Caretaker's Curse and a Teenager's Death

Here's the situation.
Somewhere in early 2006, a guy named Zhenya joined our yard crew. A completely ordinary type: played PC games, sometimes kicked a ball around, smoked cigarettes, occasionally got into fights. Of his merits at the time, I can only recall two: he had internet access (via a card) and his parents were often away from home, so sometimes we hung out at his place. Anyway, after about a year and a half, Zhenya started acting tough and sometimes got a bit too full of himself, which led to the situation described.
May 2008, evening, I'm at home playing on the PC. Knock on the door, I open it – a few guys from the street, and Zhenya with them. They all look totally pissed off. I ask what happened, the guys ask me to come outside. Okay, I get ready, go out, and listen to the story:
"We met up, went to the 'moryachok' (that's what the kindergarten was called), sat around as usual, chatting with each other, at some point the old lady caretaker showed up, started bitching at us about the mess (spit, cigarette butts, sunflower seed shells)... We sit there quiet, not arguing, but Zheka started arguing with her, then even told the old hag to go fuck herself several times. The old lady up and says, like, 'You little bastard, you'll die no later than autumn.' She turned around and left. Well, we got out of there too, and came to you. Do you believe in stuff like that?"

Opinions in the group about what happened were divided. Some believed in the curse, even advised the guy to behave more modestly, personally I doubted it. Hell, how many arguments in favor of death could I see? Not a single one, which is what I said. After a while, Zhenya (who had been shaken up before) relaxed a bit, started acting more confidently. I remember with what bravado he asked us to get drunk at his funeral, plus put some substances in the coffin and other nonsense.

... August of the same year. I leave the house into the yard, see a mutual acquaintance who shocked me with the news – Zhenya was killed. In the north of the region, in some village, with a hunting rifle. The kid was about 15. I myself would never have believed in such a thing, but the old lady didn't lie, it turns out.