How Nikolai Dzhumagaliev became a killer
His ordinary appearance concealed extreme cruelty uncommon for the late Soviet era.
The Almaty Cannibal, Iron Fang, Satan — these were the nicknames given to the most infamous Soviet cannibal, Nikolai Dzhumagaliev. His victims were at least ten people, mostly women in Kazakhstan (he ‘operated’ where he lived). A court found him insane and sent him for compulsory treatment in a psychiatric clinic. But even the walls of a specialized institution could not hold him.
«I always had several girlfriends»
Dzhumagaliev’s childhood in the Kazakh village of Uzynagash (Almaty Region, Kazakhstan) was entirely ordinary. He grew up the only boy among three sisters, studied without distinction yet without major problems. After school his path was predictable: a railway vocational school and then a job by assignment.
At 18, as was customary, Dzhumagaliev was conscripted into the army. After returning to civilian life, he tried to become a driver and enter a university, but failed and roamed the country for several years — working as a sailor, an electrician, a bulldozer operator. No job became permanent, and he never stayed long in any city. Eventually he returned to his native village and got a job at the fire station.
His relationships with women did not work out either. Women cast glances at the tall, sturdy young man, but he himself treated them with barely concealed disdain.
— I began my sex life in 1970, when I was 18, and I always had several girlfriends. They loved me, but I don’t know why, — Dzhumagaliev said in an interview. — In 1977 I contracted syphilis from Tatyana P., and in May 1978 I picked up trichomoniasis from a girl named Lyuba. At the same time I was cohabiting with Tatyana Ya.
Film and television projects revisited his crimes, methods, and repeated escapes from custody.
«I ate this woman’s meat for about a month»
Dzhumagaliev considered women unclean and depraved, like the Kuban Strangler Levon Aroyan. So he decided to hunt them. He committed his first murder in 1979 and prepared for it very carefully.
— I always loved hunting, often went out hunting, but it was the first time I went after a woman. When I reached the Uzynagash — Maibulak road, I saw some young woman. She was walking alone. Inside me everything started “thumping”, and I rushed after her. Hearing my steps, she turned, but I caught up with her and, grabbing her by the neck with my hand, dragged her toward a dump. She began to resist, and then I cut her throat with a knife. Then I drank her blood, — that is how the killer described what happened.
The dangerous murderer ultimately avoided the death penalty in late-Soviet criminal justice.
At that moment he noticed a passing bus and lay down on the ground beside the dead woman. When it was out of sight, Dzhumagaliev warmed his hands on her body and then undressed and dismembered it.
— I cut the breasts off the corpse together with strips of fat, cut off the calves, separated the pelvis and thighs. Then I packed all those parts into a backpack and brought them home. I rendered some of the fat and salted some and ate it like lard, — the maniac recounted. — Once, after grinding the meat in a meat grinder, I even made dumplings. I always ate all the meat myself and never offered it to anyone. Twice I fried the heart and kidneys. I fried the meat too. But it was tough, and cooking it in its own fat took a long time. I ate this woman’s meat for about a month. The first time I ate human flesh, I forced myself, and then I got used to it.
«Fresh blood purifies the soul»
Soon law enforcement discovered the body of the first victim. They opened a criminal case but could not find the killer. This impunity untied Dzhumagaliev’s hands. In the next half-year, he committed five more murders.
— I had thoughts that I was fighting matriarchy, that I was performing a noble feat, — the maniac confided to journalists. — Society, I thought, needed to be healed starting with that… Hard work — I didn’t spare myself there, and evidently that’s where it began. And when I came back, I thought it was all right and didn’t realize what I was doing.
His actions grew ever more audacious: the cannibal not only attacked women on their way home but also broke into their dwellings. Once he entered a private house, killed a mother and daughter, and then dismembered their bodies. His goal was not rape; he killed people with perverse cruelty. The cannibal explained his actions this way: «I read in a book that fresh blood purifies the soul».
— In every such killer’s life there were serious failures in their sex life, and in the vast majority — genuine catastrophes, meaning they did not succeed as men, — said criminologist and psychiatrist Yuri Antonyan. — The killer‑cannibal Dzhumagaliev felt revulsion toward sexual intercourse.
«There is no danger to others»
Suddenly, the attacks on women stopped. That happened because Dzhumagaliev was arrested — but not for the serial killings. Six months after his first attack on a woman, he shot a colleague from the fire service. It was this ordinary criminal offense that interrupted the chain of horrific murders for a time, and the cannibal who had terrified Soviet citizens was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
— His behavior is orderly; the patient is calm. He willingly works in the ward, helping the staff. We have no grounds to consider him dangerous to others. He can safely be in society and be monitored in a regular hospital, — that is how doctors at the clinic described him.
