A former police officer who shot and killed a pregnant woman and injured another woman while trying to steal their cars has been sentenced to life in prison, investigators said.
The defendant, Ruslan Elmuratov, hunted for his victims through online ads for car sales, the Investigative Committee said Friday in an online statement, noting that "he exclusively viewed ads where the owners were women."
He met with his first victim, a woman who was selling her BMW car, in Moscow and directed her to a remote area in the capital during a test drive.
It was there that he shot his victim in the head with a traumatic pistol, pulled her body out of the car and drove off, leaving her for dead. The woman was taken to a hospital and survived, the statement said.
He later met with his second victim, who was in the third trimester of pregnancy, and shot her at point-blank range inside her Toyota RAV4 jeep before pulling her out of the vehicle, the statement said. The woman died of her injuries.
Police detained Elmuratov on the day of that murder as he was driving away from Moscow, the statement said.
A Moscow region court found him guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment at a penal colony for especially dangerous offenders.
