How 'Satan' from Gryazi murdered with impunity for over a decade
Viktor Sotnikov is now serving a life sentence at the notorious «Black Dolphin» penal colony.
«I can twist all your heads off and nothing will happen to me.» In the early 2000s, residents of the town of Gryazi in Lipetsk Oblast could hear these words in broad daylight from their acquaintance and neighbor, Viktor Sotnikov. A tall man in his early 40s, a father of two, and a teetotaler who brewed moonshine, Sotnikov frightened the people of Gryazi. They tried to avoid his house, where the police couldn«t even stop the moonshine trade. And women refused to get into Viktor»s car when he offered them a ride.
But the residents of Gryazi did not know the whole truth about their neighbor. Over 11 years, Viktor Sotnikov brutally killed eight people: lone female hitchhikers, drug addicts, moonshine customers, the homeless—those whom no one would miss. When the truth about Sotnikov«s deeds came to light, he was nicknamed Satan—and for good reason. This is the story of the horrific crimes of the Lipetsk maniac, which remained unsolved for over a decade.
The Moonshiner
Viktor Sotnikov was born on 26 November 1961 in the town of Gryazi. Cruelty manifested in him early: as a child, he hanged his own dog—out of jealousy, because it was more attached to the boy«s sister. The sister herself was also a victim, regularly beaten by the future maniac. And when Sotnikov grew up, he started beating his parents too.
Sotnikov«s mother Elena was still alive when he was arrested and said her son had frightened her since childhood.
In his youth, Viktor sometimes drank, but quickly quit and then spent his entire life not only abstaining from alcohol but also from smoking. Neighbors recounted that even before the first murders, Sotnikov raped at least two women. He had to pay them off with his own property. First, he sold his separate house and moved into a half of a duplex. Then he got rid of his new Volga and switched to a simpler car.
At 30, Sotnikov began living with a woman named Valentina. According to neighbors, the maniac beat her almost to death, and when she tried to run away, he forcibly brought her back. Valentina only managed to escape from the man on her fourth attempt. After that, Sotnikov married a 25-year-old woman named Svetlana, a resident of a neighboring village. In the first year of their life together, the woman literally never left the house: her husband forbade it. Two children, a boy and a girl, were born into this marriage.
Sotnikov earned a living mainly by distilling moonshine. Not least because of this, his house had a bad reputation in Gryazi. Local alcoholics constantly visited—«they came and went in droves,» as the Sotnikovs« neighbor, Mikhail Kukin, recounted.
«I [told him]: »The police will catch you for the moonshine!« But he wasn»t afraid of them. He was always making moonshine. … [Viktor] didn«t really socialize with anyone. He never visited anyone himself. People only came to him. And the police were here endlessly. They tried to shut down his moonshine operation, but it was useless. I asked him myself: »Tell me, what do you make your moonshine from—it doesn«t smell like moonshine or alcohol at all»,« said Kukin.
Naberezhnaya Street in Gryazi was where the serial killer once lived and ran his illegal operation.
Another neighbor, Tatyana, admitted: local residents were afraid of both Sotnikov himself and his regular visitors.
«Drug addicts and drunks came to him. And they»d do anything for a glass of moonshine! … Many were even afraid to walk down the street when Viktor was driving his car, because he always said: «I can twist all your heads off and nothing will happen to me.» He once chased a woman from house No. 42 and another neighbor with an axe: he must have been losing it. … It happened, you«d be walking home with bags, if he offered: »Tanya, need a ride?«—God forbid, I know I»d end up in the cemetery right away!« the woman recounted.
Satan and His Accomplice
Sotnikov committed his first murder at age 38. Late on the evening of 30 September 2000, he saw 19-year-old Virginia at a bus stop trying to hitch a ride. The maniac himself claimed she agreed to go to his house and drink. There, they allegedly quarreled, which led to the murder. Virginia«s mother later stated that her daughter would never have gone to a stranger»s house to drink alcohol. Be that as it may, Sotnikov first beat the girl, then loaded her into his car, took her to a field, and burned her in a haystack.
The mother of his first known victim, Virginia, attended the trial against Viktor Sotnikov.
