A French businessman and his family were discovered dead in their burned-out apartment Monday in central Moscow in an apparent case of murder and arson, investigators said. Firefighters found the body of winemaker Thierry Spinelli and his wife in their third-story apartment on 3rd Tverskaya-Yamskaya Ulitsa, near Mayakovskaya metro station, after responding to a report of a fire at about 6:30 a.m. Monday, law enforcement officials said. The couple's 2-year-old daughter, Elisa, was alive when the brigade arrived but died of smoke inhalation in the arms of a rescue worker, according to Investigative Committee officials cited by news agencies. Forensics experts at the scene preliminarily determined that Spinelli's wife, Olga Spinelli, had been strangled, Anatoly Bagmet, head of the Moscow branch of the Investigative Committee, told RIA-Novosti. Firefighters discovered at least two separate sources of the fire, indicating a possible arson attack, and the door of the apartment was open when they arrived, law enforcement and emergency services sources told The Moscow Times. Spinelli had lived in Russia for more than a decade and was a co-founder of the Chateau le Grand Vostok winery in the Krasnodar region.
"He was a very successful businessman," Yelena Denisova, a member of the company's board of directors, told The Moscow Times in a telephone interview. Denisova said she had seen Spinelli just four days before his death. "The company has produced the best wine in Russia. I don't think he had any enemies. It could be only a robbery," she said. Spinelli had not worked with the company since 2006 but remained in the wine business, Denisova said. The couple purchased the apartment in 2006, RIA-Novosti reported, citing no sources. They had also hired a nanny to look after their daughter, though none of the neighbors saw the nanny Monday, the report said. The couple's black Mitsubishi Pajero was missing after the fire Monday, RIA-Novosti cited a law enforcement source as saying. The Investigative Committee has classified the crime as a multiple homicide, which is punishable by up to life in prison. Officials could not be reached for comment Monday about a possible motive for the crime. The five-story apartment building was cordoned off by police Monday afternoon when friends and relatives of the couple came to identify the bodies and talk to investigators, who had set up headquarters in the Mayak cafe on the ground floor of the building.
One woman burst into tears as she entered the cafe, while another woman entered the building accompanied by two Frenchmen. "I can't go in there, I can't look at it," the woman wailed in Russian. Crime scene investigators could be seen examining the burnt-out apartment through its 10 windows. The apartment building is located just across the street from the headquarters of the Office for Presidential Affairs. The French consul in Moscow visited the crime scene Monday, said Sylvain Guiaugue, spokesman for the French Embassy. Spinelli's remains were badly burned in the fire, hindering his identification at the crime scene, Guiaugue said. Spinelli was a French citizen, his wife was a Russian citizen and their daughter had dual citizenship, Guiaugue said. "We have passed the information that a French citizen might have died in Moscow to the Foreign Office in Paris," he said. Thierry Spinelli was well-known in the domestic wine sector and was in charge of finances at Chateau le Grand Vostok when the company was launched in 2003 as the upscale successor to Avrora, a former Soviet collective grape farm. Chateau le Grand Vostok's 500 hectares of vineyards are located 50 kilometers inland from the Black Sea in the Krasnodar region's village of Sadovy. "We just found out an hour ago," Gael Brullon, whose husband, Frank Duseigneur, is the company's general director in Krasnodar, said of the tragedy. "We are in complete shock." Olga Spinelli was also in the wine business, working for the wine company Simple and as director of the Simple Wine and Art Club, according to an obituary posted Monday on the web site of the magazine Simple Wine News. Members of the club have included popular television personality Yulia Bordovskikh and Sergei Yastrzhembsky, a one-time senior aide to former President and current Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, according to the company's web site.
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