A Russian model and her teenage daughter were found brutally slain and wrapped in bed sheets in Turkey – with their abusive ex-husband and father now being hunted as the prime suspect, according to reports.
The bodies of Irina Dvizova, 42, and her 15-year-old daughter Dayana were found Tuesday tied with rope and left about 10 feet apart on a steep slope in the resort area of Bodrum, the Turkish outlet Haberturk reported.
Both victims had gunshot wounds, according to the Russian news site Pravda.
Dvizova and Dayana – also an aspiring model, with about 30,000 followers on TikTok – were out of touch with loved ones for several days before family members when to their rented villa and found blood on the sofa, the report said.
A neighbor, identified only by her first name, Angelina, told the REN channel that she heard gunshots in the area.
“I know that there were gunshots in the house. Security called and asked if we had heard anything suspicious,” she recalled.
A troubling video shared by the network showed first responders appearing to lug a black body back up the treacherous incline where the bodies were found.
Those close to the victims identified the prime suspect in the slayings as Dvizova’s ex-husband, Andrey Kuslevich – whom relatives described as a prickly character who previously served as a bodyguard for a Ukrainian oligarch, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
“He beat me with his hands and a towel so that there would be no bruises,” Dvizova’s son from her first marriage, David, 20, told the outlet of how Kuslevich allegedly treated the family.
“He also beat my mother: with his hands and feet. Even my sister got it. I am afraid of this man, I fear for my life,” David added of the years before Dvizova left his step-father.
Eventually, Dvizova left the home she made with Kuslevich in Lithuania and joined her mother in Moscow before bringing her children – including a 5-year-old son she shared with Kuslevich – to Turkey.
“We met her in Bodrum, when they had already broken up,” one friend told the paper.
“She said that her ex-husband wants to take her children away from her, that he is haunting her and that he is a mentally ill person. As I understand it, she fled to Turkey from him. It was very creepy to listen to her [talk about it].”
At the time of her death, Dvizova was working as a real estate agency and was supposedly trying to revoke Kuslevich’s access to their young son, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported.
This is also not the first time supposed former bodyguard has had a run-in with the law: In 2017, Kuslevich was detained in Moscow and a warrant for him was issued by Interpol, the outlet alleged.
Though it is unclear what the charges were against him, Kuslevich apparently fled the trial detention center and was subsequently sought under a criminal case for escaping arrest, Komsomolskaya Pravda said.
Authorities are now scouring Europe for Kuslevich, who is a citizen of Lithuania and is believed to have already left Turkey.
While Dvizova’s family raises funds to bring the victims’ bodies back to Russia.