By Allison Klein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 4, 2010; B01
Police don't know what made Natalia Wilson allegedly snap. But they say the reported mail-order bride from Russia killed her husband's 8-year-old son and his ex-wife from Bulgaria on Monday night in Dale City.
The women had no known confrontations before Monday night, when Slavka P. Naydenova, 41, and her son, Paul A. Wilson, were fatally stabbed, according to Prince William police and law enforcement sources. The bodies were discovered by Naydenova's current husband just after 11 p.m.
Investigators would not talk about motives in the case, declining to say whether the crime was over money, love, jealousy or something else. Police are looking into reports that Wilson was a mail-order bride and are investigating how Naydenova met her ex-husband.
Police worked with the FBI's Russian and Bulgarian interpreters to investigate the case and charge Wilson, of the 1900 block of Columbia Pike in Arlington, with two counts of murder on Tuesday.
The victim had been married to Arlington real estate agent Lester Wilson, who has not been charged in the case. The suspect is his wife.
"My brother is totally distraught," Sharen Kelly, Lester Wilson's sister, said from New Jersey in a phone interview. "The family is still in shock."
Natalia Wilson has been married to Lester Wilson for less than a year, Kelly said. Kelly, who lives in Perth Amboy, said she met her brother's new wife only once.
"I didn't get the sense she was unstable," Kelly said. "Her English wasn't very good, so we couldn't communicate very well."
Naydenova and Lester Wilson were married for about nine years and had one son, Paul. The couple remained friends after their divorce, Kelly said.
Paul was a second-grader at Mary G. Porter Traditional School in Woodbridge, police said.
Naydenova moved to Europe with Paul for several years, and Lester Wilson would go for two to three months at a time to spend time with his son, according to his sister.
"Paul was his baby," Kelly said. "He also did anything he could to maintain a good relationship with his ex-wife."
Naydenova, who was a U.S. citizen, moved back to Virginia in part to enroll Paul in school and also so he could be near his father, Kelly said.
Lester Wilson has two older sons and an ex-wife in Australia, Kelly said. She said the family, originally from Aruba, hopes that he will come to New Jersey, where he spent his teen years and has a support network.
"This comes as such a shock," she said. "I'm hoping we can bring him here and calm him down and talk to him to find out what happened."
Police said they are still investigating whether Natalia Wilson, who is not a U.S. citizen, is in the country legally.
They also are trying to determine how Natalia Wilson got from Arlington to Naydenova's Dale City home, in the 4500 block of Hanover Court. Naydenova bought the home with Lester Wilson eight years ago, police said.
"It's unclear whether someone drove her there -- maybe an acquaintance -- or she maybe hired somebody," said Prince William Police Chief Charlie T. Deane.
Deane said he was pleased that police made an arrest the day after the crime. In the first few hours, it was "truly a whodunit kind of case," he said, partly because of language barriers.
"A case like this can cause great fear in a community," Deane said. "I'm glad we closed this quickly."
The slayings were the county's first homicides this year. In 2009, Prince William had 11 killings.
Deane said the case is unusual for several reasons. "It's particularly rare to have an adult and a child killed," he said.
Police ask anyone with information to contact Prince William County Crime Solvers at 703-670-3700 or 866-411-TIPS.
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
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