The Man Who Knew Too Much

48 Hours Mystery Reports On Murder Of U.S. Journalist In Moscow

(CBS)  What possible connection could that have had with his death? "He had visited Tolyatti, and he was very interested in the car business in general," says Michael Klebnikov.

"If it's true that Paul was preparing something big on Togliatti, or had received documents, all I can say is that's a very, very dangerous area to be looking into," says Franchetti.

In Togliatti, murder is a way of life. In fact, Klebnikov said, he'd learned that when the authorities finally cracked down on local gangs, they uncovered 65 contract killings. Most of the killings involved local mob bosses fighting for turf. But reporters have been targets as well.

One of the last journalists to die was a newspaper editor who was writing a series of articles on fraud at the Togliatti auto plant. He was stabbed to death with something resembling an ice pick.

"Paul Klebnikov had just started looking into this murder when he was gunned down," says Karan Nersisyan, the lawyer for the editor's family. Nersisyan was about to give Klebnikov papers found on the man's desk - rough drafts of articles the editor had been working on before he was stabbed.

"There are very few journalists in Russia today whom I would trust enough," says Nersisyan. "Very few, almost none. But I did trust Klebnikov. I believed that this information would be in good hands with him."

Was there something in those papers, something in the Togliatti story itself that someone wanted to stop Klebnikov from publishing -- and wanted it badly enough to order his murder?

Who else might have had a motive? Another of Klebnikov's journalistic targets comes to mind, a man who Klebnikov called one of the leaders of the Chechen mafia. He was profiled in Klebnikov's most recent book, "Conversation With A Barbarian."