Missing Student, Former U.S. Marine Found Dead In Russia After Getting Into Stranger's Car

Russian police have apprehended a man on Sunday in connection to the murder of a missing American student after her corpse was retrieved near the city of Nizhny Novgorod, about 260 miles east of Moscow following her disappearance on Tuesday last week.

The suspect Alexander Popov, 44, carries a long record of "especially grave crimes," according to Russian investigators. He has been hit with murder charges after American law student Catherine Serou, 34, went missing on Tuesday after she reportedly got into his car.

Serou was described by her mother as "extremely careful" but just had to hail the car in a hurry to settle her dues at her local salon after her payment reportedly bounced back, BBC reported.

The former U.S. Marine and UC Davis graduate Serou had no choice but to hitch the lift because she was finding it hard to book for an Uber. However, sometime during the ride, the woman alerted her mother that she's becoming suspicious of the driver, according to her mother Beccy Serou, who is in Mississippi.

Her text sent after 6:30 p.m Russian time on Tuesday reads: "In a car with a stranger. I hope I'm not being abducted." She has not been seen since then, failing to arrive at the salon safely.

Police suspected that Popov then took the woman to a wooded area about an hour later, where he savagely beat her and stabbed her to death on Tuesday during a row, according to CNN.

It is further alleged that the man had sexually attacked another woman hours before targeting Serou. He was later tracked by police using surveillance footage.

Four days later on Saturday, the victim's body was retrieved in a wooded area near the city of Bor, 250 miles east of Moscow, where her phone signal was last detected. The U.S. Embassy in Moscow later confirmed victim Serou's death as they work with Russian officials in their investigation. Russian authorities subsequently verified Popov's arrest on Sunday.

"She enjoyed Nizhny Novgorod so much, she loved her life in a Russian family, her friends at the university," the Serou matriarch, who had not seen her daughter since 2019, told local media.

The victim had concluded a tour in Afghanistan and relocated to Russia in 2019 to pursue a master's degree in law at Lobachevsky State University, having sold a flat in California to finance her studies in Russia, SFGate noted. Upon completion of her second degree, the woman had planned to return to the U.S. to serve as an immigration lawyer.