For two years, a woman in Kazakhstan took solace in knowing that the man she suspected of murdering her brother was in Union County jail awaiting trial.

All that changed about a week ago, when Union County District Attorney Trey Robison made the surprise move to dismiss the first-degree murder charge against former Charlotte Checkers hockey player Bogdan Rudenko, 34.

The key witness, Rudenko's ex-girlfriend, recanted her statement that he confessed to killing his best friend from Kazakhstan, 32-year-old Yuriy Kharitonov, forcing Robison to drop the charge.

Kharitonov's family said they were shocked, upset and worried that no one will be held accountable for the killing.

"I do not think that justice will soon be done. Or worse, never," said Kharitonov's younger sister, Svetlana Kharitonova, in an email from her home in Pavlodar, Kazakhstan, in central Asia.

She also expressed the family's helplessness about events unfolding 6,000 miles away. "It is very frustrating."

Kharitonova learned about Rudenko's release from jail after a friend saw an Observer story about it on a Kazakh news website. "I read the news, (and) I was at first stunned, and my hands shook," she said.

Robison has said he would pursue murder charges against Rudenko or anyone else if other evidence surfaces, "but right now, we can't do that."

In April 2009, Kharitonov had flown to the United States to visit Rudenko in Charlotte and to possibly try to revive his own hockey career. Rudenko's career also had wound down, following a life in the North American minor leagues that spanned 14 years and 18 teams, including the Checkers late in the 2004-05 season. The two old friends had a falling out in America but stayed in touch. Witnesses told police that Rudenko was the last person seen with Kharitonov.

On Dec. 20, 2009, Kharitonov's body was found in the woods behind a Stallings auto repair shop where he had been living. He had been shot in the head, his face was badly beaten, an ear was nearly sliced off and his eyes were gouged out. The gruesome details are still hard for the family to handle.

Days after the body was discovered, Rudenko's ex-girlfriend, Peggy Pellow, told authorities Rudenko was with her in Colorado and had confessed to killing Kharitonov, court records show. Rudenko was arrested soon after at a Colorado hotel.

But even as the investigation pressed on, no physical evidence linked Rudenko to the crime and the gun that killed Kharitonov was never found.

Authorities also wanted to talk to the ex-girlfriend about her own background and concerns that her family thought she had "serious credibility issues," Robison said. That's when she recanted.

The Kharitonovs are left with a lot of questions and few answers. Kharitonova said she did not understand why Rudenko could be held in jail for two years if the evidence against him was not strong. Kharitonov's parents fear that little more will be done to bring their son's killer to justice. "My parents do not want blood," Kharitonova said. "They only want the perpetrators to be punished. ... That's a big dream for my whole family."