Russian police officers in front of Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow in March 2020. Photo: Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP via Getty Images
Russian authorities arrested a suspect on murder charges after Catherine Serou, a 34-year-old U.S. citizen and former Marine, was found dead, local police announced on Saturday, according to NPR.
Driving the news: Serou, who had been studying at a university in Nizhny Novgorod, disappeared on Tuesday after leaving her house in a suburb of the city and entering an unknown vehicle. Her body was discovered after a large-scale search.
- The suspect, born in 1977 with prior convictions, was arrested on suspicion of abducting and murdering her an hour before Serou's body was found.
The big picture: Serou's mother, Beccy Serou, told NPR this week that her daughter entered the vehicle because she was attempting to quickly return to a clinic after a prior payment didn't go through.
- Before her disappearance, Serou sent a text to her mother that read, "In a car with a stranger. I hope I'm not being abducted."
- The U.S. Embassy in Moscow said in a statement it is monitoring the local authorities' investigation and providing "all appropriate assistance" to Serou's family, according to NPR.