A double murder in ‘mini Russia’

It took a cat to pull the man accused of a double murder out of the bag.

In these parts of Goa, where the days start with dobre utra, Russian for good morning, not much shakes the slow pace. The sea, witness to a changing world across Morjim, Ashwem, Mandrem, Arambol, and Querim — five villages across about 16 kilometres in North Goa — caresses the fragile coast. Coffees and salads are ordered from menus in Russian.

In this cocoon, which envelops the sweet-water lake in Arambol, the hilly goat tracks in the surrounding jungles, and the hundreds of rooms, hostels, and apartments, people got a jolt between January 14 and 17. In Goa’s ‘mini-Russia’, two 34-year-old Russian women, both named Elena, were allegedly killed by a man they knew.

Double murders

The first murder was discovered when Sergei, a Russian resident of Goa, received a call from a friend who was worried because she had not heard from their mutual friend, Elena Vaneeva, who had been looking after her cat. Elena was not taking calls on the morning of January 17. Sergei then went to the bubble artist’s apartment in Morjim, about 10 km from Arambol, only to find her almost-naked body in her bathroom, with her throat slit.

Through their network of local informants, the police arrested a Russian man, Leonov Aleksei. He had, for three years, been part of the travelling performer scene: a fire-display artist who worked shows along Goa’s beach circuits.

The police say Aleksei knew the victims and had been in a live-in relationship with them at different times. Investigators say that one of the women had borrowed a crown — an item used by fire performers — that belonged to Aleksei and had not returned it. The police have cited this claim as a source of tension between the parties.

Aleksei, the police say, then made an announcement that rattled them: there was another body — that of Elena Kasthanova, a go-go dancer who performed at night clubs, weddings, and events. He took the police to her house in Arambol, where her naked, decomposing body was found outside her bathroom.

The house where Elena Kasthanova lived in Arambol, North Goa. Photo: Special Arrangement

Kasthanova had arrived in Goa on December 24, say the Goa police. She lived a few steps away from Rehab Social, where musicians and other artists perform. Aleksei had spent the night of January 14, the Old Russian New Year, there. In North Goa, parties are advertised to start at 10 p.m. or later, even though the government prohibits loud music after that time.

Investigators say the detained man’s account includes a claim that he hated women named Elena, linking it to childhood neglect because his mother had the same name; as well as admissions to killing several others.

Beyond this, the Superintendent of Police, Sheikh Saleem, who also holds charge as the Deputy Superintendent of Police of Mapua sub division, says, “We are investigating.”

Deaths and déjà vu

In January, Goa was still fresh from the December 2025 fire at the now-shut nightclub Birch by Romeo Lane, in Arpora, 18 km from Arambol. It had killed 25 and injured about 50. Later, investigations threw up a combination of reasons: systematic failures in licensing and enforcement, a flouting of basic safety norms, and administrative collusion.

Beyond the irregularities of the construction mafia, the public that flocks to the nightclubs of North Goa for a weekend of excesses, and the murders of the women, are the stories of foreign nationals who died in Goa.

Police records obtained under the Right to Information Act, 2005, show that between 2003 and 2015, at least 245 foreign nationals died across four coastal police jurisdictions in Goa: Anjuna; Pernem (where Morjim and Arambol, the scene of the recent double murder, are located); Mapusa; and Canacona in south Goa. These areas account for a significant share of the State’s tourist activity.

Of these, 157 deaths were classified as natural or accidental, six were recorded as murders, 39 were listed as “not known” or pending determination, 23 were categorised as drownings, and 20 as suicides.

While official records show only six cases as murders, case histories indicate that some deaths classified as natural or accidental have been challenged, with courts ordering re-investigations.

The last recorded death of a foreign national in Goa, where there was foul play, was in 2017. A 28-year-old Irish woman was sexually assaulted and killed. A man was convicted in 2025 for it. While the deaths of the two Elenas in January 2026 were registered as murders, the parents of at least 10 others who died before 2017 say investigations have been short of expectations. While some cases have been closed for the lack of evidence unearthed by the police, families of victims feel a sense of being done in by the system.

In May 2017, up to 10 families of deceased foreign tourists banded together and wrote to the Prime Minister of India seeking a Supreme Court-monitored or independent inquiry into the deaths of foreign nationals in Goa since 2005.

Signatories argued that several cases had been classified without exhaustive forensic reconstruction or looking at alternative possibilities.

The Dahl and Sweeney cases

On January 28, 2015, Felix Dahl, 22, from Finland, was found dead on a quiet road in Patnem, Canacona. His death was initially recorded by the local police as an accidental fall with head injury.

Dahl’s mother, Minna Pirhonen, a biologist and university lecturer, challenged this conclusion, convinced that the extent and pattern of injuries could not have resulted from a simple fall. She arranged a second autopsy in Finland, which concluded that the injuries were more consistent with a violent assault than an accident, as per a court document.

The Goa police submitted in court that Dahl’s death was a result of “acrobatics like static jumping and cartwheels on the rocks at Agonda”.

Following the initial police closure of the case, Pirhonen wrote at least three letters to Goa’s senior police officials, the Chief Minister, the Director General and the Inspector General of Police, urging them to reconsider the homicide angle.

“The dual burden of loss and fighting the system in Goa is a weight only a grieving mother can understand. The emotional exhaustion was obvious. And this was because — and I have said it before in the media — that instead of investigating the murders and killings, the local police wanted to cover up the truth,” says Pirhonnen.

