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Posted by one more on August 26, 2005 at 12:16:05:
In Reply to: Two life stories of how they ended up in posted by America - decades apart on August 26, 2005 at 07:26:13:
Slain Ukrainian model led double life in U.S., police say
Aug 05 2005, 13:16
(AP) - An aspiring model from Ukraine whose decomposing remains were believed found in a storage facility led a double life that she hid from her new husband - a life that included an affair with a millionaire almost 40 years her senior, a gold Mercedes-Benz and a house that she and her lover were buying.
A woman's body, and a purse belonging to 21-year-old Iryna Singerman, were found Aug. 2 in the bed of a pickup truck owned by her lover, Brian Joseph Cullen, 59. Coroner's office spokesman Craig Harvey said Aug. 4 that identification efforts were still under way and an autopsy was tentatively planned Aug. 5.
Police are hunting for Cullen, who they believe fled to Mexico.
Iryna Singerman's husband, Ronald Singerman, only learned of her secrets last week, when she failed to return home and some of her financial documents turned up along with a bloody baseball bat in garbage bags that were dumped in a bin behind a Woodland Hills strip mall.
"The family didn't know anything about this," said Barry Greenberg, the Singerman family's spokesman. "(Ronald) had never heard of any of this until the case broke. He's devastated."
Iryna Singerman met her 50-year-old husband, who is a certified public accountant, a year ago through an agency that matches American men with Russian women, police said.
Cullen became a suspect in her disappearance because of surveillance camera images and a witness who reported seeing him toss bags into the strip mall trash bin on July 26. The next day, authorities found blood and other evidence of a struggle when they searched Cullen's Woodland Hills home.
Police believe Singerman's killing was a domestic violence incident.
Singerman spent most weekends at Cullen's house, his neighbors said. The pair were buying another house together, according to Los Angeles police Detective Rick Swanston.
Singerman also drove a gold 2005 Mercedes-Benz registered to both her and her husband and kept the car at Cullen's home.
Ronald Singerman knew nothing about the car until insurance information arrived in the mail, Swanston said. His wife told him that her frequent absences from home were related to her modeling work, but Swanston said police were unaware of her holding any modeling jobs.
Neighbors and co-workers described Cullen as a physically fit, private man with a bit of a temper. He owns a coupon book business and is on parole for a federal wire fraud conviction in the 1980s.