs’ six-year-old daughter Eva (name changed – Auth.) has been living in Novokuznetsk again since the fall of last year – with her grandmother from Xenia’s side. The fact that her mother died, the girl was told only two weeks ago. The psychologist insisted. Before that, the girl was constantly crying, asking to go to Moscow. Now she cries because she realized that she will never see her mother again. Eve is not told that dad did it.

“Xenia’s mom falls down – there is not enough money”

Lyubov Sapozhkova, the mother of Ksenia Popova, is now in an incredibly difficult situation. The woman lived on a powder keg for several months, not understanding what was happening to her daughter, where she had gone. Statements to the local Novokuznetsk police, in fact, did not make any sense – the girl had to be looked for either in Moscow or in Dubai. There were versions among relatives that Ksenia could have been kidnapped into sexual slavery. Or get into a sect.

At the same time, a little granddaughter was in the care of the woman. Now psychologists should work with the girl.

– They gave, of course, a free psychologist, but it was decided that a stronger private psychologist would help the girl somehow cope with this situation. It costs a lot of money, ”Valeria Lukina, who continues to communicate with Ksenia’s mother, told kp.ru. – And we have earnings in the outback, in Novokuznetsk, you know what. At the same time, the mortgage that Ksyusha took (the same apartment in which Popov’s ex-wife lived – Auth.) also fell on her. This is about 45 thousand per month. Giant money for our city. Even after Popov’s arrest, his ex-wife continued to live there, behaving very impudently. Before leaving, she took out all the furniture, part of the plumbing. That apartment could be rented out, of course. But first you need to arrange some, put in order. There is no money for this. Aunt Lyuba literally falls down, she misses. At the same time, she does not ask for money on the side, pride does not allow. But if someone had suggested what could be done with a mortgage… Maybe the bank would have somehow agreed to meet. Grandmother remained the only native person for the girl. Popov’s parents show no interest in her.

Lyubov Sapozhkova believes that an apartment in Moscow in the future could become an important help for her granddaughter. But how do you get a mortgage?

According to Valeria, the woman began to have heart problems. So much so that the doctors forbade her to fly to Moscow for the trial of her former son-in-law. The woman in the trial will be interviewed via video communication channels.