[dark music]
- A devoted father and successful businessman
Suddenly vanishes.
- It was almost like he just disappeared
Off the face of the earth.
- I never saw him again.
- A discovery ripped from the pages
Of a new york mob movie leaves seasoned detectives stunned.
- Inside the barrel, they find a decomposed body.
- It looked like it's a professional assassin.
- Could this be a part of an underworld conspiracy?
[siren wails] - all of the sudden,
Russian dead bodies were popping up all over the place.
[dramatic music]
- All the dominoes started falling.
- It had the murder,
The sex,
The betrayal.
- This is like a made-for-tv movie.
[dramatic musical sting]
[tense bassy music]
♪ ♪
- Staten island,
The island south of manhattan,
Is often thought of as the forgotten borough
Of new york city.
It's mostly working class,
But there is one glamorous enclave.
- Todt hill in staten island
Was a very affluent area.
- Absolutely palatial homes.
- It's where all your hedge fund entrepreneurs live.
- Almost everybody that lived there were multimillionaires
And it didn't get a lot of crimes.
- So it's a surprise when a call comes in
From this quiet neighborhood one night
In the spring of 2000.
- I received a phone call from a house in todt hill.
[phone rings]
This woman's husband,
Whose name was borys,
Hasn't been heard from in a while.
This woman's name is elena.
- Elena and her children went on a vacation
To disney world.
- Upon returning,
Elena expected her husband
To be at their todt hill residence.
He was not there.
- Police interview elena,
Who said she'd last seen borys at home on March 24th,
The night before she and the children
Went on their vacation.
- She told me that her and borys were arguing
A little bit the night before they left on vacation.
- She tells them it was just a small spat
Like all couples have.
- The next day, she gets up.
He's not there.
His car's not there.
And she just went ahead to florida with her kids.
They come back about a week later.
Borys is still not there, and his car's not there.
- It's not uncommon for somebody
To leave or walk away after an argument or fight.
- She tells police that she hadn't heard
From her husband during the week
While she was in florida, but she explains
That he travels a lot for work,
So at first she thought he was just on another business trip.
- She tells us that borys spends
About three out of every four weeks in russia
And that was not unusual for her not to speak to him
Or see him for, you know, a reasonable amount of time.
- He was a big-time speculator
On the russian aviation fuel market.
- Elena says after she returned to staten island,
She spent two days trying to get in touch with borys
To no avail.
- She was reaching out to everyone she knew
And could not locate him,
Was not receiving return phone calls.
- She appeared distraught, according to police.
- Investigators are concerned enough
To open a missing persons investigation.
They start by learning everything they can
About borys kiejliches, hoping that will help them determine
Where the missing man might have gone.
- It is important
For you to get to know the missing person
And get in that missing person's head.
- You start to look at the residence.
You speak to his family.
You know, "was there anything going on?"
- Detectives also speak to borys' co-workers.
- Borys is, uh--was a nice guy.
Very mild, friendly person.
He was a large guy. 200 pounds, maybe.
[laughs] his nickname was wild boar.
He was a good father.
He had a nice smile.
He was always smiling with me.
- He was making a nice penny.
You know, he was a businessman.
And what we saw, he was doing very well.
He was very, very wealthy.
His house, the downstairs was palatial.
The upstairs, unbelievable.
That pool was, like, one of the biggest pools
I've ever seen in my life,
And it was in his house,
Which just floored me.
- He told me he had about $5 or $6 million
In u.S. At that point.
But he boasted to me
That he has way more money in singapore and in moscow.
The russian people as a joke say
That I cannot tell you how I made my first million,
But I can tell you about the rest.
[laughs]
[ominous music]
- The russian oil business
Back in the early 2000s was ripe with organized crime.
- So it was quite a lucrative job, but dangerous.
- Anybody that's able to facilitate airplane fuel
Going from one place to another
Has to have criminal connections
Back in 2000, 1999.
So we went with the premise that he had some mob ties.
- It was quite possible
That borys might disappear in moscow forever.
