Friends recall lives of Illinois family killed in murder-suicide: ‘She was just coming into her own little person’

CHICAGO — Vivian Kisliak was a child who took charge. When her friends all tried to pile into her family’s golf cart, she’d maintain order, determining whose turn it was to take a spin in it and begging one of the adults to drive it.

Once the ride would start, Vivian was thrilled by the adventure. Neighbor Liliya Dzhorayeva remembers the 7-year-old egging her on as she drove the cart with shouts of “Go faster!”

Moments like this were part of this community’s “fun and easygoing” summers in Buffalo Grove, Dzhorayeva said. As soon as the weather warmed up in the spring, a group of “mom friends,” including Dzhorayeva and Vivian’s mom, Vera Kisliak, would gather at the park, sharing snacks and toys with the playing children. They spoke about their kids’ activities, family trips and home remodeling plans.

But this summer, Vera wasn’t around as much, and when she was, she was quiet and kept to herself, Dzhorayeva said.

While it might have appeared that the Kisliak family had a “perfect life,” Dzhorayeva said, with a beautiful remodeled home and daughters with bright smiles, behind closed doors, the truth was far more dangerous. Vera began confiding to friends about fears for her life as she sought a divorce from her husband, Andrei.

And as his behavior grew more threatening, she kicked him out of the family home and sought advice from a private investigator. She called for help from police when Andrei violated orders of protection or custody agreements. But in the end, none of those actions protected her, or her children.

On Dec. 5, Buffalo Grove police released updates to its investigation that showed that Andrei Kisliak, 39, killed his two daughters, 7-year-old Vivian and 4-year-old Amilia; his wife, Vera, 36; and his mother, Lilia, 67. They all had died from “sharp force injuries,” according to the Lake County coroner’s autopsies.

Police had discovered their bodies on Nov. 30 after someone who knew Vera called for a well-being check.

“Why was nothing done? I mean, there was red flags,” said Richard Montgomery, an investigator with ETS Intelligence, who Vera sought help from during her divorce. “Anyone who knows her, anyone who has had any conversation with her in the last few months, knows that this was an incredibly scared woman.”

As brokenhearted friends try to piece together the events leading up to the family’s deaths, they’ve organized a GoFundMe, which will pay for a memorial service in Buffalo Grove, tentatively scheduled for next week, and to help cover the cost of the funeral and burial for Vera and her daughters in Belarus, where Vera’s family lives.

Lake County Coroner Jennifer Banek confirmed Friday that their bodies were released from her office on Tuesday, but that Andrei’s body had yet to be released. She said Lilia Kisliak’s body was released from her office on Monday.

But friends of Vera and the girls say the mother and her daughters were more than just victims.

Dzhorayeva moved to the neighborhood in 2019 and often took her three children to the local park, where she met Vera and her daughters. Before this year, Dzhorayeva said, she would wave whenever she saw Andrei driving by their house, and he would wave back.

At first, Vera was shy, but once she learned that Dzhorayeva spoke Russian as well, she opened up, sharing updates about her daughter’s activities, like Vivian’s dance classes, or about the family’s ongoing home remodeling. There was always seemed to be a truck parked outside for a new home renovation, Dzhorayeva said.

Vivian, who was in second grade at Ivy Hall Elementary School, always smiled and loved dancing. Dzhorayeva has a daughter, 8, who often sat with Vivian and their friends on the bus to school.

Anything sparkly or colorful, Vivian loved, Dzhorayeva said. She was also energetic, even boisterous, Dzhorayeva said, bringing makeup and nail polish for her friends to play with or starting games of tag by chasing after one of the adults.

“My husband would come play at the park too, and Vivian just loved chasing him,” Dzhorayeva said. “To me, it’s funny that such a young girl could be brave enough to try to chase an adult.”

Amilia was quieter. The 4-year-old, who attended day care at Blooming Minds Academy in Wheeling, mostly understood Russian and often stood near the group of girls playing, but not joining in, Dzhorayeva said. She would stay tucked under Vera’s arm, watching the other children or playing videos on Vera’s phone. But she often followed the lead of her sister, too. Once she got comfortable, she’d trail behind Vivian and match how she played with the other children, Dzhorayeva said.

Dzhorayeva remembers her always having her hair in a fun new look, with braids or pompoms or a ponytail. Like Vivian, she also seemed to love dancing, sometimes arriving to the park in a tutu and leotard.

“I feel like she was just coming into her own little person,” she said.

Vera shared that she was trying to get a job to be able to support herself on her own as well as to fill her time independently, as her daughters were now either in day care or school, Dzhorayeva said. She recalls Vera expressing an interest in wanting to get her real estate license and become a real estate agent.

Andrei worked in home remodeling as well as, for a time, as a tennis coach, something he was very proud of, she said. College Park Athletic Club general manager Benj Ecker confirmed that Andrei was a tennis pro at the Bannockburn club, teaching private group lessons until the COVID-19 shutdown in 2020.

As Vera seemed to withdraw this summer, Dzhorayeva said she would ask how Vera was, and if there was anything that they could do for her. Vera would respond by putting on a smile and say that everything was OK.

