I'M 85% TO BLAME:
DISTRAUGHT MOTHER OF DEAD GIRL IN ROYAL ESTATE
The mother of the teenage girl whose body is feared to be the one discovered on the Queen’s estate in Norfolk this week has spoken for the first time – and told of her guilt.
A tearful Anzela Dmitrijeva, whose daughter Alisa, 17, went missing in August, told how she had quit poverty in Latvia and moved to Britain to seek a better life, with her family following later.
But Mrs Dmitrijeva, 34, said she blamed herself for leaving Alisa at home in Latvia when she first came to work in this country as it had put a strain on their previously close relationship and led to rows that could have contributed to her daughter’s disappearance.
The Mail on Sunday has also learned that the family left their flat in a poverty-stricken area of the Latvian capital Riga after discovering that a brutal murder had taken place there.
Mrs Dmitrijeva said: ‘Eighty-five per cent of the guilt for what has happened to her is on me. When I left for Britain three years ago, seeking a better financial situation for me and my family, Latvia was facing a bad time with the economy and there was a necessity for me to find a job.
‘I know now I should have taken her and the family with me and not left them behind.’
Her move – an attempt to find work before her husband Olegs, 40, Alisa and ten-year-old sister Victorija followed her to Britain – ‘made a division in the family because I was away’, she admitted.
‘My husband blamed me for leaving the children, abandoning them.’
Moving to the UK in 2008, Mrs Dmitrijeva first lived in Boston, Lincolnshire, finding work with a local food-processing company.
When the rest of the family arrived a year later, they set up home in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, but she and Olegs have since separated and Mrs Dmitrijeva is now living in Lincoln, away from her family, while Olegs and other family members remain in Wisbech.
She said that when Alisa first went missing, she had not been overly worried. They had argued badly –but she felt sure she would return.
‘Then something really kicked me in my heart,’ she said. ‘I took her picture and went round the local shops in Wisbech, desperately looking for her.’ But it was to no avail.
She revealed that Alisa was a dramatically changed personality after the upheaval caused by leaving her familiar life in Latvia.
Her daughter told her that she had been arrested in April, ‘for stealing something with a group of friends, even though she assured me that she wasn’t taking part in it’.
Then in June or July, her friends led her into other worrying habits.
‘She started taking drugs. I knew that as well,’ said Mrs Dmitrijeva.
Rows followed and their relationship became increasingly difficult, with Alisa living with her father and grandmother rather than with her.
‘In Britain, Alisa changed so much from how she had been in Latvia, when we got on very well. We were so close,’ said Mrs Dmitrijeva. ‘Since April this year, we started arguing, badly and strongly.’
Still she tried to be a good mother, taking an interest in her daughter’s increasingly independent life.
Mrs Dmitrijeva recalled: ‘The last time I saw Alisa was in July and it wasn’t a friendly meeting. She came to me saying she needed money.
‘I got annoyed, asking why she kept needing mon- ey. The amount was just £10. She said she needed it to eat, and I said, “Well, I can cook you something.”
‘This made her furious and she told me, “I’m not living with you.” ’ The teenage girl’s body, which lay just a mile from the main entrance to Sandringham House for between one and four months, was found by a dog-walker on New Year’s Day. Alisa, who fits the description of the body, was last seen on August 31 in King’s Lynn, Norfolk, ten miles away. Police are treating the incident as murder and hope that DNA tests will lead to a positive identification tomorrow.
The imposing Sandringham estate is a far cry from Alisa’s former home in Riga. Last week, the curtains of the ground-floor flat in the Soviet-era red-brick block where the family once lived were closed and there was no answer at the door.
Although only half an hour by bus from the beautiful Old City of Riga, the suburb of Kurzemes is grim and intimidating.
It has also been revealed that Mrs Dmitrijeva and her family fled to Britain after learning their £100-a-month flat had been the scene of a chilling murder. A mentally disturbed teenage boy stabbed a sevenyear-old girl to death on the balcony of the flat in the late Eighties, according to several neighbours.
One, Silvija Ruusta, 55, said: ‘The family had moved into the flat hoping to start a new life, but some of the other neighbours told Anzela about the murder and she became very scared. As soon as they learnt that there had been a killing in the flat, it ruined it for them.
‘I tried to persuade them to stay but they would not. It is an apartment with bad energy. No one wants to live there.’
Neighbour Donat Izich, 73, said: ‘They left in a hurry about three years ago and did not tell anyone where they were going. I would see Alisa on the bus into Riga when she was going to school. A nice girl, always smiling.’
Photographs show how Alisa grew apart from her mother as she adopted more adult clothes and behaviour. In one, she is seen with her mother and sister on a family holiday to Paris. But in another, more recent picture, she strikes a pose while dressed in a short skirt, high heels and tight top.
Alisa was last seen getting into a green Lexus car with two male friends just after midnight on August 31 in King’s Lynn. She was reported missing by her grandmother on September 6.
According to a source, the men were traced and told police they had dropped her off near an Asda store in Wisbech but officers were unable to find any CCTV evidence of her arriving there.
Forensic tests have revealed the body found is white, aged 15 to 23 with high cheek bones and 5ft 4in to 6in tall. Police previously said Miss Dmitrijeva is 5ft 6in tall. Detectives hope that employees of the Queen, including workers and grooms at her nearby stud farm, can help the investigation but do not expect to question the Royal Family.
The Royals celebrated Christmas at Sandringham – including hosting a shooting party in the field beside the corpse on December 28 – four days before the body was found.
Detective Chief Inspector Jes Fry, of the Norfolk and Suffolk police major investigation team, insisted the missing teenager was one of several potential lines of inquiry.
A post-mortem examination by Home office path- ologist Dr Nat Cary was unable to find a cause of death for the woman, but concluded it was highly unlikely she had died of natural causes. Norfolk police said yesterday: ‘We would like to identify people who may have worked in that area or were involved in organising or running any specific events that may have taken place, initially concentrating from the end of August to the end of September 2011.’