♪ ♪
- Investigators immediately check all the airports
To see if and when borys had traveled to russia.
- We checked with the airports,
And there was no activity there.
- Borys had not left the country
And he didn't fly somewhere else in the country.
Then we looked into his credit card activity,
And there was no activity with the bank
Or the credit cards.
- There have been no charges on his accounts
Since March 24th, 2000, the last day his wife saw him.
- We ran all the cards that were registered to borys.
- Borys had a mercedes
And a land rover.
- The range rover was still at the house,
And the mercedes-benz was no longer there.
So at this point, we put an alarm
On the car and it's put into a computer.
We got nothing.
- It was almost like he just disappeared
Off the face of the earth.
- That brings us to our next theory.
Maybe borys wanted to disappear.
- Could borys have just decided,
"you know what, I don't love this woman anymore,
I'm leaving and I'm not coming back"?
- We immediately talked to the couple's friends and family
To take the temperature of borys and elena's home life.
- It's not uncommon for somebody to leave
Or walk away, but everybody said,
"no, he was happy. Very happy.
He loved his wife."
- They genuinely loved each other.
They look like they are, like, a perfect couple.
- Over the next few days,
Friends and family tell investigators
That the pair had met in russia.
They had grown their business together
And then moved to the u.S.
- Borys and elena met in a post-soviet union russia.
- The area they met in was on the polish-russian border.
The two of them had to work the black market there.
- They sold things like stereo equipment and stuff.
And he started collecting some money,
And then he came over here
And made a go of it.
- Russia's always unstable,
So they came here for the opportunities.
- Elena and borys had two children.
Borys loved and cared for the children.
Borys was the quintessential russian bear.
He was big, barrel-chested.
He had an air about him, an air of confidence.
- You start making a picture that this guy was just
A decent human being,
A working guy trying to make better for his family.
- I would never think that he would run away
In anger.
- A week after borys went missing,
They get a hit on his missing car.
- Police find borys' mercedes
In the brighton beach section of brooklyn.
- It was abandoned with his license plates
On the vehicle.
It's a mercedes-benz.
You don't just abandon it
Where you don't live for no reason.
- It's the first potential lead
In borys' mysterious disappearance.
- Borys' mercedes-benz is taken to the impound
And processed by a crime scene
For any kind of blood spatter, traces of blood, hair, fiber,
But none of that was present in the car.
- So now they have to figure out,
Well, what happened to borys, and why would he leave his car
In brighton beach?
Brighton beach is a heavily russian community.
- I know brighton beach very well.
[festive music]
Popular place with all russian immigrants.
We like to socialize in the russian restaurants.
We feel more comfortable there.
- Detectives canvass the brighton beach area
But don't get too far.
- The russians, they don't take too kindly
To being interviewed by detectives.
Not that, you know,
They would tell you that, but short and sweet.
"I have nothing to say. Goodbye."
- Investigators may have borys' car,
But they aren't any closer to finding borys.
- Why would borys abandon his vehicle in brighton beach?
Was he the victim of a street-level robbery?
Was he lured there by business associates?
It raised a lot of questions.
- After a person has been missing for 72 hours,
The chances of seeing them again dwindle to nearly zero.
As the investigation enters its second and then third week
With no sign of borys,
Police are increasingly convinced
That they might have a murder on their hands.
- They may suspect murder,
But they don't have a murder case.
- You know, you need a body.
It's hard to prove a case with no, you know, dead body.
- Coming up...
- Was this some type of internal war
Among russian organized crime?
- That's when it started to snowball.
- If I knew it was going to happen...
[gunshot] I would not let him go home.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- Staten island detectives are four weeks
Into the missing persons investigation
Of husband and father borys kiejliches.
And three weeks after they had their first break in the case,
They've run out of leads.
But then a surprising discovery
Gives the case a much-needed jumpstart.
- A few kids are, like, scavenging the wetlands
Off jamaica bay in queens.
- They saw this barrel in shallow water.
- It's got a top,
And they take it off,
Thinking there might be treasure in it.
