A resident of Haifa was arrested in March in connection with the brutal rape and murder of four women, the Israel Police revealed Tuesday, adding a special taskforce was handling the investigation. Fyodor Beshnery, 26, has been in police custody for 46 days. While the case was originally placed under a comprehensive gag order, the police, who suspect Beshnery is involved in other violent crimes as well, decided to reveal his identity to the public and called on other potential victims, or anyone with information on the case, to come forward. Beshnery, who immigrated to Israel from Moldova in 2011, is a divorced father of two currently living with his female partner. Defined by the police as "an extremely violent and dangerous offender," he is suspected of multiple rapes and murders, as well as arson, sexual assault, and a slew of other sex crimes, which the police believe date back to 2013. According to Channel 10 News, while Beshnery was originally arrested in connection to a murder that took place in southern Israel, once his details were in the police's system, investigators began receiving calls from nearly every police district, saying he was a person of interest in multiple open cases. Channel 2 News reported that in what is a very unusual move, investigators exhumed the body of a woman first believed to have died of natural causes, after evidence suggested she may be one of Beshnery's victims. A police source said Beshnery's arrest followed a DNA match found in multiple crime scenes nationwide. While much of the investigation remains under a gag order, available details suggest all cases involved the murder of young women, two cases also involved arson, and at least two cases suggested the women were sexually assaulted. "The evidence, backed by DNA findings, suggest a clear pattern of behavior," the police source said. Furthermore, the suspicions against Beshnery are so serious they inspired a highly unusual move by which the police sought Attorney General Avichai Mendelblit's approval to remand Beshnery to custody for over 30 days, which under Israeli law is the maximum period of time a suspect in an ongoing investigation can be held prior to being charged or released on bail. Attorney Lior Ronen, assigned by the Public Defender's Office to represent Beshnery, said his client denies the allegations against him. "He has been in custody for over 40 days, and he claims his rights have been violated," Ronen said. "Even after all this time, the police have yet to present us with any evidence linking him to these alleged crimes, essentially preventing him from proving his innocence." The public defender criticized the police, telling Channel 2, "There's a national taskforce heading the investigation and they decide when to reveal [evidence] and these are things I believe undermine Beshnery's ability to defend himself. They [investigators] refuse to tell us what they're looking into." Speaking with Army Radio on Wednesday, Ronen insisted that "so far, we are only aware of one alleged sex crime." According to Army Radio, Beshnery's ex-wife was questioned by the police, but said she had no knowledge of the crimes attributed to him. Beshnery's partner told the media she was "stunned to learn that for the past two years I've been living with a man who could have killed me. This is a nightmare. I don't know how I'll get through it."
