Crime & Safety

Prosecutor: SLP Man Tried to Strangle Ex-Girlfriend While Reciting Prayers

David Vassily Robakevich faces attempted murder and domestic assault charges.

A St. Louis Park man sits behind bars today, facing charges he tried to murder his live-in ex-girlfriend last week.

In the early morning hours of Feb. 28, according to prosecutors, David Vassily Robakevich, 25m crept up to his former girlfriend's bed as she lay there, and began whispering into her ear. He was going to kill her, he allegedly said.

According to the criminal complaint, Robakevich then seized the woman's neck and began to strangle her while reciting prayers in Russian. Robakevich allegedly continued to throttle the woman until she passed out. She came to, feeling a warm trickle of her own urine flow down her leg.

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When Robakevich realized his first attempt to kill his former girlfriend hadn't worked, the criminal complaint says he then told the woman she would now kill herself, so "he could still go to Heaven and she would go to Hell." Robakevich allegedly then hooked a noose up to the apartment's ceiling fan, and slipped the loop around his still-reeling ex-girlfriend's neck. She only survived, the criminal complaint says, because her weight ripped the fan from its mounting.

In the confusion of the moment, the woman was able to bolt from the apartment building. A neighbor spotted her fleeing, half-naked, through the cold night air with her ex-boyfriend not far behind. The neighbor told police Robakevich "seeming to be looking for someone or something," then disappeared into the night.

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The victim made it to safety at a friend's apartment elsewhere in St. Louis Park, where they called police just before 10 the next morning, but Robakevich was still at large. When police and EMTs arrived, the woman was traumatized, too afraid to even step out of her friend's apartment to a waiting ambulance. The criminal complaint notes extra police and emergency workers had to be called to reassure her it was safe to step outside.

According to the criminal complaint, medical records from the woman's examination say she suffered from bruising, signs of strangulation, and evidence that, at some point during the attack, Robakevich had also poured alcohol on her.

Robakevich was found around 11 a.m. the day after the attack, when he called police to report his apartment had been trashed. He claimed he hadn't been home during the incident. Police—who had been searching for the man—arrested him. Under questioning, Robakevich admitted he lied to police, and said the apartment had been trashed during an argument with his ex-girlfriend. "It was possible" he had put his hands on the woman's neck during the argument, he told police.

Robakevich is currently being held on $250,000 bail in the Hennepin County Jail. He faces one count of Second-Degree Attempted Murder and one count of Felony Domestic Assault by Strangulation. The former charge carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, while the latter carries a maximum sentence of three years and a $3,000 fine.


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