The next four murders—from June 2002 to March 2003—Satan committed with an accomplice, Alexander Lenyoshin, who lived in his shed. In three cases, the pattern was the same as in the first crime: a woman hitchhikes, is beaten, and dumped in a deserted place. One of the victims, 31-year-old Zoya, they left to freeze to death in the snow. They tried to drown the body of another, 25-year-old Inessa, and when that failed, buried it at an abandoned stone crusher at a lime factory.
The fourth victim of Sotnikov and Lenyoshin was a 46-year-old drug addict named Sergei. He asked for a ride to Tambov Oblast—that«s where the killers dumped his body, in the Petrovsky district.
«You could expect anything from him. I knew the states he got into, the fits he had. He could kill anyone and not say a word. He threatened to kill my daughter if I started talking or ran away from him. I tried to run away, but he found me,» Lenyoshin claimed after he was sentenced.
Alexander Lenyoshin was Sotnikov«s accomplice in four of the murders committed between 2002 and 2003.
After the spring of 2003, the killings temporarily stopped, and Lenyoshin did not participate in the subsequent crimes.
Sotnikov committed a new murder only in 2005. He first got 32-year-old Valentina drunk at home, then took her to the Matyrskoye Reservoir, laid her in the snow, and drove off—the intoxicated woman died of hypothermia.
Then there was another long break. In 2008, Viktor«s first cohabitant, Valentina, successfully escaped, and he began living with Svetlana. She allegedly came to the maniac for moonshine, after which he simply didn»t let her leave the house. They only married after the woman became pregnant.
Sotnikov killed again in 2010—all in front of his wife, Svetlana. The maniac brought home a girl whose identity was never established. Sotnikov stripped her, beat her, and shaved her head, then put a Snow Maiden«s hat on her head. In this hat, he took his victim to the bank of the Matyra River, where he stabbed her to death.
The last murder was committed in November 2011. A homeless man named Alexander Shkatov helped Sotnikov chop firewood, after which the maniac suggested they go together to the village of Nizhny Telyuluy: allegedly, he needed to pick up his wife. On the way, Sotnikov beat the homeless man to death and dumped the body in a forest belt. And then he forced his wife to bury the murder weapon—a metal ball—in her parents« garden.
Satanists and Voices
The murder of Shkatov was the last not because Sotnikov decided to stop his horrific crimes. Simply, the authorities finally got a lead: they quickly found out what the homeless man had been doing just before his death. They started surveilling Sotnikov«s house. But before the police could gather substantial evidence, the maniac was turned in by his wife. Svetlana couldn»t bear what was happening and contacted a local police officer from her home village.
Svetlana Sotnikova knew about at least the last two murders committed by her husband before reporting him.
As the woman later admitted on a TV show, she hadn«t reported the murders she knew about earlier out of fear.
«I was afraid. He said he would slaughter my entire family,» Svetlana said. «And he already had plans to kill more people. He would come and say: »We need to kill our neighbor Pasha, he saw that man [the last victim], he«ll turn me in.» I tried to talk him out of it, but there are no words to persuade him.«
Soon Sotnikov was detained, and he immediately began giving testimony. His accomplice in four murders, Lenyoshin, was also detained. Both were found sane, despite Sotnikov«s attempts to pass himself off as a madman. He claimed he only killed »sectarians« and heard voices in his head. However, this was only during the investigation and in court—afterwards, he told journalists that he killed because he flew into a rage and then remembered almost nothing.
«I don»t want to remember,« the maniac claimed, telling the show »Honest Detective« about the very first murder. »She answered me something rudely, I hit her without talking. I killed her and couldn«t believe what I had done.»
During his trial, Sotnikov claimed to hear voices and target «sectarians,» which the court found to be a ruse.
To other journalists, Sotnikov answered even more simply. According to Satan, he only killed when he «wasn»t friends with his head.« And when he »was friends,« he didn»t kill.
«They [the victims] were not to blame for anything. But in that state I would have done in anyone, rich or poor—it makes no difference to me. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time,» the maniac said.
In October 2013, Viktor Sotnikov was sentenced to life imprisonment. He is serving his sentence in one of Russia«s harshest prisons—the »Black Dolphin« strict-regime penal colony in Sol-Iletsk, Orenburg Oblast. His accomplice Alexander Lenyoshin received 19 years.