Dzhumagaliev spent less than a year in the psychiatric clinic. After being released, the cannibal returned to his old ways, and his crimes became even more brutal. He committed three more murders, one of which investigators solved only 24 years later.
«A wild animal in human form»
The fatal murder the cannibal committed while in the company of acquaintances. He lured one of the women gathered there into bed, and afterward, in a fit of sadistic ecstasy, cut off her head, drained the blood into a container, and dismembered her. Drinking companions who happened to enter the room stumbled upon this deranged scene.
— Later, during interrogations, he recalled: «I was curious how my friends would react when I showed them this head», — remembered Viktor Guldan, head of the psychological laboratory at the Moscow Regional Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry. — I asked him how they reacted. And he replied: «Their reaction exceeded all my expectations: they couldn’t even stand, they dropped to all fours and ran out of the apartment».
Dzhumagaliev, second from left, participates in an official crime-scene reenactment.
Shocked, Dzhumagaliev’s drinking companions called the militia. Seeing them, he fled — into the mountains. He did not hide there for long, however. The criminal was caught and sentenced. But not to the supreme penalty — the cannibal was again placed in a secure psychiatric hospital. He spent eight years there. And then, when doctors decided he had become less dangerous, he escaped from under escort.
— He is a wild animal embodied in human form. The basic structure is male dominance, the law of nature. He will never understand or accept human life. Dzhumagaliev is the leader of the pack, a breeder, clever and cunning, with a strong instinct for self‑preservation. Even nature is on his side. By finding him insane, they spared his life. He survived and retained his reason after being in a special‑type hospital, — that is how Yevgeny Samovichev, a leading specialist on serial crimes at the Main Directorate of Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia (MVD), characterized him.
«His mouth was bloodied»
After escaping, Dzhumagaliev lay low and hid in the mountains between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. No one felt safe, and rumors spread, sowing panic. Many women, out of fear, stopped going out alone. For almost two years he was sought by the militia, pilots, and hang‑glider enthusiasts; later even the military joined the search.
— I turned to the commander of the military unit located in our area, — recalled Alexander Zelychenko, head of Criminal Investigation for the Issyk‑Kul Region (Kyrgyzstan). — He refused dismissively, so I reminded him that the officers’ wives in his barracks were considered the most beautiful women in the district. That worked. The military feared for their wives.
Trying to throw off the investigation, Dzhumagaliev sent a letter from Moscow through a go‑between containing a cynical line: «There are very many beautiful women here. No one will notice their disappearance». At the same time, he murdered another young woman. His tenth victim was an Aktobe (Kazakhstan) student, Gulmiram, in 1990.
Detained Nikolai Dzhumagaliev was declared not criminally responsible due to insanity.
— I saw that the curtains in the temporary hut weren’t drawn the way Gulmiram used to — she was a very modest girl, — a neighbor later recounted, who witnessed the crime. — The light was on, and I noticed there was a stranger in the room. I hesitated for a second, and at that moment a man of about 35 came out of the hut with a knife in his hand and shouted: «Don’t come closer, I’ll shoot!» His mouth was bloodied, and he ran off.
«His release is not under consideration»
The letter ploy distracted investigators only briefly, but there was nowhere left to hide. The maniac then staged a sheep theft, pretending to be an illegal migrant from China, hoping to sit out a minor offense. However, Dzhumagaliev was quickly unmasked and again placed in a psychiatric hospital.
— I often went to see him and talked to him right in the cell. Once I brought him a psychological test with 377 questions. While he was filling it all out, I accidentally fell asleep. Then I woke up, badly frightened, but he was just sitting there continuing the test. I didn’t interest him, — recalled Viktor Guldan.
In 1994, amid the political chaos after the collapse of the USSR, Dzhumagaliev was deemed “recovered” and released. The return of the maniac shocked local residents — women demanded protection, men openly displayed hatred. In the end he was placed permanently in a special hospital.
— His release is not under consideration, especially since, based on the results of judicial review, a new ruling will be issued regarding his further treatment, — the Prosecutor’s Office of Kazakhstan reported at the time.
At the time of his most recent capture, ten years ago, the cannibal Dzhumagaliev was 62. He is still alive, and his blood‑soaked biography has provided the basis for several documentary and feature projects. Among them are the television series «Hounds» (16+), the film «Outside the Law» (16+), the documentary cycle «A Frank Confession» (12+) in the «Cannibals» series, as well as episodes of the program «The Investigation Was Conducted…» (16+) — «Satan» and «Head in a Briefcase», which mention Dzhumagaliev. The maniac’s story also appears in the series «Legends of Soviet Criminal Investigation» (16+) — the episode «Cannibal» — and in the Kazakh–Korean film «Three» (18+), in which the protagonist takes part in catching a killer modeled on Nikolai Dzhumagaliev.
