Air Force Staff Sgt. Sean Oliver may have killed Petty Officer 2nd Class Dmitry Chepusov to prevent him from spilling the beans on Oliver's "inappropriate relationship" with Chepusov’s wife, according to testimony given at the Article 32 hearing of Army Spc. Cody A. Kramer, reports Stars and Stripes.
Kramer has also been charged in connection with Chepusov's death.
Chepusov, 31, was married to Alejandra Zolezzi. According to prosecutor Capt. Daniel O’Connor:
Chepusov wanted to break from Zolezzi completely and threatened to disclose her relationship with Oliver to their chain of command at AFN-Europe.
Were he to have done that, Zolezzi would have been sent back to the U.S. Oliver, meanwhile, might have lost both his girlfriend and his military career.
Oliver planned to murder Chepusov in order to save his career and keep his girlfriend (Chepusov's wife), who would receive a $400,000 life insurance payout when Chepusov died.
As Home Post previously reported, early on the morning of Dec. 14, 2013 German police stopped Oliver for driving erratically in Kaiserslautern, near Ramstein Air Base. Chepusov's dead body was in the passenger seat of Oliver's car.
German authorities later performed an autopsy on Chepusov, and ruled he died from “force to the throat.”
Both Chepusov and Oliver worked for American Forces Network-Europe.
