Severed head and two pairs of feet found at popular Natadola beach after expatriate businessman and his wife disappeared

This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

Natadola beach in Fiji is often referred to as the world’s most beautiful stretch of sand. That was until body parts started washing up on the shore.

Last month two pairs of human feet were found at the popular tourist spot. Then this week a New Zealand couple made another grisly find: a human head, wrapped in green cloth and weighed down by rocks, bobbing in shallow waters a few metres from shore.

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Police have confirmed that the body parts belonged to a missing Russian couple, Yuriy Shipulin and Nataliya Gerasimova – retirees who moved to Fiji in 2011 and lived on a vegetable farm in the Nausori Highlands.



Friends described Shipulin as a former pilot for the Russian air force, who had a number of failed business interests on the island and was owed upwards of US$200,000 by former business associates.

“It was his first time off the block in paradise and he was living lavishly and burning the candle at both ends,” said Maxim, a friend of the couple who has lived in Fiji for a decade.

“Yuriy would give you the shirt off his back, he was too trusting and he was taken to the cleaners by unscrupulous people. He found out the hard way. He wanted paradise so bad, he couldn’t see it was rotten.”

The couple were reported missing on 16 June by Andrew Luzanenko, who has been described both as Shipulin’s business partner and a farmhand. There is no suggestion that Luzanenko was at all involved in their deaths.

The expatriate community organised searches in the dense forests surrounding the couple’s isolated farm but found no clue to their disappearance.

“It was a hot, sweaty, dusty, and tiring day,” wrote Alla SeaStar on Facebook on 21 June.

“I know everyone wants to hear about the result of our search. No luck. Or maybe it is luck that we did not find Yura and Natahsa. It means we continue to hope and believe in miracles.”

A few days after the search, the couple’s car – with the distinctive licence plate PILOT – was found at Natadola beach, unlocked with the keys still in the ignition.

Then came the body parts.

Natadola beach is popular with tourists and locals alike, and has two major resorts situated on its shores – the Intercontinental and the Yatule.

“We have asked the police a number of times why the beach remains open,” said Repeka Nasiko, a reporter for the Fijian Times.

“Because body parts keep turning up, and always on the beach.

“It’s a shocking killing, we are not used to something like this here,” she said. “It is so public and a very popular picnic spot. People are scared that whoever did this is still on the loose.”

Shafia Hassan, a businesswoman who employed Shipulin as a casual photographer, said the couple lived a happy life and were well liked and respected on the island. Hassan described Shipulin as “gentle and helpful” and Gerasimova as a “soft, kind lady”.

“I saw them in the week before they disappeared and they were fine and happy, in business mode,” she said.

“This case is a huge mystery for us. It is all we can talk about because there are still pieces of the bodies to be found. Whoever did this is mad.”

Murder cases are rare in Fiji, where tourism makes up 30% of GDP, and this case is so brutal that police released a statement on Wednesday asking locals to refrain from discussing it publicly, so as not to taint the nation’s reputation as a holiday paradise.

“I want to urge members of the public not to speculate or spread unsubstantiated rumours about the case as it only serves to create unnecessary fear,” the statement read.

“Speculation as such can paint a negative image of what’s happening in Fiji.”

A friend of the couple who asked to remain anonymous said the murders had shocked the close-knit expat community in Fiji.

“Nobody saw this coming,” the friend said.

“To have the bodies so damaged like that, what person with a good mind would do that? Before they disappeared everything was fine, like normal. It’s a sunny island, a perfect island, there was no need to be worried about anything in paradise. Until now.”

