Krasnokamensk Serial Killer Evaded Death Penalty in 1990s

Chats in Smolenka are buzzing: rumors say that the Krasnokamensk ripper, who took the lives of four women and mutilated two more in the 1990s, has settled there. The man who stabbed his victims with rods and branches has already served his punishment and had his criminal record expunged. After being released from the colony, the killer committed another offense and now leads a quiet life as an ordinary citizen. We recall what kind of person he was, what drove him to crime, and how the most terrifying maniac of Krasnokamensk was caught.

Names and surnames in the text have been changed. In preparing the material, data and quotes from the investigation by Eva Merkacheva «The Maniac Who Fed on Women»s Blood Achieved Expungement of Criminal Record«, published on July 16, 2024, on the website »MK.RU« were used.

The Beast«s Hunt

His first attack was on 16 April 1995 in the courtyard of one of the houses. Around 23:00, he approached 34-year-old Anna. The man was polite and offered her a cigarette. She was drunk and agreed, so he walked her home. On the way, they argued. Anna tried to run away, but Victor caught up with her, threw her to the ground, tore her clothes, and cut off her right breast. But that wasn«t all—he pierced Anna»s body with a picked-up branch.

Apparently, he was just testing his strength then, and the victim survived. She was found by passersby unconscious with multiple stab and cut wounds—as if he was signing his name on her face and body with a knife. She couldn«t remember who attacked her. At that time, no one thought it was a serial killer, and he himself lay low.

He went hunting again on 8 December 1995 and then couldn«t stop. The victim was 43-year-old Inna. The ripper threw her to the ground, hit her several times, tore her clothes, and strangled her. The victim»s body with cut wounds on the abdomen was found on a wasteland; the woman had been strangled with her own tights.

The wait for a new crime wasn«t long. On the eve of the New Year, 1996, almost at midnight on 30 December, on another wasteland, a naked woman was found again. It was 34-year-old Kira. The killer attacked the girl near his home, strangled her, tore her clothes, and pierced her with metal reinforcement. Medics managed to save her, but she, like the previous survivor, couldn»t remember anything about the attacker.

The ripper reminded of himself again in early February 1996. On the night of 10 to 11, again on a wasteland, a man attacked 40-year-old Elena. He tore the woman«s clothes and pierced the victim»s body with a branch. Moreover, he cut the woman up. As was later established, she died from pain shock.

Then rumors spread through the city. Not only were the crimes themselves discussed, but there were attempts to understand who the killer was. For some reason, everyone already knew that he lived in the Central microdistrict, meaning he wouldn«t attack those he lived near. As it turned out later, the address matched. But the illusion of safety for residents of the »tseshki« (a colloquial term for the microdistrict) was, of course, just a mirage. He only went hunting at night, attacked on wastelands against lonely, often intoxicated women walking alone, and hardly asked them where they lived. It was also said that the ripper committed attacks on days when groups of so-called shuttle traders (kemele) left for China.

While townspeople tormented themselves with guesses about the killer«s identity, he prepared a bloody surprise for International Women»s Day on 8 March. On the night of 1 March, on the territory of a kindergarten, not far from each other, two female bodies were found—26-year-old Irina and 31-year-old Tatyana. As it became known later, the victims were friends who had apparently been celebrating something that day, as they were intoxicated. Both bodies were mutilated—the killer pierced them with metal rods; one victim had skull bones broken and literally pressed into her head, the other had her right breast cut off. Rumors circulated in the city that a note was found near one of the bodies, in which the ripper declared that he had thus congratulated the townspeople on International Women«s Day.

There could have been more victims. At least 10 women reported that the maniac had somehow communicated with them.

As «MK» writes, one woman told how he attacked her after 50 minutes of ordinary conversation. According to her, he, threatening with a knife, led her to a deserted place, threw her to the ground, and started biting her cheeks until they bled. Then the sadist made a cross-shaped cut on his victim«s back, but didn»t finish what he started, saying he wouldn«t kill her because her son was serving in the army. According to the victim, the maniac said he wanted to take revenge on his wife this way.

Another woman told how in a park, a man with a broken branch in his hands caught up with her and asked if she knew him. And then he began introducing himself: «I am the one who…» But the woman didn«t panic; she didn»t show that she was scared, tried to talk to him, reminded him of his mother. Thus, she managed to get away from him into an entrance. Finally, she told him: «You can be better.» He answered briefly: «No.»

