Charges: Ex-butcher told investigator how she killed husband

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A woman charged with stabbing her husband to death told investigators she had worked as a butcher in Russia and killed him “professionally,” just like she would have done at work, a criminal complaint alleges.

Irina Kolenkina, 54, was charged Friday with first-degree intentional homicide for the death of Vladimir Shevchuk, 52, on June 13 at their farmhouse near DeForest.

Kolenkina appeared in court Friday. Bail was continued at $500,000. Her next hearing is July 2, the Wisconsin State Journal reported Saturday.

Shevchuk was stabbed in the head and chest area. The autopsy found four stab wounds, four incisions and another injury that appeared consistent with three more stab wounds.

According to the complaint, she admitted killing her husband and added she would have “cut his head off” if she could have.

“I wanted to kill him and I killed him,” she said, then added that she did so “professionally,” just as if she had been working.

Kolenkina said she killed him because she was “fed up” with what she believed to be his false promises about her immigration status, their marriage and what the complaint described as an ongoing financial scheme.

Dane County Sheriff’s Detective William Hendrickson took Kolenkina back to the farmhouse Monday for a recorded walk-through and re-enactment.

While there, according to the complaint, she told Hendrickson they began arguing in the car when Shevchuk started drinking. Once home, she said, they argued on and off for the next few hours, all the while drinking vodka, beer and wine. While she went to the garden, Shevchuk sharpened a white-handled knife, the one she used to kill him. She said the argument escalated back in the kitchen. She said she shoved him to the floor. Before he could get up, she said, she jumped on him and stabbed him repeatedly.

Kolenkina’s attorney did not immediately return messages seeking comment Saturday.