IRKUTSK: A Siberian policeman who raped and killed women after offering them late-night rides was found guilty of dozens more murders on Monday, making him Russia’s worst serial killer of recent times. A court in the city of Irkutsk found Mikhail Popkov guilty of 56 murders between 1992 and 2007, sentencing him to a second life term. He was already in prison after being convicted of killing 22 women in 2015.
Popkov offered rides, sometimes in his police car, while off-duty around his city of Angarsk near Irkutsk, 4,200 kilometres east of Moscow. His murderous spree initially went unnoticed during a period of rampant mafia killings in the crime-ridden city. He killed his victims using weapons including a hammer and an axe, then dumped their bodies in the woods, at the side of the road and in a cemetery.
He was also found guilty of raping 11 of the women.
Popkov described himself as a “cleaner” who was purging his home city of prostitutes but his victims included shop assistants and a school teacher. All but one were women between the ages of 16 and 40. His sole male victim was a policeman he gave a ride to late at night and killed in a forest.
As part of his sentence — a rare case in Russia of a convicted murderer being given a second life sentence — Popkov was also deprived of his police pension.
Investigators had suspected a policeman because of the way the killer carefully covered his tracks. The murders took place while he was a serving police officer and after he left the force in 1998. Popkov was caught in 2012 after investigators re-examined the case and carried out DNA testing of residents, focusing on those who drove a make of car that matched tracks found at crime scenes.
World’s worst serial killers
Ex-russian policeman Mikhail Popkov, found guilty on Monday of 56 murders while already in jail for 22, is one of the most prolific serial killers of recent times. Here is a recap of some of the others.
‘CHESSBOARD KILLER’: Alexander Pichushkin was sentenced to life in prison in Moscow in 2007 for 48 murders, most between 2002 and 2006. Aged 33 at his trial, Pichushkin said he wanted to kill one person for each of the 64 squares on a chessboard, and crossed out a square for every kill, earning him his nickname. His victims were mainly elderly alcoholic men whom he met in a park outside Moscow.