How the Ripper Was Caught

After the March murders, all criminal cases were combined into one, and a joint investigative-operational group of the regional prosecutor«s office and the police department (UV) was created. In the city, they began checking previously convicted individuals and those with developmental disabilities or mental illnesses, as well as those prone to sadistic manifestations or noted for an unhealthy interest in women.

Patrols and undercover young female police and prosecutor«s office employees began going out onto the streets of Krasnokamensk in the evening and night. Schools held talks with children, especially girls. A curfew wasn»t declared then, but people tried not to go out at night. However, the criminal lay low, and they couldn«t catch him.

Then investigators decided to re-interview the surviving victims of the ripper, but they could only tell that it was a middle-aged man in dark clothing. However, after talking with a psychiatrist, one of the victims remembered that the attacker had mentioned that his wife had recently gone to China. And this casually said phrase helped identify the criminal.

They began checking the husbands of all women who had traveled to China at the time of the crimes. One of the men during the conversation started to worry excessively, which served as a reason to search his apartment, on the entrance door of which they could find a small bloodstain that could belong to one of the victims. Moreover, on the victims« belongings, fibers were found that matched the fibers of the suspect»s coat and trousers. Based on these, essentially indirect, pieces of evidence, it was decided to take the suspect into custody. He denied his guilt.

Later, a witness was found who said that on the night of 1 March 1996, when two bodies were found at once, a man had harassed her on the street, and she identified him as the detained man. Moreover, his neighbors reported seeing blood on the suspect«s clothing. His family members said that he constantly carried a knife with him and sometimes washed his outer clothing himself.

Investigators tricked him and, speaking about this testimony, created the illusion that they had sufficient evidence of the suspect«s guilt, and he finally gave a confession. Later, however, he retracted it and, together with his wife, began writing complaints to various authorities, accusing the investigation of bias and exerting physical and psychological pressure on him, but his arguments were quickly refuted.

During the investigation, the accused underwent two sexological-psychological-psychiatric examinations, the results of which revealed an anomaly of sexual attraction in the form of sadism with necrophilic tendencies; however, at the time of the crimes, he was aware of his actions and was sane. According to one version, presented in the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MVD) newspaper «Shchit i Mech» (Shield and Sword) in 1998, the motive for the crimes could have been hatred of women due to the man«s developed impotence.

The Ripper«s Background

Who was the ripper? Victor was born in 1962 in Krasnoyarsk. As Eva Merkacheva writes, his family was incomplete. When the boy was a few months old, his father abandoned his wife with two small children—little Vitya and his 3-year-old sister.

The woman raised the children alone. She worked as a kindergarten teacher and, according to Victor, was kind. New relationships for the future maniac«s mother began when he turned 13. Victor had good relations with his stepfather.

After finishing school, Victor studied at a vocational school to become a fitter for control and measuring instruments. Served in the army. Then married a girl eight years older than him, who was raising a daughter alone. He told psychiatrists that his stepdaughter at first didn«t call him anything, but after a year, she involuntarily blurted out »dad,« and he cried from joy. Three years later, a common child was born into the family, also a girl. The family was almost ideal, but Victor drank heavily. In 1987, he was treated for chronic alcoholism.

Victor and his wife worked at the sulfuric acid plant of the Priargunsky Production Mining and Chemical Association. During perestroika, they quit. Victor«s wife got a job as a watchman and was a »shuttle trader« (kemele)—periodically traveling to China for goods to sell. Victor couldn»t get a new job and sat at home. Just in those very «tseshki» where he attacked.

At the time of his arrest, he was 34 years old, his biological daughter was nine years old, his stepdaughter—20 years old. It turned out that he committed all his crimes when his wife was either on duty or on business trips to China.

— What«s interesting, no one in the family suspected what he was doing, — said one of the police officers involved in his search. — According to his wife, he was characterized as calm, compliant, caring. He never raised a hand against his wife or children.

Why He Killed

After his arrest, Victor communicated extensively with a psychiatrist. There, he talked about his life and admitted that he was only afraid of mice.

According to him, he committed three unusual acts for him. He recalled that in 1983, he tried to commit suicide. Then he was drunk and quarreled with his wife. In 1991, he almost axed his stepdaughter«s guest. Two years later, again drunk, in a fit of rage, he climbed into a women»s booth. They didn«t let him in. So he broke the glass to open the door from inside. He fell from the stairs and was agitated for a long time after that, as he put it, »like a beast.«

— Unable to cope with his alcohol addiction and not finding a good job, — a police officer said, — he gradually lost prestige in the eyes of his wife and already adult stepdaughter, endured humiliating nicknames from her. Stopped respecting himself. Felt he was in a dead end. To get out of it, he started reading a lot of specific literature. He was attracted to books describing cruel scenes. <…> The second method of pseudo-compensation was alcoholic intoxication.

