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Galina Smirnova, 95, has been charged with second-degree murder as well as fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon after allegedly killing her nursing home roommate Nina Kravtsov, 89.
On Sunday, September 14th, Kravtsov was observed by nursing home staff “alive and asleep in her bed” in her room at Seagate Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York, according to a criminal complaint.
Later that day, staff entered the room only to find Kravtsov non-responsive with gashes all over her face and head. The same witness also saw Smirnova in the bathroom washing her hands with blood covering her gown and legs.
The two had only been roommates for two days.
In the corner of the room they shared, a wheelchair was found disassembled and the two pedals were missing, one of which was found covered in blood.
The medical examiner’s office declared Kravtsov passed early Monday morning due to blunt force trauma. Additionally, video camera footage showed that no other staff or residents had entered the room between the time she was first checked on by staff and when she was found injured.
“Family is grieving in every sense of the word. It is my responsibility that justice is served for a woman that survived the Holocaust but could not survive a nursing home is dealt with correctly,” Randy Zelin, the attorney representing Kravtsov and her family, told NBC News.
Kravtsov grew up in a small town in Ukraine, surviving the horrors of the Holocaust after her designation to a concentration camp fell through. At age 18, she married and had her first daughter, Lucy. After being widowed at 19, Kravtsov raised her child as a single mother and moved to the United States in 1979 in pursuit of a better life.
Having been at Seagate Nursing and Rehabilitation Center for the past five years, she was supposed to be receiving extra care after suffering a stroke.
Smirnova has pleaded not guilty and is being detained without bail.
Zelin added that dementia plays a large role in this case. Arguments are arising with issues of understaffing and lack of supervision with a dementia patient in a new environment. In October of 2024, Seagate was cited for deficits in staffing in State Department Health Records.
“The facility did not ensure that there was sufficient nursing staff to attain or maintain the highest practicable physical, mental, and psychosocial well-being of each resident,” the report read. The issue was marked as resolved in December of 2024.
Defense claims of dementia-related effects are questionable, with Smirnova disassembling the wheelchair in their room, using the pedals as means of a weapon.
“Dementia can bring on unprovoked out of nowhere a fit of complete rage. So defensively, that’s the defense. Now it’ll be interesting to see how that plays in against the backdrop of apparently discarding the piece of the wheelchair, washing her hands in the bathroom. Now suddenly we begin to see maybe I do know what I was doing,” Zelin told ABC 7.
Zelin says he and his team are seeking justice for the family and are looking to hold Seagate responsible for issues with proper staffing.
Both NBC News and ABC News have reached out for comments from Smirnova’s family as well as Seagate.
According to the New York State Unified Court System, Seagate has been facing multiple lawsuits in recent years regarding wrongful death and negligence which has led to avoidable injuries and infection outbreaks.
“The way she died is like in a Stephen King horror movie,” Zelin told ABC 7. “This doesn’t happen in real life.”
As of September 19th, Smirnova’s next court date has not been scheduled. For now, she is being held in the prison ward of Bellevue Hospital in New York City.