Immigrant from Ukraine killed as he tried to defend wife from assailants

NEW YORK - An immigrant from Ukraine who arrived in the United States a year and a half ago from Sumy, was murdered in Brooklyn on October 30 while trying to defend his wife from two masked robbers.

Oleg Bosenko, 38, was walking his wife, Larysa, 37, home from the subway station in Sheepshead Bay at about 1:30 a.m., when the couple were accosted by a man and a woman wearing ski masks. Mr. Bosenko was fatally shot as he tried to protect his wife.

The couple was approached from behind and one of the two attackers grabbed Mrs. Bosenko's purse. According to New York City Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, there was a struggle and Mr. Bosenko, who was trained in karate, found himself facing two people armed with pistols.

According to Mrs. Bosenko, her husband kicked the gun from the hand of one of the assailants. He was then shot in the chest and groin, as first the woman fired and then the man, who recovered his pistol. The attackers fled with Mrs. Bosenko's purse, which contained $10.

A friend of the Bosenko family, Anatole Volsky, later told The New York Times: "He tried to defend his wife, he covered her body with his body, and he was killed. We are very proud of him."

Mrs. Bosenko, an office worker at a law firm in Midtown Manhattan, often takes the train home late at night, according to friends. Mr. Bosenko had taken to meeting his wife at the station every night as she returned home from work after she had been confronted by a mugger last spring.

Mr. Bosenko's death was the ninth homicide this year in the 61st Precinct, which encompasses the Sheepshead Bay and Gravesend sections of Brooklyn. Commissioner Kelly told the news media that police were investigating whether the robbery and killing were related to a pattern of crimes reported in southern Brooklyn.

Back in Ukraine, Mrs. Bosenko was a teacher; Mr. Bosenko was an army officer. The couple have a 12-year-old daughter, Inna. Mr. Bosenko worked as an electrician after immigrating to the United States.

"They came here from Ukraine for a better life, for a better opportunity for their daughter - that's all they wanted," Irina Svetnikova, a neighbor and friend, told The Times. The day after the shooting Ms. Svetnikova took the Bosenkos' daughter to stay with her. The Bosenkos have no other relatives in America, friends said.

Contacted by The Ukrainian Weekly on November 13, police were unable to provide any information on developments in the Bosenko case.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, November 17, 2002, No. 46, Vol. LXX

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