Union County District Attorney Trey Robison said today he is dropping a first-degree murder charge against former Charlotte Checkers hockey player Bogdan Rudenko, who was accused of killing his best friend from Kazakhstan.
Rudenko, 34, was charged in the slaying Dec. 20, 2009, of Yuriy Kharitonov, 32. Kharitonov's mutilated body was found behind a Stallings auto repair shop.
Earlier this month, Robison said his office was working through a backlog of cases and did not know when Rudenko would face trial.
Growing up in the sprawling central Asian country of Kazakhstan, Rudenko and Kharitonov were as close as brothers and shared dreams of playing pro hockey one day.
Rudenko's journey saw him criss-cross North America. He played for 18 minor-league teams in 14 years, including a stint with the Checkers late in the 2004-05 season.
Kharitonov came to the United States in April 2009 to visit Rudenko and possibly revive his career, which had stalled in Kazakhstan. By that point, Rudenko's career also had sputtered out.
Kharitonov briefly lived with Rudenko and his wife, Amanda, in their south Charlotte apartment.
But the two men had a falling out, people who knew them said, and Kharitonov wound up living in small auto repair shops off Independence Boulevard. They were run by a tightknit community of Russians and Ukrainians whom Kharitonov had befriended around Indian Trail and Stallings.
