detained. After beating and threats from the deputy chief of the Nizhny Novgorod Region Department of the Internal Affairs, Pyotr Sibirev and the deputy prosecutor of the Nizhny Novgorod region, Vladimir Muravyov, he was forced to incriminate himself and admit that, together with Mikheyev, raped and killed Savelyeva. After recognition, Frolov indicated a fictitious place where he and his friend buried a corpse. On September 17–19, A. Mikheyev was exposed to intensive interrogations. Although he was detained for storing ammunition, the police interrogated him about the case of M. Savelyeva’s disappearance. On September 19, after the confession of Frolov and the unsuccessful search for a corpse, Mikheyev was subjected to torture using electric shock. Under the influence of torture and threats, Aleksey Mikheyev confessed to rape and murder of Savelyeva, after which he was offered to confess to several more unsolved murders, which he also agreed to. After receiving a confession, the police officers stopped torturing Mikheyev. Probably in a stunned state after being tortured, Mikheyev leapt from his chair and jumped out of the office window, breaking the glass with his head. Having fallen on a police motorcycle in the courtyard of the police department, Mikheyev got a severe compression fracture of spine (L-I) with a crush of spinal cord and other injuries. On the same day - September 19, 1998 - Maria Savelyeva returned home by herself. Public inquiry In July 1999, Aleksey Mikheyev applied to the Nizhny Novgorod Society for Human Rights for help in restoring his rights. The material was moved to Committee Against Torture, marked by the registration number "01". Thus, Mikheyev’s case became the first case to the Committee Against Torture after the registration of the Regional Public Organization “Committee Against Torture”. In this case, the human rights defenders from Nizhny Novgorod uncovered a large set of illegal police activities, and in the future the case got a name as 'public inquiry into torture'. The public investigation was accompanied by the detection of many fabricated administrative and criminal cases regarding Mikheyev. The main avenues for investigation were criminal case No. 68241 (when Mikheyev fell from the window of building of the Lenin Regional Department of Internal Affairs) and criminal case No. 310503 (compiling false reports by the Bogorodsky employees of the City Department of Internal Affairs in regard to Mikheyev). Human rights defenders interviewed Mikheyev and Frolov, their relatives and friends, the patients of