Police arrested the ex-boyfriend of a 20-year-old Pittsburgh college student who was beaten to death after she took out a restraining order on him.
The battered body of Alina Sheykhet was discovered by her father in an upstairs bedroom after he broke down her door on Sunday.
Police found a claw hammer and two knives in a sewer drain near her apartment that may be the murder weapons.
Matthew Darby, 21, was arrested 600 miles away in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Pittsburgh police confirmed his arrest at 12:45 p.m. Wednesday.
A judge ordered Darby held without bond as he awaits extradition back to Pittsburgh.
Darby is charged with criminal homicide and 1st-degree murder. He pleaded not guilty and yawned several times during his bond hearing.
Darby also pleaded not guilty to raping another ex-girlfriend earlier this year in Indiana County, about 45 miles northeast of Pittsburgh.
He was wanted on that charge when Sheykhet took out a restraining order after he broke into her apartment and assaulted her.
In the application for the protection order, Sheykhet described how Darby climbed up the gutter and broke through the second floor window of her bedroom in a student housing townhouse.
She said Darby assaulted her because “I left him and stopped answering his phone calls.”
A 2nd warrant was issued for his arrest after the September 20 incident.
Sheykhet, from Ivanovo, Russia, was studying to become a physical therapist at the University of Pittsburgh when she was killed.
Darby was also a student at the University of Pittsburgh, where he played on the men’s basketball team until he dropped out last month.
Sheykhet’s father, Yan, told The Tribune Review he went to his daughter’s student housing after she failed to answer his phone calls. Her roommates told him she was still asleep.
He said he kicked the door down and found his daughter’s battered body on the floor.
“We were supposed to pick her up at 8:30 a.m. to go on a dog walk for breast cancer in Allison Park,” he told The Tribune.
“I was screaming, asking her to breathe. But she didn’t. There was lots of blood,” he said.
