“Have we got anything yet?” asked Lt. Walter Wilfinger, in his office as chief of detectives of the 61st Precinct on Brooklyn’s Coney Island Avenue. He turned to Bob Sommer, one of his detectives.
“Nothing,” replied Sommer. “It’s going on three weeks and still not a clue. It’s a total mystery.”
“But,” said Detective Arthur Semioli of the Brooklyn South Homicide Task Force, also seated in the room, his green velour pancake cap on a hook on the wall behind him, “we’re not about to close the book. It’s an active investigation, that’s for sure.”
Tacked to message boards in restaurants and post offices in Brooklyn, as well as in the detectives’ office of the 61st Precinct, are white, laminated cards distributed by the New York City Police Department that tell some of the story. They say in big black letters: “Missing Person.”
Below this are details of the search, beginning with: “Subject: Sergei Kobozev.”
For those who follow professional boxing, the name has significance. Kobozev, 22-1 with 17 knockouts, was the U.S. Boxing Association’s cruiserweight champion – not quite a major title in what is often an overlooked division, between light-heavyweight and heavyweight.
But Kobozev, who came to the United States five years ago from Russia, had also been a captain in the Red Army and held a degree in chemistry from the Institute of Moscow.
He had been a member of the Soviet national boxing team and was looking toward his biggest boxing payday ever in March. It was an expected $100,000 shot for the World Boxing Council title against the winner of a match between champion Anaclet Wamba and challenger Marcel Dominguez.
No signs of foul play
On Nov. 8, Sergei Kobozev was last seen leaving a garage in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn between 5:45 p.m. and 6 p.m. after having a cable short repaired in his 1988 black-and-white Chevy Blazer. He was reported missing that night by Lina Cherskikh, his live-in companion.
Five days later, his car was found beside a Dumpster in the parking lot of the Petrina Diner in Bensonhurst. The diner, open 24 hours, is about 5 miles from the garage. No one remembers seeing Kobozev in the diner. The car was locked from the outside. There was no sign of foul play.
Kobozev had $12,000 in a bank account in his name. It has not been touched. No credit cards owned by him have been used. There have been, according to the police, no ransom notes.
Police have not found any connection between Kobozev and the so-called Russian Mafia in America, nor is there a connection to another woman.
“It seemed he wasn’t a ladies’ man,” Semioli said. “And there were no signs of any mental lapse by him or disorientation. Was there foul play? Or did Kobozev disappear on his own volition? We’ve ruling nothing out.”
On Kobozev’s Missing Person Card, there is a slightly washed-out head shot of Kobozev in a red shirt open at the neck. He wore his hair short and had the paradoxically kindly eyes of a prizefighter.
“The ropes really separated the two worlds of Sergei,” said his assistant trainer, Peter Kahn. “He was very even-tempered, very unexcitable, very pleasant, almost shy when you’d meet him on the street. But he was a beast in the ring. He really earned the right to be called tough.”
“The police have investigated and can’t find any enemies that he had,” said Tommy Gallagher, the boxer’s manager and trainer.
“It is terrible,” said Cherskikh, who, with her 7-year-old son, Vitaly, lived with Kobozev in their one-bedroom apartment. “I wake up every morning and see the pictures of Sergei on the wall. And every morning I cry.”
Kobozev had come to America in pursuit of a dream. “All he wanted was to be world champion,” she said. Cherskikh, who is also Russian, said Kobozev didn’t miss Russia. “He loved here, you know.”
Wednesday evening, Nov. 8, she had been expecting Kobozev to return home to take her son to a karate lesson. When, after several hours, he didn’t show up, and didn’t call – “he always calls if he will be late,” she said – she called the police.
Kobozev’s last fight was on Oct. 14, in Paris, where he lost a narrow split decision to Dominguez.
Some close to him reported that he was depressed by the loss, his first as a professional. And some wondered how that had affected Kobozev, a dedicated fighter who took his career seriously.
“He was very, very proud of being undefeated,” said Teddy Atlas, who had trained Kobozev the first two years the fighter was in America. “It might have been working on his mind and he might have eventually decided he just wanted to go away and be alone for a while.”
Plenty of reasons to live
Still, Kobozev disappeared nearly three weeks after his last bout, long enough, conceivably, to get over any depression. And suicide was out of the question, according to everyone who knew him.
“His future looked better than ever. He was looking at millions of dollars,” Gallagher said.
As no clues turned up, Cherskikh went to several Russian psychics. “They also say different things,” she said. “One says he is dead, another says he is alive. So now I believe nothing.”
The relationship between Cherskikh and Kobozev, police believe, was essentially a stable one. She refers to him as her husband, and said that her son asks every day, “When is Daddy coming home?” Kobozev had been working Saturday nights as a greeter and bouncer in a Russian nightclub in Brooklyn, the Paradise, for $100 a night and free meals for him and Cherskikh. Friends say that she, more than Kobozev, enjoyed the night life.
There were reports of a fight at the club about a week before Kobozev disappeared, a brawl in which Kobozev was said to have acted as a peacemaker. Was there a punch thrown by Kobozev, however? Did someone get mad at him? “Right now,” Semioli said, “it’s something we’re looking into.”
Kobozev trained in Gleason’s Gym, near the Brooklyn Bridge.
“Everyone treated Sergei with respect,” said Don Diego Poeder, a young undefeated cruiserweight who sparred with Kobozev.
Last summer, a week or so after Kobozev won his title, he was celebrating at a Russian supper club on Brighton Beach Avenue in Sheepshead Bay with Cherskikh and his Russian manager, Steve Trunov, when a friend, Sergei Artemiev, came in.
Kobozev cheerfully invited him to join them. Artemiev had been on the Soviet national boxing team with Kobozev. He had fought in the lightweight division and the previous year had suffered a massive blood clot in the brain in a fight that was one step from a world championship bout.
Artemiev had been in a coma for 10 days and would never be allowed to fight again. Like Kobozev, he had left Russia to become a world champion. Now that dream had been dashed.
And while this was a happy time for Kobozev, he was sensitive to Artemiev’s feelings. As the evening went on, Kobozev saw the sadness in Artemiev and sought to relieve it.
Kobozev urged him to have more caviar and blini. “Sergei,” he said, “some champagne?” For those who know and care about Sergei Kobozev, there are now only questions. There is no caviar and no champagne.
