A police major in Far Eastern Russia has fallen to her death from a window after testifying against her boss in a criminal extortion case, news outlets reported Thursday.
Security cameras reportedly captured the lifeless body of criminal investigation officer Yekaterina Mishkina, 37, near a nine-floor apartment building in the city of Khabarovsk more than 8,000 kilometers east of Moscow.
It was unclear who or what Mishkina, who was in plainclothes according to the Dvnovosti.ru news website, had been pursuing before plunging to her death from the fifth-floor window.
Dvnovosti and the Gubernia.com news website reported that security cameras showed Mishkina unsuccessfully attempting to gain access to the building’s rooftop, then descending a few flights.
Unconfirmed reports citing anonymous sources in law enforcement agencies say that Mishkina was a witness in a criminal case against her former boss, who’s suspected of extorting from subordinates. She was reported to have testified against him some time before her death.
Gubernia reported that authorities opened the criminal extortion case after Mishkina’s former boss retired.
The Khabarovsk regional police launched an internal inspection into Mishkina’s death, spokeswoman Yekaterina Tarasova told Gubernia, adding that the investigator was “on yet another vacation” at the time.
The Todaykhv.ru outlet reported, citing an unnamed source close to the investigation, that officials found a note in Mishkina’s purse listing a set of key tasks she had to complete “until a certain point.”
“This indicates that what happened wasn’t spontaneous,” the source was quoted as saying.
Mishkina was divorced and is survived by a 14-year-old daughter, according to Todaykhv’s source.
Mishkina’s death follows at least five incidents of Russian healthcare workers falling from windows at the height of the coronavirus outbreak this spring as well as two young journalists in 2018-19.