And what they find is a dead human being.
Now I'm sure it wasn't pretty.
[ominous music]
♪ ♪
[siren wails]
It went to the me's office, and that's where
The id was done and fingerprints.
- The body was identified.
It was borys.
It was confirmation that borys was the victim of a murder.
[indistinct radio chatter, siren wails]
We'll call you back.
- Detectives now had the terrible job
Of informing borys' loved ones
That their husband and father has been found dead.
His family is devastated.
- Everybody was shocked.
- Borys and his wife, elena,
Was like, uh, postcard people who--
Who are just trying to have their american dream
Out of nightmare in russia.
She wanted to live happily ever after in united states.
- Elena was very emotional.
She was in a state of shock.
- You get to meet the people's family,
And you feel that you wanna give them closure.
- You know, every homicide I worked,
You wanna get the person who's responsible.
You are their last one to make sure
This doesn't go unresolved.
- But you don't have a lot of time to say "poor borys."
You have to focus on the job at hand,
Which is finding out who killed him.
- Investigators know that the best place
To find their first lead is on the body itself.
- I come to the queens morgue early that morning.
Borys is out there on the morgue table,
And they're about to conduct a autopsy.
The body was wrapped in a bed sheet.
They were blue
With a yellow floral design in it.
The victim's body was tied up and the body was decomposed.
- The me determined the cause of death
Was a gunshot wound to the head.
[gunshot] - he was shot from behind
At a close range with a 9-millimeter.
- The autopsy also showed that borys kiejliches sustained
A fracture to the back of his skull,
Not as a result of the bullet wound,
Which led us to believe that borys was struck
In the back of the head.
- This didn't look like a murder
In the heat of passion.
It seemed more like a deliberate hit.
- For me, that shows that it was some sort
Of mob-related thing,
That it was a professional assassin.
- This was an execution.
- I was thinking that maybe he pissed off
The wrong person, maybe an angry russian mobster.
- In fact, authorities are right in the middle
Of a huge investigation
Into a $22 billion money-laundering operation
Run by the russian mob.
Could borys have been involved in that giant criminal scheme?
- Maybe borys knew some information,
And he was killed because of that.
- Just as investigators are beginning to dig
Into this theory, they get a startling report.
- On the day borys kiejliches' body
Is found, that same day
On a section of beach in staten island,
The body of another man is found,
Another russian man, yuri bershadski.
He was shot in the back of the head as well.
[foreboding music]
- All of a sudden,
Russian dead bodies were popping up all over the place.
- There were only two bodies, but still,
It's enough to make us ask ourselves,
"could the deaths of borys kiejliches
And yuri bershadski be related?"
- As a seasoned detective,
You never believe in coincidences.
- Coming up... - He told me
That so many people tried to kill him.
- In the basement, we observe dots on the wall.
They're found to be blood splatter
But cleaned with bleach.
- So now we knew something terrible happened here.
♪ ♪
[tense music]
[siren wails]
- Police have found the body
Of missing russian businessman borys kiejliches
Floating in a barrel in jamaica bay.
On the same day, a second russian man,
Yuri bershadski, was found dead.
- Both of them were shot in the back of the head,
Close range, which would indicate a likely execution.
- We were thinking, "could this be mob-related,
The russian mob?"
- Police start looking to see if there's any connection
Between the murders...
But then they quickly identify the perpetrator
In the 33-year-old russian immigrant
Yuri bershadski's murder.
- In the investigation of yuri,
They found that he was killed by his roommate.
- It turns out, had a dispute with the roommate,
Unconnected to borys.
- The roommate had killed this exotic dancer,
And he didn't want bershadski telling anybody about it.
- It's clear the two deaths aren't related,
But it doesn't rule out borys' potential connection
To the russian mob.
To get answers,
Police reach out to the u.S. Attorney's office to see
If his name has come up in their investigation
Of the russian money-laundering operation.
- I initiated a conversation with the southern district
To see if borys was a russian mob associate.