Vera visited family in Belarus over the summer, but her husband prevented her from taking her daughters with her, Dzhorayeva said. When Vera returned, she spoke about having a great time, full of home-cooked meals, Dzhorayeva said, but said she wished her daughters had been there.

After Vera started trying to get her own job, tension behind closed doors only grew more public, including an instance when Andrei put two of the family’s cars in the yard with a sign that read “free,” preventing her from driving. The abuse and threats culminated in calls to law enforcement and court proceedings.

On Aug. 26, Vera called the Lake County sheriff’s office to Cafe Mistiko in Deerfield, where Andrei was sitting with Vivian, whom he had picked up from school, according to a police report obtained by the Tribune. Vera told the responding Lake County Sheriff’s Deputy Kevin Lowe that Andrei was supposed to pick up Vivian, but bring her home. Instead, the report says, he took her to the cafe, which is also a bar.

Vera told Lowe she “felt threatened by Andrei and his behavior,” according to the report, and Lowe wrote that he advised Vera about how to seek an order of protection, “which she said she was aware of and is not seeking at this time.” Lowe also wrote that Andrei was “very agitated and said he was just eating with his daughter,” and that he “continued to be upset” that Vera was attempting to retrieve Vivian.

That same month, Vera reached out to Montgomery, the private investigator, whom she had met in September 2021, when she and Andrei had taken a firearms training class from him. A mutual friend had put them in touch because of concerns of domestic abuse, Montgomery said.

Vera sent Montgomery five records of case numbers where law enforcement was involved in a domestic dispute. Montgomery said he estimates, based on conversations with Vera and people who knew her, that law enforcement was contacted between 20 and 30 times for these issues. One friend of Vera’s, Dimitry Kuzmenko, told the Tribune that he estimated police had been at the house once or twice a week since the summer.

Montgomery said he advised her to involve law enforcement, and seek a case worker, social worker or victim advocate.

“From what she was describing and telling me, she was asking for these things and they were either not available or nobody was helping her with these things,” Montgomery said.

Vera looked into going to a women’s shelter, but feared she would be turned away because he hadn’t physically harmed her, Kuzmenko said. The abuse was verbal, in the form of aggressive, degrading threats and “mind games,” such as taking her keys and misleading where her children were, he said.

Vera often slept in the same room as her daughters, Kuzmenko said. She expressed that she did not think Andrei would harm his daughters, both Dzhorayeva and Kuzmenko said.

“I think that’s where the shock comes,” Dzhorayeva said. “She was just confident that nothing would happen to the girls, just herself.”

That last time Montgomery and Vera communicated was on Oct. 25, over the phone for about 19 minutes, according to the call log. During this call, Vera described releasing the restraining order against Andrei. Montgomery said he told her he thought it was a bad idea. Court records show the Lake County judge did, too.

Judge Marnie Slavin “strongly advised against this arrangement, but the parties wish to proceed by agreement,” a handwritten note reads on the Nov. 1 motion.

According to the records, the two were instructed to stay in their own respective bedrooms and “shall not go into the other parties’ bedroom,” and agreed to a shared parenting schedule. Under the revised arrangement, Andrei was not allowed to remove Vivian from school “for any reason” and was not allowed to remove Amilia from school before “12 p.m. on the days he has parenting time.”

“I mentioned to her, ‘He’s a volatile guy, and if he sees that I’m helping you and that I’ve picked your side, he might snap on you, and then there’s nothing anyone can do,’” Montgomery said.

Montgomery said Vera told him she released the restraining order because Andrei would show up at the house anyway, and that when she called police, they did not remove him from the premises.

Once Lilia — Andrei Kisliak’s mother — moved in, Vera communicated with friends a lot less, Kuzmenko said. When Kuzmenko would call to check in, she would respond by saying she can’t talk because there were “ears everywhere,” Kuzmenko said.

Montgomery said he ran into Andrei at a kickboxing class in October and they spoke about the couple’s ongoing divorce.

“My whole mode in that was just letting him know that I was there to support him, so I could be more involved, get a little bit more information from him,” Montgomery said. “But also, I’m trying to treat him as a human being, I didn’t think things would be this horrible. For me, this was just another really bad divorce.”

Montgomery said he wanted to share these exchanges that occurred between himself and Vera because “if there could have ever been a case that was prevented, if was definitely this one,” he said.

“The fact that is wasn’t just makes me sick to my stomach,” Montgomery said.

On Nov. 29, one day before their deaths, Judge Slavin granted a motion by Vera’s counsel to put their marital residence up for sale within 28 days. Earlier that month, a mortgage lending company had opened a foreclosure case on the home, which was purchased in 2017. The company alleged it had received no mortgage payments since July 2020, according to court records.

In that same motion, Andrei was ordered to confirm that he had turned “his firearms(s) to the Buffalo Grove Police Department,” which court records show he did.

Montgomery said he and her neighbors often asked Vera to bring her kids and stay with them.

“The saddest thing about that is that she just didn’t want to be a burden,” Montgomery said.

“People need to see this,” he said. “If there’s any chance of ever preventing something like this from happening, we have to see everything that happened in the first place to determine where things went wrong.”

———