On March 6, at 10:30 am, Mykhailo Romaniuk, 58, was accompanying Smagliuk, his niece's boyfriend, in an effort to visit the younger man's father, who was in hospital after being seriously wounded by a shelling attack.
Smagliuk and Romaniuk also thought they would find electricity there to charge their phones.
They pedalled together and arrived in a few minutes on Yablunska Street. Then the shooting started.
"We didn't see anybody. I didn't realise until the end where the shots came from. I just heard gunfire and saw him fall. I turned down a lane to escape," Smagliuk said.
Residents told AFP they heard and saw gunfire from numerous directions during the occupation, raising the likelihood that more than one shooter had carried out the killings on the road.
Without the inhabitants grasping it immediately, the street leading to Irpin had become the outpost of Russian units that had taken the town.
Tanks were positioned in residents' gardens and on the street, barricades were set up and troops were deployed in surrounding buildings.
"The first thing they did was to set up and shoot at everything that moved, everyone who approached. They even shot at statues," said Bucha police chief Vitaly Llobas.
Romaniuk's body remained for 28 days on a stretch of pavement with a yellow and white curb –- his swollen face turned to the side in a grimace, orange gloves still on his hands.
His corpse was collected on April 3 following the liberation of the city.