Dad accused of killing 13-year-old son after terminal diagnosis
A father diagnosed with a terminal brain tumour has been accused of killing his beloved son, 13, because he reportedly feared his wife would not be able to raise the boy after he died.
Oleg Drachev, 40, has been detained on suspicion of murder in Moscow, according to law enforcement.
He also allegedly tried to stab his wife, who has not been named, but she managed to lock him in the bathroom and call police.
The couple and son Ilya were known as a happy and devoted family until his recent diagnosis of an incurable brain tumour, reports say.
Drachev, a design engineer who formerly served in the army, spent all his spare time with his son, according to his family.
They went hiking and swimming, and together constructed outbuildings at their summer house, and a kennel for their dog.
He feared no-one could take his place in raising his son when he died, he told interrogators, Moscow newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported.
Drachev did not see how his wife could pay their mortgage and bring up the child, he said.
He allegedly stabbed his sleeping son after she had gone to work.
When they didn’t answer phone calls, she rushed home, broke in through a window and found her son dead in bed.
Drachev then allegedly attacked her with a knife, but she fought back and locked him in the bathroom.
"You cannot even imagine how he loved his son,” his mother told Moskovsky Komsomolets.
“He never punished him. Mostly his mother told him off.
“But after the cancer diagnosis, he went crazy.”
The detained father is undergoing an examination at a secure psychiatric hospital in Moscow.
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