Yury Korolyov, 69, was found on the roadside of Mozhaiskoye Shosse at about 2.00 A.M. on Wednesday. A police spokesman said Thursday the body had been completely disfigured by fire.
"His burned-out Zhiguli car, which he was driving to his house in Peredelkino, was also found two kilometers from the body on the same road," said Gennady Melnik, chief spokesman for the Moscow region police.
The death of Korolyov, a World War II veteran, follows the Oct. 17 assassination of Dmitry Kholodov, an investigative reporter for the daily newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets.
Kholodov investigated corruption and illegal arms dealing in the Russian Army's Western Group and was killed by an explosive device in a briefcase he picked up from Kazansky train station.
But Korolyov, who had worked for the past five years as a photographer for the business monthly Deloviye Lyudi, was not known to have had any dealings with the criminal world.
Vadim Biryukov, editor in chief of the monthly, told The Moscow Times that staff were mystified by the death, which appeared to have no political or financial connection.
"This death came as a total shock to us," Biryukov said. "The government should ponder the fact that not only bankers and millionaires but honest ordinary people are becoming victims of brutal crimes."
Nikolai Chekmazov, acting head of the Moscow region's criminal police, said police had detained a suspect.
Chekmazov said Korolyov had apparently stopped by a kiosk on the road, and then was probably approached by a group of men asking for a ride. Korolyov probably tried to object but had been forced to pick them up. Possibly he resisted and was killed.
He said police had not yet established the cause of death.
Biryukov said Korolyov had contributed in the 1960s to Life magazine, Time, and United Press International news agency. Later he had worked for the magazine Soviet Union.
"He was very gifted photographer," he said.
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