- The u.S. Attorneys say they are familiar
With borys kiejliches
And they have already investigated him thoroughly.
- They told us borys was aboveboard.
Everything was legit.
So there was no russian mafia connection at all.
That part of the investigation was pushed to the side.
It was a nonstarter.
- Now that their most promising lead has been a bust,
Detectives returned to the evidence they do have,
The barrel that borys' body was found in.
It's made of cardboard,
Which strikes investigators as unusual.
- When you think about a mafia, it's usually a metal barrel.
There's usually concrete involved
So the barrel doesn't pop up.
So this was sort of like
An economy-sized cardboard air freight barrel.
- If they can find the store that sold the barrel,
Maybe it will lead them to the killer.
Detectives call the barrel's manufacturer
Who says they might be able to trace the specific barrel,
But it'll take time.
But who would want borys dead?
They go back to his circle of friends and family.
And then several of borys' friends admit
There's something we didn't know.
- According to everything that we learned,
He was head and shoulders over elena.
He loved his wife.
- But now his friend tells us
That elena was having an affair.
- This was very surprising.
- Friends tell police that elena has been seeing
Another man for the last year
And they weren't even bothering
To hide their relationship.
- Friends in brighton beach that we spoke to said
She was showing up with a man on her arm,
Going in and out of different neighborhood stores.
One of the husband's friends said,
"that's so embarrassing for a married man."
According to the neighbors, he's always at the house.
- The name of that person was messiah justice.
- We were like, "who is this guy?"
Messiah justice.
- Detectives plug elena's supposed lover's name
Into the system and learn a lot more
About this man named messiah justice.
- Messiah justice was from the brownsville section
Of brooklyn.
He was 26 years old.
He had an arrest record going back about 11 years.
He had arrests for drugs, burglary, robbery,
At least one felony conviction.
- He's a street guy.
- This was somebody that we definitely had
To focus more on and see what, if any,
His involvement was in the murder of borys.
- Could justice have escalated
To murdering his girlfriend's wealthy husband?
- We've gotta talk to this kid.
- Investigators are able to easily locate
Messiah justice at his home in brooklyn.
- He was called up. I said, "hey, we gotta ask you
A couple of questions," and as far as he was,
"yeah, okay. No problem."
- When justice sits down with the detectives
In the interview room, he confesses
That he was indeed dating borys' wife, elena kiejliches.
- He says they met seven months earlier.
- He used to drive around with his buddies in manhattan
And try and pick up girls in his car,
Which is how he met elena.
So apparently, at a stoplight,
Rolled down his windows.
- They waved at each other,
And then I think she gave him the sign,
Or he gave her the sign to pull over.
- He engaged her in conversation.
- And a relationship was born.
- Borys would leave for russia for weeks on end,
So I think she was lonely.
- Messiah told the police
That their relationship progressed quickly
And soon his rich girlfriend was sharing the wealth
In a big way.
- Elena was attempting to buy him a $100,000 rolls-royce.
- Jewelry and watches.
She had messiah justice at the todt hill house.
- He basically lived in the house in todt hill
During the three weeks
That borys would be away in russia.
- And he's driving this nice car,
Swimming in his pool.
- But the honeymoon soon came crashing down
When borys' friends told him
About elena parading messiah around town on her arm.
- He felt it a slap in his face.
But the most devastating for him was
That it's happening in front of his children.
- Justice said her and borys were arguing a lot
And that he was gonna file for divorce.
- Now detectives see that messiah justice
Has a very clear motive--
His money train was about to be shut down.
- Borys, he was gonna leave her with nothing.
- He said he threatened to financially ruin her.
- Messiah wouldn't continue to get those lavish gifts.
Justification for messiah justice
To kill borys was that he was living his life
For three weeks out of the month,
So why not live his life
For four weeks out of the month?
[dramatic musical sting]
- As we investigate justice further,
We learn he had a recent interest in guns.
- Two months before the shooting,
Messiah justice had gone
To a shooting range and fired a gun.
[gunshots]
Police were suspicious.
