Photo Credit: Sergei L. Loiko, Los Angeles Times

In an effort to cover his tracks, Alexei Kabanov made desperate posts on his Facebook asking for assistance in locating his wife, Irina Cherska.

On Jan. 6, 2013, the popular Moscow cafe owner reported that his wife, a journalist, had been missing for three days. He asked his 1,500 Facebook friends for support and any possible news about her safety.

He ended his first post that night by saying “If among our common friends there is somebody who knows what has happened to her, simply tell me that she is alive.”

Kabanov claimed to had alerted the police, and according to his Facebook posts they had only told him”she will come back and everything will be normal,” which he had trouble believing, writing that “the more time passes the less I believe in this ‘normal.'”

Many of his Facebook friends reposted Kabanov’s messages about his wife’s disappearence. A handful of volunteers put Cherska’s portrait and information on street corners in Moscow.

The community’s helpful response was withdrawn on Saturday, because according to the Russian Investigative Committee’s website, police examining Kabanov’s car Friday night “found fragments of a human body.”

Fragments of the body of Irina Cherska, including head and limbs, were found on Friday in a car he borrowed from a friend.

Kabanov said he strangled Cherska on Jan. 3 and then dismembered her body and stashed it in the car, hoping to get rid of it later.

A popular Russian proverb about male-female relationships says “if he beats you, it means he loves you.”

In the wake of this journalist’s gruesome murder by her husband, the negativity of abusive relationships was highlighted and a more change in attitude towards domestic violence could be beneficial.