Case Details
The prosecutor during the court session requested the maximum penalty for the defendants — life imprisonment in a high-security facility. The relatives of the deceased, particularly her mother, supported this demand.Although the defendants admitted their guilt, Rizuan Khairzhanov, in his final statement, asked the court to consider his youth and desire to live a full life. His father, in turn, claimed that the correspondence, which became key evidence, was nothing more than a "joking conversation." The father of another defendant, Altynbek Katimov, also requested that it be taken into account that his son did not commit the murder but only acted as an accomplice. The lawyers insisted on a mitigation of the sentence, pointing to the admission of guilt as a mitigating circumstance.
Investigative Data
According to the investigation, on October 18, 2024, Yana left her home at the call of an acquaintance, Rizuan Khairzhanov, without taking her jacket, as she intended to return quickly. She was last seen in the car of this acquaintance. After that, the girl disappeared, and her belongings were found by her mother, who returned from a business trip, suspecting something was wrong.Yana's body was discovered only on June 20, 2025, on the banks of the Ural River. The police tracked down the suspects thanks to a diary in which the girl mentioned Rizuan. Soon, 24-year-old Rizuan Khairzhanov and his 25-year-old accomplice were detained. The investigation claims that it was Rizuan who strangled the girl in the car while Altynbek held the door so she could not escape. Later, they took her body out of town and dumped it in the Ural River near the village of Taldykol.
Initially, the men were charged under two articles of the Criminal Code of the Republic of Kazakhstan: "Murder by a group of individuals by prior agreement" and "Theft." However, on October 29, the prosecutor changed the charges, adding the article "Intentional destruction of someone else's property committed by a group of individuals by prior agreement."
According to the investigation, the reason for the murder was a quarrel: Yana found out that Rizuan was dating another girl and was planning to marry. She threatened to tell his fiancée about it, which led to his decision to kill her.
At the initial hearings, the prosecutor presented correspondence between the defendants in which they discussed the plan for the crime and ways to conceal evidence. In one of the messages, it was written: "Everything must go perfectly."
After committing the murder, the men, according to the investigation, calmly went to drink beer with whiskey. Their correspondence included phrases like: "While she sleeps — still warm and lively" and "Time to bury her, darling, you touched my little pie." They also discussed the possibility of bribing officials: "You can give the prosecutor a little something. All are bribe-takers," one of them wrote.
Public Resonance
The death of Yana Legkodimova caused a wide resonance due to active discussions on the internet. The court proceedings in this case attracted attention both in Kazakhstan and beyond. Social media users actively discussed the investigation, demanding strict punishment for the guilty, especially after the publication of the defendants' correspondence, where they discussed the murder with horrifying ease, interspersing it with jokes.