Maybe he's the guy who did it.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- Detectives are working the murder case
Of borys kiejliches,
Found dead and stuffed in a barrel.
Police suspect that career criminal messiah justice,
Who was having an affair with the victim's wife,
Might have been involved.
Police asked messiah what he knows about borys' murder.
- He was there for hours,
Denying any involvement whatsoever.
- Messiah was like, "I'm innocent.
I didn't do anything."
- Messiah's alibi was that he was at home.
He was in brooklyn.
♪ ♪
- While police attempt to verify messiah's alibi,
They asked borys' friends about messiah's claim
That borys was intending to divorce elena
And leave her with nothing.
They say that's exactly what happened,
And one friend tells them a harrowing story.
- The last time he came to my office,
It was the night he disappeared.
He told me that he found out that she was cheating on him.
He called her on the phone to tell her
That he was gonna take all the money.
He was angry.
He wanted to go home to staten island right away,
But I didn't feel that it's good for him
To go in this condition.
So I tried to calm him down.
He was quite pissed.
And then he left.
I never saw him again.
Maybe a month later, they found his body.
- This revelation leads our team to believe
That kiejliches' argument was more
Than just the small spat elena had described.
Then the manufacturer of the barrel
That contained borys' body gets in touch.
It pinpointed the store in new york city
That sold that specific barrel.
- And the owner was interviewed and said,
"yeah, I know the guy that purchased the barrel."
- Messiah justice is identified
As the person purchasing the barrel.
- The shop owner says justice bought the barrel
March 25th, the day after borys was last seen alive.
- And that's when it started to snowball.
- They bring messiah justice back into the interview room.
This time, they tell him they want the truth.
- Still, he was denying any involvement
With borys' murder and/or disappearance.
- Investigators present him with the new evidence.
They have proof that messiah is the one
Who bought the barrel that borys was found in.
- And then he sort of got on board.
He started talking.
- He tells them,
"this is what happened."
- Justice tells police that he didn't kill borys,
But he says he knows who did.
- He starts to tell the police that on the evening
Of March 24th, the night before elena was meant
To take her kids on vacation, his phone rang.
- He goes, "listen.
"that night, I got a phone call from elena,
"who told me something terrible happened.
Can I come to staten island?"
So he got in the car and drove there right away.
- And he said when he gets there,
She takes him down to the basement.
- The husband's shot dead on the floor.
- She tells him, "borys hit me.
"I couldn't take it anymore.
I killed him."
- He says, "I'm innocent. I didn't do anything.
When I got there, he was dead. She shot him."
- Justice tells the police that elena was in a panic
And demanded that he help her hide the evidence.
- Elena asked him to get rid of the body.
- They cut up a big section, like a 10x10 section of rug.
Rolled her husband up in it. He puts him in the land rover.
He goes to the barrel store the next day
And purchases a barrel,
Puts him in a barrel,
And he sets him adrift off the brooklyn waterfront.
But messiah was still adamant,
"I didn't do anything wrong,
And I'm not taking a hit for this."
In his mind, he didn't kill borys.
He just helped a woman in distress get rid of the body.
"I'm not gonna do life,
"25 to life for homicide.
"illegal disposal of a body.
What am I going to get? Two years?
This is gonna be a ground ball for me."
So now his story still has to be checked.
Check her phone records.
Check his phone records.
- We were able to confirm there was, in fact,
A phone call made from elena to messiah at 10:52,
And the phone calls came from elena's home.
- "how did you come?"
"I came over the verrazano bridge."
"okay, what time was it about?"
"I don't know. Like, 11:00, 11:30."
"okay." check the video of the bridge.
- The verrazano bridge had cameras.
- Boom, there's the car coming into staten island.
- So we were able to confirm that messiah,
After the phone call to his house in brooklyn,
That he drove to staten island over the verrazano bridge.
Messiah justice's story seems to pan out.
- Police believe messiah justice
Has told the truth about where he was that night.
But what police don't have is hard evidence
To back up his claim that elena killed borys...
