Texas pianist finds 2 daughters dead; wife faces mental exam

DALLAS — An internationally renowned concert pianist arrived at his estranged wife’s home in Texas to pick up their two daughters and found the girls slain in their beds, police said Friday. Authorities say their Russian-born mother, who had knife wounds, faces a mental health exam.

Vadym Kholodenko stopped Thursday morning at the suburban Fort Worth home where he formerly lived to pick up Nika, 5, and 1-year-old Michela, Benbrook police Cmdr. David Babcock said. The Ukrainian-born musician found his wife, Sofya Tsygankova, in an “extreme state of distress” and discovered the dead girls.

Kholodenko, who won the prestigious Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 2013, is not a suspect, Babcock said. Police said no suspects were being sought in the deaths of the girls or the stabbing of Tsygankova, who was recovering Friday at a hospital.

Babcock declined to say whether police believe her stab wounds were self-inflicted. Tsygankova was being held on a mental health evaluation, Babcock said. Asked if she was a suspect in the girls’ deaths, he declined to say.

“We are still looking at all avenues,” he said.

Autopsy results were pending on the children, who had no visible trauma, police said.

Kholodenko and his family moved to Fort Worth in 2014 after he won the $50,000-prize Cliburn competition, which resulted in Kholodenko touring with major orchestras.

The couple married in 2010 and filed for divorce in November, according to Tarrant County court records. Babcock said police had responded twice in 2014 to disturbance calls at the home.

Kholodenko routinely picked up the children in the mornings, Babcock said.