Woman allegedly slain by husband in front of 4 year-old son
ged husband in the United States want to have their daughter’s remains returned to Ukraine for burial and are seeking custody of their four-year-old grandson.
Vladimir Chevhanov, 52, and his wife, Natalia, 50, of Mykolayiv say that New Jersey state law is preventing U.S. officials from complying with their request to bring their daughter home.
The Chevhanovs’ daughter, Alla Barney, 26, was stabbed to death on the evening of Sept. 29 as she sat in her car waiting to pick up her son Daniel from a day-care center in Mount Laurel, New Jersey.
Prosecutors allege that the child’s father, Stuart Lester Barney Jr., took the boy and fled in his car after committing the murder. Barney later dropped the child off with a family friend before surrendering to police.
The murder, which has received extensive press and television coverage in the United States, has so far been ignored by bureaucrats in Kyiv and the Ukrainian media. The Foreign Ministry and the U.S. Embassy in Kyiv told the Post that they have nothing to say about the case.
Barney, 59, is accused of having Barney, 59, is accused of having killed his Ukrainian-born wife hours after a court granted her custody of their son during a separation hearing.
A translator employed by the U.S. Justice Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives notified Natalia Chevhanov of her daughter’s death on Oct. 2.
Natalia Chevhanov told the Post on Oct. 21 that under New Jersey state law, Alla Barney’s next-of-kin is her husband, Lester. Disposition of the body is a matter for Lester Barney to decide.
“I was informed that the court requires the approval of the man who killed her,” she said.
On Sept. 30, a Burlington County, New Jersey judge set Lester Barney’s bail at $500,000. Even if Barney posts bail, he is prohibited from seeing his son before undergoing a psychological evaluation. The boy is believed to have witnessed his mother’s slaying.
Local media reported Burlington County Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi as saying that his office had taken no position on whether the Chevhanovs should be allowed to bury their daughter in Ukraine or receive custody of Daniel.
Alla Barney was not a U.S. citizen, but had a Green Card and permission to work in the United States.
Natalia Chevhanov said that Barney met his future wife through an introduction agency in the summer of 1997, and that she had helped her daughter complete a questionnaire used to register with the firm.
“We received a letter from Stuart Barney two weeks later,” Chevhanov said.
Stuart Barney traveled to Kyiv to meet Alla after purchasing a fiance visa preparation kit from European Connection & Tours, a U.S. company that specializes in introducing American men to Ukrainian women. The kit, which cost $99, contained forms required by the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services (BCIS) to apply for a fiancee, or K-1, visa.
Stuart Barney, a divorcee, married Alla Chevhanov in 1998 after traveling to Kyiv to meet her, said Chevhanov, who rejected the description of her daughter as a “mail-order bride,” a term used by many media to describe foreign citizens who obtain conditional citizenship in the United States after marrying American men.
In 1998, 68 Ukrainians were admitted to the United States with permanent resident status after receiving K-1 visas according to the BCIS, which reported a twelve-fold increase in 2002.
The Tahirih Justice Center, a U.S. non-profit organization founded in 1997 to provide legal services to immigrant women, is currently engaged in an effort to enact federal legislation protecting foreign women who marry abusive American men.
A representative of the center said that it was inspired by one of its clients, a Ukrainian woman who suffered brutal abuse at the hands of the husband she was paired with through an introduction agency.
U.S. legislation was introduced in August that would enable foreign women seeking American husbands to learn about their prospective mates’ background.
The bill resulted from the murder in Washington State of 20-year-old Anastasia King, a woman from Kyrgystan who died in September 2000. Her husband, Indle King Jr., was convicted last year of first-degree murder. He had divorced a previous foreign bride and was seeking a third before the murder.