- They don't have the gun.
- You don't have the murder weapon.
- Which means that it all comes down
To what the two people who were there that night tell us.
- It's not like it happened in public.
There's no video.
You need witnesses.
- They apply for a warrant to search the kiejliches' house
And bring elena into the police station.
Now they'll speak to her not as a grieving wife,
But as a suspect.
- Now everybody's, like,
Looking at each other like, "wow," you know?
- They need to find if messiah is lying
Or if elena really is the killer.
- It was surprising to me that somebody
Could so cold bloodedly kill borys.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- Messiah justice has just told investigators
That he's been having an affair with elena kiejliches
And that she is the one who killed her husband, borys.
Police now let elena know they need to speak with her.
They sit down in an interview room
And tell her everything that messiah claimed happened.
But elena tells them a different story.
- Elena admitted
That she was having an affair with messiah justice.
- But she said she never killed her husband.
She said it was all messiah justice.
It was his idea.
She said he'd gotten a key. He came to the house.
- Found borys to be home.
Followed borys down the steps to the basement.
Struck borys with significant force
To the back of his head.
And messiah justice then stood behind him
And pumped one 9-millimeter round
Into the back of borys' head.
- And then messiah tells her,
"elena, if you don't help me,
I'm gonna hurt your kids."
So she said, "I did what I had to do.
I did whatever he said."
She said, "I never touched the weapon.
"I never have touched a weapon.
I didn't shoot borys."
- Elena says messiah was worried
That borys would indeed divorce her and leave her
With no money and he would no longer be able
To enjoy the finer things in life.
- "I had nothing to do with this.
"it wasn't my idea to get rid of the body.
"it was his idea.
"I did everything that he told me.
I had to do it because of my kids."
- So they then had a decision.
Do we believe elena,
Or do we believe messiah justice?
- Detectives weigh all the information,
Trying to see whose story holds more water.
- Messiah had some evidence on his side,
Such as the phone call and him coming over the bridge.
- Then he actually told the detectives
Where he'd put borys in the water.
- Investigators checked tide and current charts,
Looking to corroborate the path
The barrel would have floated
And if messiah is telling the truth.
- Everything was corroborated.
It made sense that it would find its way
To the jamaica wetlands.
- Knowing that messiah told detectives the truth
About the barrel made it easier to trust
His version of the story.
Elena, on the other hand,
Has been deceiving us from day one.
- The person that had the most to gain
By borys being dead is elena.
She didn't have to get half of what borys had.
She could get all of what borys had if he was dead.
- But all of this is circumstantial.
We need hard evidence, forensics,
And there's only one place we could find that.
- We were able to obtain a search warrant for the home,
Where we had crime scene come in the basement of the house.
- Investigators are using luminol throughout the house
To see if they can find any traces of blood.
- We observed dots on the wall.
They found to be blood splatter
But cleaned with bleach.
- The carpet on the floor
Where borys was allegedly shot
Had been ripped up and replaced with new carpet.
- We called the carpet people that laid the new rug,
And the guy was like, "there was this big square hole
"in the floor.
"they told me they spilled grape juice
Or transmission oil on the floor."
- They also searched the residence
To see whether or not there was bedding
Which matched the sheeting that the body was found in.
- The bed sheets matched the rest
Of the bed sheets that were in the basement of borys' home.
[dark music]
♪ ♪
- What's more, it didn't add up to police
That elena wouldn't have called authorities
Once she was in florida, safely away from messiah.
- To my mind, a big thing against her
Was not reporting him.
Call the police. Call somebody.
- In fact, phone records show elena called messiah
Hundreds of times from her florida vacation.
- You know, why would she be calling?
So our conclusion is the multiple phone calls
That she made to messiah was
Talking about what transpired
And how they were gonna cover it up.
- We didn't have the murder weapon,
But all the other evidence all added up
To one conclusion.
- All the dominoes started falling,
You know, right back to elena.
- We felt that we had enough information
To arrest elena for the murder of borys.
