Shakopee Man Facing Homicide Charges In Girlfriend's Death
SHAKOPEE, Minn. (WCCO) -- Investigators in Shakopee are still looking for answers in Monday's killing of a woman found dead in her boyfriend's home.
Sergey Balandin, 31, is the man arrested in the death of a 34-year-old woman. And it's not the first time Balandin's been suspected of domestic assault.
Balandin could be charged as soon as Wednesday with second-degree homicide. He's suspected of killing his live-in girlfriend in the home the couple shared. And unbeknownst to her mother, who was downstairs.
On a block of nicely maintained town homes on Shakopee's south side, yellow tape tells the story of a tragic crime. When a tipster called police saying a woman had been murdered, the trail led to the home of Sergey Nikolaevich Balandin.
"This is a very quiet neighborhood," neighbor Edward Nyakeri said.
Once police got to the home on Savanna Drive, the victim's mother said her daughter was upstairs sleeping. The bedroom door was locked. Balandin's girlfriend was dead inside.
He apparently fled on foot and was apprehended a few blocks away, hiding in bushes near the Hampton Inn. Neighbors say he was sometimes seen drinking on his front step.
But Edward Nyakeri never suspected Balandin as violent.
"No, I didn't know much about him, didn't know much about his issues of being violent, it came to light later that he had such issues," Nyakeri said.
Balandin and his girlfriend were both Ukranian. Until recently, she worked at a nearby Dollar Tree.
In 2014, Balandin was charged with domestic assault of another woman. He was later convicted of a lesser crime of disorderly conduct.
Police who processed the crime scene say it was clearly a crime of rage. And yet another sad story, of what is too often, the fatal consequence of domestic violence.