She adds that if she had more resources, she would fight till her dying day. So far, she has spent €30,000-40,000 on legal fees, but has never come to India, because she was advised that the country is not safe.

In November 2017, the Bombay High Court at Goa gave the State government a “last opportunity” to justify the handling of the probe and urged action on Pirhonen’s petition seeking transfer of the investigation.

In July 2018, the High Court ordered the transfer of the investigation to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), ruling that the Goa Police’s probe was “not indicative of a fair and impartial investigation” and that the homicide possibility had been “wilfully ignored”.

The High Court criticised the police’s conclusion that Dahl had died from a fall while doing acrobatics. The explanation, the judges said, could not account for “multiple life-threatening skull fractures”. They asked why alternative theories were never properly examined.

After five years, in April 2023, the CBI filed a closure report before the Canacona judicial magistrate citing “lack of evidence” to prove homicide or any other charge beyond the original classifications.

Dahl’s family, led by his mother, opposed the CBI’s closure report in the Canacona magistrate’s court, asking the court to order a fresh or continued investigation rather than accept the CBI’s closure. No final judicial decision disposing of that challenge has been reported publicly as of early 2026.

Pirhonen says, “The reconstruction of the scene was conducted after changes had occurred at the site, which raises concerns about its reliability. We also feel that the High Court’s earlier observations regarding the possibility of violent force were not sufficiently addressed.”

The case of Denyse Sweeney, a 34-year-old Irish national found dead in a guest house room in Candolim, North Goa, in February 2010, has frequently been cited by families and activists who contend that suspicious foreigner deaths in the State are too quickly classified as accidental or drug-related. Local police initially treated Sweeney’s death as a suspected drug overdose, with early reports pointing to substance consumption as a likely cause. Her family, however, disputed that conclusion almost immediately, questioning both the speed of the classification and the adequacy of the forensic process.

Sweeney’s mother, Margaret Sweeney, became the most persistent voice seeking a deeper investigation, telling Irish and international media that her daughter had no history of drug abuse and challenging the overdose narrative. The family sought access to post-mortem findings and clarity on toxicology results, arguing that early assumptions had shaped the direction of the probe. Moreover, later inquests outside India found no conclusive evidence of illegal drug consumption sufficient to definitively support the overdose claim.

For Margaret Sweeney, the campaign extended beyond her daughter’s case, forming part of a broader demand that deaths of foreign nationals in Goa be investigated with the same scrutiny, urgency, and institutional seriousness expected in jurisdictions in Europe.

Moving on

It was the death of Scarlett Keeling, a 15-year-old British national found on Anjuna beach in February 2008, that became one of the most internationally scrutinised criminal cases in Goa. The police initially treated the death as a case of accidental drowning.

However, sustained efforts by her mother, Fiona MacKeown, a single mother who then lived on a campsite in Devon, led to a second post-mortem examination, which concluded that the teenager had been drugged and sexually assaulted before her death. The second autopsy stated the presence of drugs in Keeling’s system, signs consistent with sexual assault, and that the cause of death was not consistent with drowning alone.

These findings led the police to reclassify the case as rape and murder. In 2016, a Goa trial court acquitted both Samson D’Souza and Placido Carvalho of charges including rape and culpable homicide not amounting to murder. Both were cleared due to insufficient evidence at that stage of the trial. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) appealed the acquittal to the Bombay High Court (Goa Bench).

In July 2019, the Bombay High Court overturned the trial court’s acquittal of D’Souza and convicted him of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, rape-related counts, and other offences. He was sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment. It upheld the acquittal of Carvalho due to lack of sufficient evidence against him.

The case has since been cited in discussions on investigative standards, the preservation of forensic evidence, and the challenges of securing convictions in cases dependent largely on circumstantial proof.

Vikram Varma, the Goa-based lawyer who represented MacKeown, says the outcome reflected shortcomings at the initial stage of the investigation. “The initial classification as drowning led to delay. The crime scene was not secured as it should have been, and there were gaps in the forensic handling and medical documentation. Once the chain of circumstances is weakened at the beginning, it becomes extremely difficult to sustain a conviction at the appellate stage, where the standard is proof beyond reasonable doubt.”

Trajano D’Mello, a Trinamool Congress leader, who has closely followed and commented on these cases, says, “The police, as is seen, is all out to protect accused local Goans. The attempt to dismiss these cases as drownings or drug overdose is therefore obvious.”

Responding to this charge, Bosco George, a retired IPS officer, says: “In very few cases, the Goa Police might tacitly delay or not pursue leads where local Goans are accused or suspected to be involved in foreigner’s deaths. However, they would not go out of the way to botch an investigation to protect a local because of media and social media scrutiny.”

Goa moved on after the Keeling case. As it has moved on now. A month after the killings of the two Elenas, the belt is fully in business. Late-night parties at clubs around Arambol Lake are still advertised.

What remains, consistent with all these cases, are the scattered lives of the families of victims, who have not found closure.

In January 2025, Dahl’s mother, in a Facebook post wrote, “He was killed in Goa in January 2015. Since then, 10 years have passed without justice because authorities in Goa have been covering the crime to this day.”

Her sister Sanna Cutter, who had fought for justice for Keeling, seven years before she lost her nephew Dahl, says she is tired and does not want to speak about it any more.

Sujay Gupta is an independent journalist

This story was edited by Sunalini Mathew