- The circumstantial evidence and messiah justice's statement
Was enough for us to put cuffs on elena.
- In may of 2000,
The police announced the arrest of elena kiejliches.
- I was shocked.
I didn't think she was capable of killing him.
They seemed to be, like, a nice couple.
- Now prosecutors have to prove to a jury
Beyond a reasonable doubt
That she was the one who killed her husband.
- However, elena's legal team maintains
Their client is innocent.
They vow to mount a vigorous defense.
- There was ample evidence
That messiah justice was the cause
Of borys' death
And then continued his criminality
In the disposing of the body.
- The evidence shows
That borys was murdered in the basement.
There's circumstantial evidence against elena
But no physical proof
That she was the one who fired the gun.
The entire case rests on whether the jury believes
Messiah's version of what happened in that basement.
- Because there's no murder weapon,
The biggest key to the case is messiah justice.
It's his testimony.
He has to sell the jurors on what he says happened.
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- In staten island, elena kiejliches is on trial
For the murder of her husband, borys kiejliches.
The prosecution's case rests on the testimony
Of elena's boyfriend, messiah justice,
Who has told police elena confessed to the murder.
- Messiah justice was cross-examined
For parts of two days.
It was a very, very rigorous cross-examination.
The attorney really went hard at justice.
- The cross-examination
Of messiah justice was a battle.
Messiah justice is the smoothest,
Most devious con man you can imagine.
- It was a very, very intense thing,
And justice never cracked.
He never cracked. He stood by his story.
She killed him. She told me she killed him.
She called me.
I helped her get rid of it,
But that's all I did.
- Messiah seemed to even be able to charm the jurors.
- He was basically confronted with, "you, messiah justice,
"wanted all of borys kiejliches' holdings
In the oil business."
And messiah justice laughed and said, "yeah, look at me.
I'm a russian oil man," you know?
And he had the jury laughing.
When the jury's laughing with a witness on the stand,
It's never a good sign.
- The defense argues that the answer
To who killed borys lies in the results of the autopsy.
- The autopsy report revealed that borys was struck
In the back of the head with such force
That he fell to the floor face down,
And then the individual put the bullet
In the back of his head.
- Borys kiejliches was a big guy.
Elena kiejliches is a somewhat thin woman.
She probably weighed around 120 pounds maybe.
Defies logic.
If she hit him in the back of the head,
It would have been like a mosquito bite.
This was an act
That messiah justice was capable of.
- And I think she felt that the jury
Would look at her like, "I'm a widow,
"I'm a petite woman,
And this street guy killed my husband."
- But there was plenty of damning behavior
On elena's part to present to the jury.
- There was testimony from borys' mother,
Which was pretty emotional.
- Borys' mother had called disney a couple of times
To speak to borys, and elena did not tell the mother
That he wasn't there.
On each occasion, she told borys' mother
That he was in the shower
And he couldn't come to the phone
Or that he was down by the pool and couldn't come to the phone.
- That means elena lied to her family
For two weeks about borys being alive.
- The jury came back with a verdict
Within about three hours.
- The jury finds elena kiejliches
Guilty of murdering her husband, borys.
- Elena was convicted of second-degree murder
And evidence tampering,
And she was sentenced to 22 years to life.
- No murder charges were filed against messiah justice.
He strikes a plea bargain and was due
To attend his own sentencing date in late 2002.
- Messiah pleaded guilty to evidence tampering
And hindering prosecution.
The day of his sentencing, he doesn't show up.
- Police eventually locate messiah justice in delaware
And bring him in to serve his time.
He was sentenced to one to three years in prison.
- Yes, I think justice was served,
Because whether you believe
Messiah justice committed the murder or elena,
It was still at the behest of elena.
- This was a story of betrayal, murder, greed.
I mean, borys is obviously a victim,
But the kids are real victims, and they have to carry this
For the rest of their lives.
It's a terrible thing.
- I think they're both guilty,
No matter who killed him, in my personal opinion.
If I knew what was going to happen, I would--
I would not let him go home.
I would tell him, "stay away."