Family, Friends Mourn Young Mother, Children Killed In Rancho Cordova
RANCHO CORDOVA (CBS13) - A young family's Rancho Cordova home turned into a gruesome crime scene, and now friends and family are left to clean up and try to come to grips with an unthinkable crime.
Overcome with emotion, Alina Bukhantsov's mother could barely bring herself to walk inside the home where her daughter and two grandchildren were brutally murdered the day before.
For family, it's been too difficult to talk, but friends are sharing Alina's life.
Svetlana Murza knew Alina for more than 10 years. It's hard for her to believe she's gone.
"She is somebody you would look up to," she said. "There's only good things about her. You're never going to find anything bad, anything bad to say about her."
Alina moved to the United States from Belarus in 1998. She was a fixture at her church, teaching children, and in 2008 she married Denis.
"My parents always looked at them and said 'I think they're the best couple ever,'" Svetlana said. "I can't believe it, a person as nice as her, I don't believe it. I don't know why this happened, why God let this happen."
Tim Yaroshchuk lives across the street. He's not only a neighbor, he's also a cousin. Denis knocked on his door to tell him his wife and two young children, Emmanuela, 3, and Avenir, 2, were dead.
"It was very shocking," he said.
Now Tim is helping family members clean up the devastation inside, even loading the toddler's strollers to be taken away.
For Svetlana, despite these painful images, she said she wanted to be close to the family.
"I just came here ... I guess to say goodbye ... I don't know," she said, her voice breaking up.
