Remembering Volodya

One year after University researcher Vadimir Sled was stabbed to death, his Halloween night murder still haunts those who knew him. Much has changed in the year since University biophysicist and biochemist Vladimir Sled was murdered. His fiancee, Cecilia Hagerhall, has returned to Sweden. His colleagues have tried to fill his position. And his young son has returned to live with his mother in New Jersey. But Sled's death last Halloween night continues to haunt the friends, colleagues and family members who knew him best. "I remember him every day, and miss him during every breath I take," Hagerhall said in a recent e-mail. Hagerhall, 33, who returned last April to work at Sweden's University of Lund, declined to be interviewed via telephone for this article. She said she plans to be in Moscow today to visit Sled's grave and stay with his family. He left behind a 13-year-old son, Dima, from his first marriage, as well as his mother and brother. Last Tuesday would have been Sled's 39th birthday. His co-workers threw a small party for him three days before he was killed. It was one of the last times they were able to share such a special moment. The Murder Sled's three alleged killers are in jail now, awaiting a first-degree murder trial that will likely begin early next year, according to Assistant District Attorney Richard Carroll, who is prosecuting the case. Sled and Hagerhall, researchers in the University's Biochemistry and Biophysics Department, were working late last October 31, conducting experiments in their Richards Building laboratories at 3700 Hamilton Walk. "When we finished the experiment, we were hungry and tired and decided to go home quickly," Hagerhall said. They began the trek to 4405 Osage Avenue, a nondescript white house where Sled, Hagerhall and Dima lived in a first-floor apartment. As they walked down the 4300 block of Larchwood Avenue shortly after 11 p.m., a man approached them, according to Hagerhall. "The person who came walking towards us on the sidewalk? made no special impression[;] perhaps he looked a bit depressed, that's all," Hagerhall said. "When he had almost passed us, the attack came very suddenly and totally unexpected. There was no prior threat or demand for money." Hagerhall declined to discuss details of the attack until after the trial. The story, according to police, goes like this: Eugene "Sultan" Harrison, 33, tried to steal Hagerhall's purse. She resisted while Sled fought the attacker. Then Bridgette Black, 26, stabbed Sled five times in the back. The two defendants fled in a car with the third defendant, 30-year-old Yvette Stewart. Police arrested the suspects a couple of weeks after the incident when MAC cameras photographed two of them trying to use Hagerhall's credit cards to withdraw money. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty for all three defendants, Carroll said. The Impact Sled's death shook a University community still reeling from local activist Kathy Change's self-immolation a week earlier, the shooting of a student on campus a month earlier and a rash of more than 30 robberies since the beginning of the fall semester. "People were in absolute shock when they learned of his death," said Ilene Rosenstein, director of the University's student counseling service. "The reaction was not different than one would expect -- feeling outraged and angered and a tremendous sense of loss for a very interesting colleague." The loss hit friends and colleagues hard. They described Sled -- whom they knew by his nickname, Volodya -- as smart, witty and friendly, a man who was serious about his research but still found time to joke around. "He was a really nice, wonderful person," said Biochemistry and Biophysics Professor Tomoko Ohnishi, who worked closely with Sled on several projects after he emigrated to the United States from Moscow in 1992. Ohnishi, 66, said nothing like this had ever happened in her 30 years at Penn. She described Sled as a "very good thinker" who "was so happy" about his job and his life. Sled's arrival at the University bridged the geographical and linguistic gap between collaborating researchers at Penn and Moscow State University. He initially helped translate articles from a Russian biochemistry journal into English, Ohnishi said. Although the department has filled Sled's research associate and Hagerhall's post-doctoral fellow positions, his death has left a void -- emotionally as well as academically. "It was a very sad year, extremely sad," Biochemistry and Biophysics Department Chairperson Leslie Dutton, 56, said. "Volodya was not some person who you didn't quite know." Sled and Hagerhall's departures have left the 4400 block of Osage Avenue a little quieter, much to the regret of their former neighbors. Conrad Hamerman, a landscape architect who lives a few houses down from where Sled had lived, fondly recalled hearing the regular sounds of their talking and singing. He added that the couple and their friends formed "a community within this community." "Suddenly, out of nowhere, appears this evil," Hamerman said. "For a long time, there was no more partying." Hamerman grew up in what he called a "liberal" Swiss family in which favoring the death penalty was unheard of. Now Hamerman wants to see Sled's killers die. Safety The murder left Sled's friends and colleagues feeling a bit more concerned about their personal safety, a little bit more cautious when walking at night. People leave the office earlier and come in earlier in order to get the same amount of work done, Ohnishi said. And there's less foot traffic in Sled and Hagerhall's old neighborhood, according to Thomas Papadopolous, 55, who works at the Wurst House Pizzeria at 43rd and Larchwood. "There used to be people walking all night long," he said. The establishment's business has declined about 20 percent since the murder, Papadopoulos added. Other neighbors, however, insist that the area is safe and what happened to Sled was a random act of violence. "He was in the wrong place at the wrong time," said Jim Mosatter, 64, who has lived at 44th and Osage since 1961. "It could happen anywhere. You can't lock yourself in the house at night." The Legacy Sled's memory will live on indefinitely, thanks to the University-based Johnson Foundation for Molecular Biophysics, the country's oldest biophysics institute. The foundation is sponsoring an annual lecture in Sled's memory. The first speaker will be Andrei Vinogradov, Sled's mentor at Moscow State and a collaborator with the Penn research team. "It was a personal loss" for Vinogradov and the others in Moscow, said Dutton, the foundation's director. "They were close to his family. Of course, it cut this collaborative line off for that time." Vinogradov's son, Sergei, knew Sled for a few years in Moscow but didn't become close friends with him until they began working together at Penn a couple of years ago. "These things just don't go away," said Vinogradov, 30, who still lives above Sled's former apartment at 4405 Osage. Sled's research centered on how cells process energy and the molecular makeup of the cell structures that perform that task. Coming to the University allowed Sled to use an advanced technique known as electron paramagnetic resonance, or EPR, for the first time. The Russian lab he had worked at couldn't afford the equipment, instead relying on their American counterparts to perform the experiments. "He came and he was so happy to learn the EPR technique," Ohnishi said. "He was always saying [humorously], 'This is my dream'." Sled's memory lives on in several yet-to-be published papers that will bear his name as one of the authors. The posthumous attribution seems fitting for a man whose Russian grade-school classmates nicknamed "The Chemist" for his precocious interest in the subject. Dutton and Ohnishi are working on several papers that draw on research Sled did in his final months. Sled's name has already appeared as an author of more than 30 articles, and his research has been cited in many more. "His name carries on," Dutton said.

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