It took police nearly a day to enter the apartment of a woman who called police saying her ex was “trying to kill me.”
“My ex-boyfriend is here and he’s trying to kill me … He’s bashing me,” she told police.
But Tatiana Dokhotaru’s desperate plea for help was abruptly cut off as her killer, Danny Zayat, threw her phone from the balcony of her 22nd floor apartment, marking one of the final cruel acts he carried out against the 34-year-old after years of violent abuse.
The call was ended before she could tell the operator her apartment number.
Zayat was spotted running from her building on CCTV just three minutes later, having stolen her savings.
Officers attended the scene three hours after the call but left when they could not trace the location of the call in the apartment block.
“They left without having gained access to any part of the building or having acquired any further information about the location of the person who had made the call, or the circumstances,” Justice Desmond Fagan said while sentencing Zayat.
By morning, Tatiana was dead, killed at the hands of the very man she had warned was trying to kill her.
She died of a brain hemorrhage caused by blunt force injuries to her head.
Police returned to her home shortly before 7pm the following evening but couldn’t get in touch with her by phone or calling her apartment from the ground floor intercom.
They finally entered the apartment some 20 hours later, after her killer returned to the apartment and found her dead on her couch.
Chilling body-worn police footage showed Zayat hysterically crying after police arrived at her apartment, which prosecutors say were crocodile tears.
An exact time of death could not be determined, though she died sometime between the end of the 911 call and early the next morning, the Supreme Court found following Zayat’s trial.
NewsWire is not suggesting Dokhotaru could have been saved had police arrived earlier. NSW Police declined to comment due to an ongoing critical incident investigation.
Zayat was jailed for at least 18 years on Friday for the murder of Dokhotaru on May 26, 2023, with Justice Desmond Fagan detailing the disturbing “cycle of control and manipulation”, violent jealousy, and trail of abuse Zayat hurled at Dokhotaru in the lead up to killing her.
‘I’m going to f–king kill you’
Dokhotaru and Zayat were together for five years from 2017 until she left him in November 2022.
Justice Fagan found Zayat began to assault her from around May 2021, when he punched and pushed her to the ground in front of her friend.
She took a provisional apprehended domestic violence order (ADVO) out on him in April 2022 to prevent him stalking, harassing, intimidating, assaulting or threatening her.
However Zayat exploded when it was served on him, calling her to say: “I’m going to f–king kill you.”
His sick, foul-mouthed verbal and physical abuse continued.
By 2023, Justice Fagan inferred that Dokhotaru was afraid Zayat may react violently should she seek further help from police.
Killer’s ‘jealous rage’
Zayat “went crazy” upon finding Dokhotaru was seeing someone else in late 2022 or early 2023, strangling her and confronting the man.
He again flew into a jealous rage in April 2023 — months after their break up — after he went through her phone while she was in the shower.
She messaged her friend in the aftermath, telling her Zayat had dragged her by her hair, spat on her, and threatened to kill her if she called the police after he found messages between her and other men on her phone.
“It was absolute hell my body is in shock,” Dokhotaru said in the texts.
“He was spitting in my face … calling me a dirty slut and he can’t wait till he kills me.”
She messaged Zayat later that day to say “things will never be the same again”, but he responded saying “we are meant to be i can’t love anyone else the way i do you.”
“I will give space just promise me you will stay loyal to me,” Zayat said.
He again assaulted her for speaking to a man on April 30, 2023, with Dokhotaru sending Zayat a photo of the red marks he had left on her neck after he choked her.
“What’s the photos I can’t see anything,” he replied before deleting her messages about the choking, and later denying he had done so.
Days later, he told her how much he loved her and that he “wouldn’t be able to live with self if something was to happen to you.”
‘I almost got strangled for calling someone babe’
The pair spent the night together after going out to celebrate Dokhotaru’s birthday on May 6, 2023, however things took a bitter turn two days later when Dokhotaru learned Zayat had been messaging one of her female clients and “apparently seeking intimacy with her.”
“I genuinely forgave you for everything yesterday how Fuking dumb,” she messaged him.
“I almost got strangled for calling someone babe but look at you.”
She added: “It’s the way u were speaking to her and strangling me what kills me babe.”
He replied with words to the effect he had not been able to trust her, but he wanted to “start over.”
“im so depressed because of what iv done to you and im sick of stressing thinking if we are going to work out or if your going to go elsewhere,” he wrote.
She urged him to “get help.”
“Danny you need to get help … Before it’s too late … You must,” she wrote.
Less than two weeks later, she was dead.
Zayat said he was getting counseling at the time, but Justice Desmond Fagan found no evidence of this.
Killer tried to convince cops of overdose death
About a week after Dokhotaru pleaded with Zayat to get help, he attacked her so severely she thought her ribs had been broken.
He repeatedly told her to “get up” as he stood over her in the aftermath, recording her lying on the floor “incapacitated and distressed.”
Justice Fagan described the video as a “picture of cowardice and cruelty.”
“The few words Tatiana was able to utter as she lay helpless on the floor were of despair, defeat and suicide,” Justice Fagan said.
He also took photos of some of her anxiety and allergy medication, which he was “very keen” to show police after her murder “perhaps to persuade them …(she) had likely died of an overdose.” This was ruled out in a post-mortem examination and toxicology report.
Dokhotaru, humiliated by Zayat’s control over her by this stage, lied about how she was injured to friends and family, while Zayat told work mates she fell down the stairs.
She stayed home for three days to recover as Zayat assumed the role of carer, staying with her in what Justice Fagan ruled as an intimidation tactic to warn her off telling anyone the truth about her injuries or contacting other men.
“In effect he stood guard over her until the following Friday night, when he killed her,” Justice Fagan said.
On May 26, neighbors heard loud banging, shouting, and “very obscene abuse in a guttural tone” coming from Dokhotaru’s apartment as Zayat carried out Dokhotaru’s murder.
He will be eligible for parole in 2043 after serving a minimum of 18 years in jail.
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