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Between 2011 and 2012, the Russian districts of Tsentralnyj, Ural and Volga were rocked by a wave of killings. The joint moves prompted local law enforcement authorities to raise the alarm that a serial killer might be on the move.
All the victims were single elderly women. They had been strangled and killed in their own homes, and the suffocation was often done with objects, such as cables.
There was no sign that the serial killer had invaded by force. In some cases, the women’s personal belongings and valuables were removed from the crime scene. Not in other cases. What the police found most often was the dead woman and a messy apartment.
Jump out the window
But the killer left traces, and far from all the killings went according to plan, writes the independent Russian online newspaper Meduza.
The serial killer was caught on surveillance cameras, left DNA behind and one of the victims he tried to kill survived and was able to give a description of the man to the police.
The serial killer must also have been about to get caught on at least one occasion before.
After killing one of the female victims, the victim’s son suddenly entered the apartment where his murdered mother and the serial killer were located. The son tried to get hold of the man, but the serial killer is said to have jumped out of one of the apartment windows and then fled the scene.
Then he was silent.
Examined 10,000 DNA samples
Other similar killings took place in the region and the press wondered if he might be the “Volga maniac,” but the killings did not quite fit the pattern.
The case was eventually taken up by the Russian Federal Investigative Committee, a Russian organization similar to the FBI in the United States.
Since then, investigators have reviewed more than 10,000 DNA samples from the case. Among them, after almost ten years, the investigators found only one hit: a 38-year-old man, resident in Kazan, the capital of the Russian republic of Tatarstan in the Volga district.
On Tuesday, December 1, police arrested the man and, in gossip videos of the initial interrogations, the 38-year-old finally admits to the crimes.
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I don’t remember the number of homicides
Initially, in the video, which was released by Russia’s Federal Investigative Committee, the 38-year-old is asked if he has committed murder.
The apprehended person is sitting on a sofa, with his hands handcuffed behind his back and his neck bent forward when he responds that he has committed murder.
– Multiple murders, not a single murder?
– Various murders.
– More murders?
– Yes.
– Of which?
– Grandmothers.
I DO NOT REMEMBER: The 38-year-old suspect admits to several murders, but does not remember how many, he said during questioning. Photo: Federal Investigative Committee of Russia
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Also, the killer says he committed the first murder, not out of malice, but out of anguish. He says he was homeless, and that he committed the murder after entering the apartment and stealing his first victim’s valuables.
– Everything happened spontaneously. I wanted to eat. He lived on the street. I took the opportunity to make a quick buck, he tells the researcher.
Then he was faced with the fact that he could have been content to rob and steal, not even to commit murder.
– For some reason I didn’t. I can’t explain it, the 38-year-old said then.
He is accused of having committed 26 murders, but did not recall from questioning how many he had killed, he said.
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Asked
What researchers have always assumed is that the 38-year-old deceived his victims. He also admitted it himself during interrogations.
The 38-year-old man is said to have pretended to be an electrician, locksmith and public employee of the victims and thus sneaked into the women’s apartments.
He is said to be a trained mechanic and according to some Russian media and the AFP news agency, he is said to have experience as a locksmith. Therefore, he must have managed to close the door behind him without the keys, after committing the murders.
And while the 38-year-old is charged with 26 murders, investigators cannot rule out that he is behind multiple murders.
Regional online newspaper Kazan First reports that the 38-year-old may be behind up to 32 unsolved murders.
Neighbors in shock
The news has shocked Kazan, where the 38-year-old man lived with his wife and children. He lived at home with his parents for a long time, and the 38-year-old’s parents’ neighbors tell Kazan First they are in shock.
– I have lived here for 44 years, and I know them exclusively as a positive family. It was a very good family. I can’t say anything ugly about them, says the neighbor.
Another neighbor is of the same opinion.
– We are all in shock. I don’t want to think that the people you know are capable of killing.
They say the 38-year-old has recently married his teenage girlfriend and that the couple have had children.
– He was a completely normal person. I don’t know what happened to him, says another neighbor.
