LOS ANGELES – For months, Iryna Singerman concealed her double life from her newlywed husband – her shiny gold Mercedes, her illicit affair with a playboy and the house she and her lover purchased together.
Ronald Singerman learned of her secrets two weeks ago, when his 21-year-old wife failed to come home and financial documents belonging to the aspiring model were among the blood-soaked items found in garbage bags dumped in a trash bin behind a strip mall.
A decomposing body found last week was confirmed on Friday to be that of Iryna Singerman, and police have intensified the search for her lover – a millionaire who is fluent in Spanish and is believed to have gone to Mexico.
“If you have a lot of resources, it’s much easier to disappear because of your opportunities for acquiring ID,” John Clark, chief of the Los Angeles Regional Fugitive Task Force, said. “The more money you have, the more opportunities, regardless of where you are in the world.”
The woman’s body – and a purse belonging to Iryna Silverman – were found at a storage facility, in the bed of a Ford
F-150 pickup truck owned by Singerman’s lover, Brian Joseph Cullen, 59.
Police say Cullen has access to millions of dollars and several cars through three companies owned by him and his relatives. And that, police say, could make him difficult to locate.
Police have been looking for Cullen since July 26, when a witness reported seeing him drive a gray Ford Focus hatchback into a parking lot in Woodland Hills and throw two bags into a trash bin. Those items included a bloody baseball bat and documents containing Singerman’s name.
Photographs taken by nearby surveillance cameras helped lead police to Cullen. Authorities searched his Woodland Hills home July 27 and found more blood and other evidence of a struggle.
They also found evidence of Cullen’s relationship with Iryna Singerman.
The young woman’s husband, 50-year-old Ronald Singerman, told police his wife was a model who would frequently be gone for days at a time, Los Angeles Police Department Detective Rick Swanston said. Singerman had a modeling portfolio, but police were unaware of any modeling jobs she held.
Cullen’s neighbors said Iryna Singerman spent most weekends at Cullen’s house in the 5000 block of Medina Road. She drove a gold 2005 Mercedes-Benz registered to both her and her husband and kept the car at Cullen’s Woodland Hills home.
Ronald Singerman didn’t know she bought the car until he received insurance information in the mail, Swanston said.
She was taking real-estate classes, and she and Cullen were in the process of buying a house together in Northridge, possibly as an investment.
Neighbors and co-workers described Cullen as a private man with a bit of a temper. He worked as an independent contractor for Coupon Adventure, a mass-mailing company based in Chatsworth.
“We’re very shocked and saddened by the events that have come down. It was not the Brian Cullen we knew,” said Coupon Adventure owner Bruce Bromberg, who has not heard from Cullen since July 22.
Cullen, who also uses the name Mark Corbett, is described as 5 feet 11 inches tall, 185 pounds, with brown hair and brown eyes.
“We want this case solved. Hopefully somebody will help the police capture this man that we believe is the murderer of (Ronald’s) wife,” Greenberg said.