Samara's quiet maniac declared insane and hidden away

The winter of 2007–2008 in Samara was remembered not only for bitter frosts. A quiet, silent horror settled in the Kuibyshevsky and Samara districts. Men vanished one after another. They disappeared on their way home from work, near garages, after a modest drink at a bar. They were not found for months.

Relatives filed reports, detectives checked leads, but the streets kept swallowing people without a trace. A chilling fear became part of everyday life: «Don»t be late, watch out so you don«t run into that...». Locals had already given «that» a nickname—the «Kryazh Maniac».

The resolution came in February 2008, and it turned out to be more terrifying than any rumor. The detainee, 34-year-old Sergey Kuznetsov, was not a classic villain but a living illustration from a social psychiatry textbook. 63.RU recalls this sensational story from past years.

The missing pensioner Oreshkin

It all began with a routine check. In early 2008, detectives working on the case of pensioner Alexander Oreshkin, who went missing in November 2007, found that calls from his SIM card were still being made. The subscriber turned out to be Olga Tabachkova. She was unemployed and led a marginal lifestyle. During interrogation, Olga gave confused but valuable testimony. It turned out her cohabiter, a certain Sergey Kuznetsov, had given her the phone. They lived together with another girl, Maria Tareyeva, in the Kirzavod settlement in an old house.

«He often brought home various junk,» Tabachkova later recalled during the investigation. «Bags of clothes, sometimes dirty, stained... Boots, jackets, phones. He said he found them. But once, when I asked about blood on a shirt, he just mumbled: »Took it off people.« I didn»t pry anymore.«

The key witness was Maria Tareyeva. She, having known Kuznetsov a bit longer, told investigators about his second life—in the settlement of Kupino, Bezenchuksky District. She referred to his dwelling there as nothing less than a «bunker» or «warehouse.»

«The windows were boarded up with sheets of iron, there was such a smell inside... He dragged everything he brought there. He didn»t let us in, said it was his business there,« Maria recounted.

This testimony became the basis for a search. What the operatives saw entering the stairwell of the house in Kupino is unforgettable.

The «bunker» in Kupino

Irina Makushina, a neighbor from the first floor, still recalls with a shudder telling the police about that ill-fated apartment of Kuznetsov«s.

«My sister and I thought he had corpses there. Continuously, day after day, that smell came from under the door—sweet, heavy, like in a morgue. We complained to the administration and the local police officer. We said: »Look at what he has there!«. But for several months, no one came.»

When the door was forced open, a stench hit the investigators in the face. There were no corpses. But the scene was, perhaps, even more sinister in its domestic absurdity.

«It wasn»t an apartment, it was a dump,« described Galina Shilina, a clerk of the local administration who was present at the search as a witness. »Mountains of empty bottles, bags of rags, knee-deep dirt. And... suitcases. Many large suitcases and bags. When they started opening them, we were dumbfounded. They were stuffed to the brim with clothes: jackets, trousers, shoes, hats. All neatly folded. Separately, they found a whole backpack of old button phones, about thirty or forty of them. And on the sofa—a stack of passports. I«ve never seen anything like it. I asked the investigator: »Is he a collector or something?«. He didn»t answer me, only his face was very serious.«

Traces of blood were also found on some items. The windows, boarded up with sheet metal, truly created the effect of a bunker full of «trophies.» Why? That was the question everyone asked then.

Cocktail with a neuroleptic

The investigation, comparing the findings in the «bunker» with missing persons databases, quickly identified six specific episodes. The scheme, reconstructed from Kuznetsov«s own testimony and that of rare survivors, was simple and deadly.

Mikhail Demakhin, a trolleybus driver on the route to the «Volgar» state farm, accidentally became a key witness who could specifically describe the killer.

«He often rode my trolleybus. Tall, thin, always in the same fur hat and red scarf. And with a huge plaid bag, which he never let go of. Once, it was closer to the end of winter, I noticed at the terminus how he literally dragged a drunk man out of the cabin. The man was resisting, moaning. I shouted: »Hey, what«s going on?». Kuznetsov turned around, he had an absolutely empty, glassy look. Said: «Friend, helping him get home.» I didn«t believe it and called the police on the radio. They arrived, took that drunk man away. Kuznetsov then silently left. Now I understand I possibly saved that man»s life.«

Kuznetsov«s method was simple and very insidious. He mixed a potent neuroleptic with a soporific effect into alcohol. The victim lost will and consciousness within 20-30 minutes. Meanwhile, Kuznetsov, physically strong, calmly escorted or transported the man to a deserted wooded strip near »Volgar.« There, the final act followed. Kuznetsov either strangled or simply left his victim in the cold, undressed. Death resulted from general hypothermia or asphyxia. The loot was meager: 500-3,000 rubles (approximately $20-120 at current rates), clothing (investigators even appraised its value in the indictment—jackets from 400 to 10,000 rubles, or about $16-400), simple phones.

