Preliminary investigation indicates Sarasota victims connected to Fort Lauderdale victim with whom suspect had had romantic relationship
Four Sarasota County deaths early this week have been linked to a double homicide in Fort Lauderdale, with the suspect having been found among the deceased in a home in the Amberlea neighborhood near the intersection of Proctor and McIntosh roads, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office has reported.
“Based on preliminary information,” a Sheriff’s Office news release said, detectives “know that the suspect had been in a previous romantic relationship with one of the victims in Fort Lauderdale. That victim was connected to the victims in Sarasota. The suspect’s motivation for targeting the Sarasota victims is unknown,” the release pointed out.
One of the Sarasota County victims — Anatoly Ioffe, 61, was the registered agent of Argomed Group LLC, whose address on a Florida Division of Corporations document was the same as that of the home where the Amberlea homicides occurred on Feb. 10, The Sarasota News Leader found: 4822 Fallcrest Circle.
Argomed’s mailing address in the Florida Division of Corporations records is 1307 S. Tamiami Trail in Osprey. That is the location of the Osprey PolyClinic medical practice, the News Leader learned. Social media posts that the News Leader reviewed reported that Ioffe was a doctor in that practice. On the afternoon of Feb. 11, the News Leader did not see any information about Ioffe among the providers on that website.
The website of Sarasota County Property Appraiser Bill Furst shows that Ioffee was one of three owners of the Fallcrest Circle home. A second victim, Florita Stolyar, 66, also was one of the owners, the website notes.
The other Sarasota County victims, identified by the Sheriff’s Office, were Olga Greinert, 49; and Yaroslav Blyudoy, 39.
The suspect was identified as Russell Kot, 51.
On Aug. 11, 2023, Ioffee formally sold the Amberlea house to himself and the other two owners for $480,000, Property Appraiser Furst’s records show. Ioffee had paid $503,600 for it in December 2020.
The third owner listed in the property records is Klavdiya Minkina.
The News Leader did not find any criminal or civil records for Kot when it searched the files maintained by the Broward County Clerk of Court’s Office.
The Sheriff’s Office explained in its news release that, at 12:24 p.m. on Feb. 10, “the Emergency Operations Center received a 911 call advising that an adult male subject at a residence in the Amberlea neighborhood … had been shot.” The deputies who arrived minutes later [found] the male victim in the front yard,” where neighbors were performing CPR on him, the release said.
Neighbors told the deputies “that the male’s wife was potentially inside the residence,” the release continued. “Deputies were able to move the male victim to an alternate location where care was transferred to the Sarasota County Fire Department,” the release added. “The victim was pronounced deceased shortly thereafter,” it noted.
“Fearing for the safety of the victim’s wife,” the release said, “deputies entered the residence,” where they discovered four additional deceased adult victims — two women and two men.
“While attempting to identify the victims and potential suspect,” the release added, Sheriff’s Office detectives “received information from the Fort Lauderdale Police Department (FLPD),” advising the Sarasota County law enforcement personnel that FLPD officers “were working a double homicide and believed the Sarasota shooting to be related to [their] investigation … “
FLPD personnel provided the Sheriff’s Office information about the suspect’s vehicle information, the release continued. They also advised the Sheriff’s Office that, in the aftermath of the homicide they were investigating, the suspect’s “vehicle was captured on camera traveling northbound through Punta Gorda prior to the Sarasota homicide.”
Working with representatives of the Amberlea homeowners association and neighbors, the release added, Sheriff’s Office personnel “were able to recover video of the suspect’s vehicle entering the neighborhood at 11:01 a.m. The sound of gunfire was captured shortly after on a neighbor’s Ring camera.
“Approximately 37 minutes later,” the release said, the male victim who was found on the front lawn was seen “entering the neighborhood in his vehicle. That victim approached the front door,” it added, “where he was shot. Thereafter, no people were observed entering or exiting the residence until deputies arrived.”
The “suspect was among the deceased inside the residence,” the release noted, and the suspect’s vehicle was located within the neighborhood.
In a follow-up news release on Feb. 11, the Sheriff’s Office provided the names of the Sarasota County victims and reported, “Based on our preliminary investigation, it appears that the suspect died of self-inflicted wounds.” Sheriff’s Office detectives had found no known documented mental health crises” or a history of violence associated with him, the release added.
“The investigation is still active, as no known motive has been determined,” the release noted.
During the period when law enforcement officers were working at the Amberlea scene, the News Leader read in social media posts, residents were warning people who did not live in the community to avoid the area because of the number of Sheriff’s Office vehicles parked along the street near the house.
Anyone with information about the murders is asked to call the Criminal Investigations Bureau at 941-861-4900.
The Fort Lauderdale incident
A report on the website of the Maimi NBC TV station, Channel 6, said that Fort Lauderdale officers received a call about 1:30 p.m. on Feb. 10, requesting “a well-being check at [a] home in the 500 block of Northeast 15th Avenue in the Victoria Park neighborhood.” When officers arrived, it added, “they found the two adults dead inside the home.”
That report identified the victims as 46-year-old Larisa Blyudaya and 18-year-old Ben Azivov, both residents of Fort Lauderdale.” It continued, “Joe Askerberg, the property manager of the home where Fort Lauderdale police found the victims, said they were mother and son.”
Further, the report noted, “Blyudaya moved in a few months ago with her son, Askerberg said, and Kot lived at the home for a little while, but he hadn’t seen him recently.”
The last name of the Fort Lauderdale woman is similar to that of Sarasota victim Yaroslav Blyudoy, the News Leader observed. In the Russian language, this reporter learned from years of studying that language, women’s last names typically have an “a” on the end of them.