Over time, malice and rage began to accompany every intoxication. Victor went out onto the street, filled with resentments, and transferred all this onto the first woman he met.

— About the first attack, he told it like this, — an expert said. — On 16 April, he drank a bottle, «it was dark in his soul, black, disgusting,» as he had been «made into a househusband,» the older daughter didn«t help around the house. Then he drank another bottle (his wife was on duty), went out at night, wanted to talk it out. Met a drunk woman who agreed, allowed herself to be hugged. But some malice arose against her. A desire to dismember appeared, but not to take life. Remembered a book he read, where a queen, a hundred-year-old crone, chose beautiful girls and cut off their breasts. So he did that…

The crimes became more brazen. At the same time, it was apparently important to Victor that the victim resist, run away. He killed the last two women without even trying to talk to them, as if murder itself became one of the goals.

According to Eva Merkacheva, experts were shocked that the maniac experienced pleasant sensations from catching the victim, biting her, tearing her clothes, and then living tissues, sensations of the smell and taste of fresh blood. The pathological attraction was developing. Attacks became more and more frequent. In the morning, his state returned to normal, so memories of what he had done were vague, unclear, accompanied by a feeling of some foreignness, as if someone else had done it.

He Was Supposed to Be Executed

The ripper«s case was considered by an experienced judge of the Chita Regional Court, Radzhab Dzhafarov. The killer tried to prove that he was innocent, that he had incriminated himself under pressure, that the victims were confused in their testimonies.

— I had no doubts about his guilt, — Radzhab Dzhafarov said. — I especially note several points. First—the dog that the police brought to the scene of one of the murders led to the door of his apartment. Second—when he was detained and brought to the prosecutor, he said something like: «Don»t let me go, otherwise I«ll do something terrible again.» Third—he said that he committed everything precisely during his wife«s trips. That is, she would go to China, he would drink at home and go out to look for a victim. Something like a »fogging« happened to him, but experts found an explanation for this. Generally, much was explained by the psychiatric examination. Fourth—he himself gave a confession in the presence of a lawyer. Already sitting in the detention center, Victor learned how to answer correctly in court. And therefore, at the hearings, he took a position of denial. Regarding the sentence—don»t think it was so easy in those years to make a decision to impose the death penalty. Everything was carefully weighed and analyzed. Any errors were excluded.

In the newspaper «Zabaykalsky Rabochiy» (Transbaikal Worker) of 11 September 1998, in the article «Sentenced to Death,» the state prosecutor, interdistrict prosecutor, justice advisor Kiselev wrote that the court of first instance sentenced the ripper to an exceptional measure of punishment—death by firing squad.

Victor filed an appeal. On 27 November 1998, the Judicial Collegium for Criminal Cases of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation considered his complaint. The Supreme Court considered the investigation incomplete, with no answers to some questions. As a result, the sentence was overturned, and the case was sent for new investigation. At this moment, the ripper fell under the moratorium—he could no longer be executed. The court of second instance issued a new sentence to the ripper—he was given the maximum at that time, 15 years, with the first 13 years to be served in prison.

What Happened After the Colony

As «MK» writes, Victor was released in April 2011, returned to Krasnokamensk, and began leading an ordinary life. And seven years later, he again came to the attention of law enforcement. On the evening of September 27, 2018, in Chita, he hit a woman crossing the road at a pedestrian crossing with his Zhiguli. The court sentenced him to 1 year and 2 months of imprisonment and ordered him to pay the victim 500,000 rubles (approximately $5,000 at current rates).

But Victor did not return behind bars. He challenged this decision and achieved the exclusion from the sentence of information about his previous term, as six years had passed since his release. Thus, his criminal record for his atrocities was expunged.

And for the traffic accident, as a minor crime committed for the first time and without aggravating circumstances, he was given a restriction of freedom for two years, with an additional punishment of deprivation of the right to engage in activities related to driving a vehicle for a period of 1 year.

— Purely theoretically, a person with such personality traits does not reform, — believes the chief freelance psychiatrist of the Ministry of Health of Zabaykalsky Krai, Doctor of Medical Sciences, Professor Olga Stupina. — Well, how will he behave further? We«ll live and see.