Polatbay Berdaliyev

The 29-year-old Pashkova (also referred to as "Yekaterina Tishkunova"), accompanied by her 3-year-old daughter and sister, arrived in Shymkent from Karaganda by train on December 19, 2011. At the train station, Natalya's sister and daughter separated from her and travelled towards Arys, while the smiling Pashkova caught a taxi to her home, in the city center. She was last seen talking with a private taxi driver and boarding his black Mercedes, but never got returned home alive. Two days later, her body was discovered along the Almaty-Termez highway, with signs of a violent struggle. Pashkova had been raped and then strangled with her sneakers' shoe laces. Her belongings, consisting of a suitcase, laptop, gold earrings and 500 tenge, were missing.

Hailing from Uzbekistan, Berdaliyev was considered a quiet, shy and rather unremarkable young man. However, along with his good friend Abduseit Ormanov, he raped his fellow female classmates, who never reported the cases to the police, as Polatbay's father was an officer. At one point, he was convicted of robbery in Almaty, receiving a 6-year-sentence to be served in the Shymkent Colony. While in prison, Polatbay began corresponding with a woman whom he later married, but the couple separated after he was granted parole in 2010.

Polatbay Turganbekovich Berdaliyev (born 1986) is an Uzbekistani rapist and serial killer who, along with accomplices Abduseit Ormanov and two other unidentified men, was responsible for killing 11 women in both Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan from 2011 to 2012. Berdaliyev and Ormanov were both sentenced to life imprisonment in both countries, while the other members of their group are still sought after.