Fugitive hints at his motive for killing

SACRAMENTO — The portrait of a calculating killer emerged yesterday as authorities continued searching for a 27-year-old man suspected in the murders of a half-dozen family members, including his wife and son.

Investigators say suspect Nikolay Soltys switched cars after an alleged daylong murder spree Monday, leaving behind in the old one a grisly manifest of victims offering the first hints of a motive: He was angered by how some relatives spoke to him.

Detectives say the Ukrainian immigrant, who had a history of mental instability and domestic violence during his years in the former Soviet republic, also apparently lured his 3-year-old son into a cardboard box by putting toys in the carton, then stabbed the boy.

"We're coming to find more and more how cold-blooded a killer this guy was," said Sacramento County Sheriff Lou Blanas.

A witness told investigators that he saw Soltys in an emerald green and silver Ford Explorer Monday night. Russian immigrant enclaves scattered around the country were on the alert, authorities said, particularly in communities where Soltys has relatives — New York, North Carolina and Seattle. Soltys' surviving family members in Sacramento County have been put up in a hotel under the protection of an armed deputy.

Blanas said a reward fund has now topped $30,000 for information leading to an arrest. The FBI joined the fray Tuesday night, providing Russian-speaking agents and securing a federal arrest warrant based on the possibility that Soltys may have fled California.

Detective Ron Garverick, the sheriff's lead investigator on the case, said it remains unclear whether Soltys received help from some benefactor, even an unwitting one. Investigators so far cannot determine if the mid-1990s sport-utility vehicle he is believed to be driving was stolen, borrowed or purchased by the unemployed émigré, who reportedly has been plagued by financial difficulties.

Soltys' 22-year-old wife, Lyubov, was stabbed to death Monday morning in the duplex home they shared in North Highlands, a Sacramento suburb. Soltys was seen fleeing in his silver Nissan Altima.

An hour later, Soltys is suspected of striking in the Rancho Cordova neighborhood where most of his extended family lived. Left dead were an aunt and uncle — Petr Kukharskiy, 75, and Galina Kukharskaya, 72 — and two young relatives, Tatyana Kukharskaya and Dimitriy Kukharskiy, both 9.

Soltys then traveled to his mother's home in Citrus Heights, another capital suburb, where he calmly picked up his young son, detectives say. The mother was watching the boy because Soltys was supposed to start college and his wife was to begin a new job.

A picture found in Soltys' abandoned Nissan showed him carrying his wife. On the back were listed the names of his dead wife, a cousin and another cousin's wife. The message suggested that each had wronged him with his or her "tongue," investigators said.