The only one lucky to survive, Igor Petrov, gave clear testimony in court that formed the basis of the charge under the article «Infliction of grievous bodily harm.»

«In September 2007, I was standing by a bar on Vodnikov Street. I was drunk. A stranger approached me, asked for money for a bottle of beer. I gave him a hundred (rubles). He left and then returned with that same plaid bag. He took out an open bottle of »Zhigulyovskoye« beer, said: »Here, drink, thank you.« I drank about half. The last thing I remember is his face in the light of a streetlamp. Then a blackout. I woke up in the hospital, in intensive care. They told me I was found late in the evening in an industrial zone, in just my underwear, with a body temperature of 28 degrees Celsius (82°F). There were abrasions on my back, as if I had been dragged along the ground. Doctors said I had severe intoxication from an unknown substance and general hypothermia. I survived by a miracle.»

«He rummaged through garbage dumps»

The social portrait of Kuznetsov, pieced together from the words of neighbors, acquaintances, and administration officials, was full of contradictions.

Nadezhda Doronina, a specialist at the Kupino settlement administration:

«He was like a ghost. He always walked around in the same shabby coat, often rummaged through the dump, collecting bottles. In the store, he could count out small change for five minutes to buy bread and a can of stew. The impression was of complete poverty. And we all lived with that impression. Therefore, when after the arrest it turned out he owned two apartments here in Kupino, and another five—in Samara, everyone»s hair stood on end. Why? He rented one out, stored that horror in another, and apparently lived in a third. It was beyond comprehension.«

Irina Makushina adds a detail noted by everyone who ever knew him:

«He had a terrible gaze. Empty, like a fish»s. He never looked you in the eye, but as if through you. We women in the stairwell were terrified of him. I told my sister: «Liza, don»t talk to him, step away, he might kill.« It was on an instinctual level. Not that he threatened, no. But he emanated such a cold, inhuman danger.»

Trial between Kazan, Moscow, and a diagnosis

The trial, which began in May 2009, immediately delved into legal-psychiatric intricacies. The evidence was ironclad: victims« belongings were found in his home, he gave a confession and even indicated places where he left bodies.

But from the very first hearings, the question of sanity was raised. The lawyer hired by the defendant«s mother insisted on his inadequacy. Kuznetsov himself behaved distantly in court, answered questions monosyllabically, and sometimes with complete nonsense.

He was sent for a forensic psychiatric examination in Kazan. The conclusion of the Kazan experts stunned many: sane, capable of understanding his actions and controlling them. It seemed he would not escape a real prison term.

However, Judge Mikhail Medvedev and state prosecutor Natalya Ragulya had doubts. The defendant«s behavior, his biography, including being registered at a psycho-neurological dispensary since age 14 after an attack on a taxi driver, and the very absurd nature of the crimes (why kill for items that weren»t sold?) suggested otherwise. At the request of the prosecution, Kuznetsov was sent for a repeat, commission examination at the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry in Moscow. It was a rare case where the prosecution itself insisted on a mitigating circumstance.

The Moscow luminaries of psychiatry did not rush. They requested time for inpatient observation. Kuznetsov spent two years in a specialized closed-type clinic. The final verdict, submitted to the court in 2011, was now categorical: schizophrenia, paranoid form. At the time of committing the incriminated acts, he could not understand the factual nature and social danger of his actions. Sergey Kuznetsov was declared insane.

Natalya Ragulya later explained the position of the state prosecution:

«Criminal law in such cases provides not for punishment, but for a measure of a medical nature. Our task, as the prosecution, is not just to secure a conviction, but to ensure that a socially dangerous person is isolated and cannot cause new harm. The diagnosis from the Serbsky Center is exhaustive. Kuznetsov will be placed in an inpatient facility with intensive observation.»

On 17 November 2011, the Samara Regional Court made a historic decision and found Sergey Kuznetsov guilty of committing six murders, a dozen robberies, and other crimes, but released him from criminal liability and sent the maniac for compulsory treatment.

Shadow of the past

The case of the «Kryazh Maniac» has long been filed away in the archive of the Samara Regional Court. Folders with photos of the «bunker,» interrogation protocols, and psychiatric conclusions rest on shelves. For the legal system, the story is over: guilt established, measure determined. For the families of the six dead—it is an unhealing pain in which there is and cannot be a period.

But for a thinking society, for the city that remembers that chilling fear, the main, agonizing, and legally correct question remains: where is Sergey Kuznetsov now?

By law, the condition of a person undergoing compulsory treatment is regularly reviewed by a forensic psychiatric commission. If experts conclude that, as a result of treatment, such changes have occurred that the person no longer poses a public danger, the court may decide to terminate the application of this measure. The patient may be transferred to a regular psycho-neurological dispensary for outpatient observation or even removed from the register altogether.

But does this mean the «Kryazh Maniac» could be free? Theoretically—yes. This story never received a final period, and only a commission of psychiatrists once a year asks the question: «Is he dangerous now?»