A man who approached police and told them he killed a woman in 2013, then later said it was a false confession, was found guilty Aug. 28 of charges including murder.
A jury in Hamilton County Common Pleas Court found that Aleksey Koloskov killed 28-year-old Melinda Sue Ingram, whose badly decomposed body was found on Aug. 27, 2013, along Interstate 75 in Kenton County.
Koloskov, 39, faces 15 years to life in prison. Sentencing is set for Sept. 30 before Judge Robert Goering.
Koloskov was charged with murder in 2022, after he told Cincinnati homicide detectives he had strangled a woman nine years earlier and left her body on the side of a Kentucky highway. Investigators then connected Koloskov to Ingram's death.
But Koloskov, who has been diagnosed
with schizhoaffective disorder, later told a psychologist it was a false confession and that he had only heard about the woman and what happened from television news reports.
The trial began on Aug. 25 with opening statements and concluded Aug. 27 with closing arguments.
'Unique knowledge' of killing
Assistant Prosecutor Jeff Heile told jurors that during the nearly hour-long interview with detectives, Koloskov showed he had “unique knowledge” that only the person who killed Ingram would have known.
Koloskov described picking up Ingram, a sex worker, in a part of Avondale, close to where she was living at the time. Those details were not public at the time.
Heile also said Koloskov’s description of where he left Ingram’s body matched where it was found. And when Koloskov talked to detectives, he didn’t appear to know that her body had ever been found, according to Heile.
When shown mugshots of six women of similar age as Ingram, he chose her photo, saying he was “97 percent sure.”
Attorney said mental illness led to confession
Koloskov’s attorney, Tad Brittingham, pointed out during closing arguments that no evidence connected him to the crime. The only evidence, Brittingham said, came from Koloskov – “from the mouth of a person suffering from mental illness."
“He walked in, very mentally ill and confessed to a murder,” Brittingham said, adding that Koloskov at the time wanted to get inside the jail and preach to inmates.
Koloskov, who had no previous criminal record, told detectives that he derived "pleasure" from the killing and that he laughed at Ingram as she was dying.
At the time, he said, "I was thinking I'm on top of the world, I can do what I want," he said. "Nothing can stop me… No one can catch me. I'm invincible."
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Man who confessed to killing then tried to take it back, found guilty
