The Search, Trial, and Insanity of Samara's Quiet Maniac

The winter of 2007-2008 in Samara was remembered not only for the bitter cold. In the Kuybyshevsky and Samarsky districts, a quiet, silent horror took root. Men disappeared one after another. They vanished on their way from work, from garages, after a modest drink at a bar. They were not found for months.

Relatives filed reports, investigators checked leads, but the streets continued to swallow people without a trace. Chilling fear became part of daily life: «Don»t be late, watch out so you don«t run into that one...». «That one» locals had already nicknamed — the Kryazhsky Maniac.

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

The Missing Pensioner Oreshkin

It all began with a routine check. In early 2008, investigators working on the disappearance 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. As it turned out, the phone was given to her by her live-in partner, a certain Sergei Kuznetsov, with whom they lived in a trio with another girl, Maria Tareeva, in the Kirzavod settlement in an old house.

«He often brought home various junk,» Tabachkova later recalled during the investigation. «Bags with 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 Tareeva. It was she, who had known Kuznetsov a bit longer, who told investigators about his second life — in the Kupino settlement of Bezenchuksky District. She referred to his dwelling there as nothing less than a «bunker» or «warehouse.»

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

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

The «Bunker» in Kupino

Irina Makushina, a neighbor from the first floor, still shudders as she told the operatives about that ill-fated apartment of Kuznetsov.

«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 both the administration and the local police officer. We said: »Look what he has there!« But for several months, no one ever came.»

When the door was opened, the stench hit the investigators in the face. There were no corpses. But the scene was perhaps even more sinister in its mundane absurdity.

«It wasn»t an apartment, it was a dump,« described Galina Shilina later, a clerk of the local administration who was present at the search as a witness. »Piles of empty bottles, bags with rags, knee-deep filth. And... suitcases. Many large suitcases and bags. When they started opening them, we were stunned. They were stuffed to the brim with clothing: jackets, trousers, shoes, hats. Everything neatly folded. Separately, they found a whole backpack of old push-button phones, about thirty or forty. And on the sofa — a stack of passports. I«ve never seen anything like it. I asked the investigator: »What, is he a collector?« 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 tin sheets, indeed 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 databases of missing persons, quickly identified six specific episodes. The scheme, reconstructed from Kuznetsov«s own testimony and 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 compose a portrait of the killer.

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

Kuznetsov«s method was simple and very insidious. He mixed a potent neuroleptic with a hypnotic effect into alcohol. The victim lost will and consciousness within 20–30 minutes. At the same time, Kuznetsov, physically strong, calmly led or took the man to a deserted forest belt near »Volgar.« There followed the final act. Kuznetsov either strangled or simply left his victim in the cold in a undressed state. Death occurred from general hypothermia or asphyxia. The loot was meager: 500–3,000 rubles (approximately 17–100 USD at current rates), clothing (investigators even assessed its value in the indictment: jackets from 400 to 10,000 rubles (approximately 13 to 333 USD at current rates)), 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. Took out an open bottle of »Zhigulyovskoye« beer, said: »Here, drink, thank you.« I drank about half. The last thing I remember — 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 (82.4°F). There were abrasions on my back, as if I had been dragged on the ground. The doctors said I had severe intoxication from an unknown substance and general hypothermia. I miraculously survived.»

He Dug Through Garbage Dumps

The social portrait of Kuznetsov, formed from the words of neighbors, acquaintances, and administration representatives, was full of contradictions.

Nadezhda Doronina, a specialist at the Kupino settlement administration: «He was like a ghost. He always walked in the same worn-out coat, often rummaged through the garbage dump, collecting bottles. In the store, he could count change for five minutes to buy bread and a can of stew. The impression was of complete poverty. And we all lived by that impression. Therefore, when after the arrest it turned out that he owned two apartments here, in Kupino, and five more — in Samara, everyone»s hair stood on end. Why? He rented one out, stored this horror in another, and apparently lived in a third. It was mind-boggling.«

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 in the eyes, but as if through you. We, women in the stairwell, were panic-strickenly afraid of him. I told my sister: «Liza, don»t engage in conversation with him, step away, he might kill.« It was on the level of instinct. Not that he threatened, no. But he emanated such a cold, inhuman danger.»

Court Between Kazan, Moscow, and Diagnosis

The trial, which began in May 2009, from the very start delved into legal-psychiatric complexities. The evidence was ironclad: victims« belongings found at his home, he gave confessional statements and even indicated places where he left the bodies.

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

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

However, Judge Mikhail Medvedev and state prosecutor Natalya Ragulya doubted. The defendant«s behavior, his biography, including registration 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 things that aren»t sold?) suggested otherwise. At the request of the prosecution, Kuznetsov was sent for a repeat, commission examination to the Serbsky Federal Medical Research Center for Psychiatry and Narcology (Serbsky Center) in Moscow. This 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. For two years, Kuznetsov spent in a specialized closed-type clinic. The final verdict, submitted to the court in 2011, was already categorical: schizophrenia, paranoid form. At the time of committing the incriminated acts, he could not be aware of the actual nature and social danger of his actions. Sergei 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 guilty verdict, but to ensure that the socially dangerous person is isolated and cannot cause new harm. The diagnosis of the Serbsky Center is exhaustive. Kuznetsov will be placed in a hospital with intensive observation.»

On November 17, 2011, the Samara Regional Court made a historic decision and found Sergei 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 Kryazhsky Maniac has long been filed away in the archive of the Samara Regional Court. Folders with photos of the «bunker,» interrogation protocols, and psychiatrists« conclusions rest on shelves. For the legal system, the story is over: guilt established, measure determined. For the families of the six victims, it is an unhealing pain in which there is and cannot be a full stop.

But for those who remember that chilling fear, the main, tormenting, and legally correct question remains: where is Sergei 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 social 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.

But does this mean the Kryazhsky 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?»