Man held after two bodies found in bins
Prosecutors expect more charges ahead
SOMERVILLE — A Medford man is being held without bail, charged with the murder of one of two men found stabbed to death in a storage unit — one of whom was dismembered — and prosecutors say they expect more charges coming in the grisly double slaying that allegedly followed a rental dispute.
Leonid Volkov, 37, was arraigned Tuesday, after police discovered the bodies of Pavel Vekshin and Kiryl Schukin last weekend inside rubber bins in the Brighton storage unit that prosecutors say Volkov had rented using cash and Schukin’s passport. Both dead men had been stabbed multiple times, and Schukin’s body was spread among three bins, according to Middlesex District Attorney Marian Ryan’s office.
“This is an ongoing investigation and we anticipate additional charges,” Assistant District Attorney Ceara Mahoney told the court.
Police arrested Volkov without incident on Saturday in North Attleboro. On Tuesday, Volkov’s lawyer entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
“I think a lot of what they have is circumstantial in nature,” court-appointed defense attorney Debra DeWitt told reporters outside the courthouse after the arraignment, which lasted just under 15 minutes.
In Tuesday’s proceedings, Volkov was charged only with the murder of 37-year-old Schukin, according to the couple of pages of court documents that were available to the public following the judge’s agreeing to an impoundment order. The offense date for the killing is listed as March 30.
Volkov is also charged with larceny from a building for allegedly stealing a scooter from Schukin’s apartment the following week.
No charges have been filed yet in the killing of Schukin’s husband, Vekshin, 28.
Volkov, clad in a gray Jurassic Park T-shirt, stood quietly in Somerville District Court as Mahoney laid out the case against him, filling in a few new details of the alleged timeline.
Schukin had been a guarantor on Volkov’s lease on an apartment he rented in Medford, Mahoney told the court, but Schukin wanted to withdraw from the arrangement after he discovered that Volkov was behind on his rent.
That, she said, meant Volkov would end up being evicted from the garden-level apartment where Volkov, his wife, and two children had been living in a complex looking out onto the banks of the Malden River in Medford.
Mahoney said Volkov has admitted that he picked up Schukin in a U-Haul truck on March 29 and drove over to the area near Volkov’s Cabot Road apartment “to discuss the lease.” Volkov, Mahoney said, told investigators that he’d then driven Schukin back to the Locust Street apartment complex that Schukin and Vekshin shared on the other side of Medford.
But video surveillance never showed Schukin getting out of the van on Locust Street — nor did cameras catch Schukin or Vekshin there in the following days, Mahoney said.
Cameras did catch, however, a man walking in and out of the apartment in a black mask and black hat, appearing to be the same as Schukin was last seen wearing on video, Mahoney said. But friends said the man “did not appear to be either Mr. Schukin or Mr. Vekshin,” she said.
Mahoney said video showed the man in black carrying “bags, trash bags and scooters believed to be taken from Mr. Vekshin’s and Mr. Schukin’s apartment.”
The prosecutor said that credit cards registered to Schukin and Vekshin were used at “businesses throughout eastern Massachusetts” during the time that the pair were missing and “believed to be deceased.”
At one of the stores, the purchaser used one of the couple’s credit cards in conjunction with a reward card in Volkov’s name to buy “expensive technology,” Mahoney said.
Investigators found some of the items that were bought with the cards during this time in the storage unit where they’d also find the bodies.
That storage unit was at iStorage on North Beacon Street in Brighton, where prosecutors said Volkov used Schukin’s passport and cash to purchase the unit on March 30.
Outside, investigators found the U-Haul, and inside, police found the two dead men, Mahoney said. Medical examiners have ruled that both men died by homicide — victims of multiple stab wounds.
Investigators found Vekshin in one storage bin, and Schuken’s dismembered remains among three bins, Mahoney said.
Police also found their passports and other items that the man in black had been seen on video taking from their apartment, including two motorized scooters and a trash bag containing cleaning products and bloody towels. Additionally, investigators found a bloody shower curtain and “implements that could be used to dismember a body,” Mahoney said.
DeWitt, Volkov’s court-appointed lawyer, said there are “some holes to be poked” in the prosecution’s case.
“I think we all go in and out of our friends’ apartments all the time, so that doesn’t surprise me at all,” DeWitt said.
She said that Volkov and Schukin had been friends for several years after meeting on social media and bonding over shared interests, but didn’t have a romantic relationship. She said Volkov worked in information technology and in court said he’d had “off-and-on” work of late.
Schukin and Vekshin were described by friends as being happy and kind. Schukin worked in IT, and Vekshin was passionate about photography.
Court records from Chesterfield County in Virginia show Volkov received a suspended three-month sentence in December 2021 for a conviction for misdemeanor larceny and became a fugitive this February on a charge of not reporting to jail.