Rotten Mango - #102: The Werewolf of Russia (Serial Killer Mikhail Popkov)

Episode Date: October 3, 2021

The 17 year old girl woke up in a panic. Where was she? It was so bright and cold - a hospital?  She turned her head to the left - a pale dead body. She tried to scream but her voice wouldn’t work. She looked to her right - a dead body. She wanted to jump up and run out of there but half of her body was now paralyzed.  She had woken up in a morgue with half her hair torn out, she couldn’t move, and she didn’t even remember her name.  All she knew was earlier she was in a forest staring at the werewolf.  Full Source Notes: rottenmangopodcast.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Are you feeling attacked by the sad right now? Well therapy can help you figure out why. Visit betterhelp.com slash rotten and break that cycle. Better being betterhelp.com slash rotten and break that cycle. Better being better boom. Welcome to this week's mini-sode of rotten mango. I'm your host Stephanie Sue and we're starting off with the official first episode of spooky season. It's officially October, which means we have to talk about where wolves, vampires, and where wolf serial killers. So this takes place in Russia, in Siberia, inside of Russia, and a 17-year-old girl by the name of Svetlana is walking home.

Now, in the dead of winter, she's freezing from head to toe. Can you imagine? Like, she feels like there's gonna be icicles coming down her eyes. It's just so cold! And all she can think to herself is, I wish I could get home faster. I wish that I could just transport in my way into my room into a hot shower and that is when a car pulls up with a man inside who looks probably the age of her dad looks like a dad looks very trustworthy and says hey what are you doing it's cold out here you look like you're freezing oh my god let me drive you home she gets into the car and only because she was freezing head to toe the next thing she remembers is that he's passing her house.

She calmly asks him, hey, where are we going? And he bonks her on the head. She wakes up and she realizes that her head is being repeatedly smashed against a tree. She's looking into this man's eyes, who so nicely picked her up a couple minutes ago. And there was nothing there. He wasn't even responding. There was no way to even talk to him. He was completely out of control.

Like his eyes, they were dead. So she's terrified. She manages to wiggle out from under his grasp and she starts running. She's like, here's the plan. I'm gonna make it to his car. Hopefully his keys are still inside the car that I'm gonna drive off. But he starts chasing her. When she gets to the car, the keys are not there.

It can't even unlock. So all she really can do is she notices that she's on this big stretch of woods. There's only this main road that there's really nobody passing by so she just starts running down the side of the main road and a car does eventually pass by and she starts waving it down even jumps into the road and they swerve out the way and leave. even jumps into the road and they swerve out the way and leave. And she looks behind her and the man is following her, attacks her from behind. And she blacks out. The next time she wakes up, it's a little bit different. It was cold. Everything that she was touching was cold.

And she's looking around. Her eyes are opening. It's bright. The ceilings are bright. There's lights everywhere. It looks like she's in a building somewhere. Maybe it's like a school almost. She looks to her left. There's a dead body. She looks to her right. There's a dead body.

She's surrounded by dead bodies. And they all have tags on them. She starts panicking even more because- What do you mean by tags? That is when she realizes she had woken up in a morgue. Hmm. Full source notes are available at RottenMinglePodcast.com but I do want to preface that this case is-

it was really hard to research most of the articles that I could find. I tried to like Google translate the pages and you guys know things get lost in translation. If you guys are Russian or have a lot of knowledge in this case, if I get anything wrong, let me know. If there's any extra details, I would love to know because this case fascinates me. Let's talk about this investigation. This might be one of the most prolific serial killers in Russia. And he wasn't caught for so long and I think a lot of it has to do with just the environment of the police department at the time.

So there's this man by the name of Mikhail and Mikhail had always wanted to be a police officer ever since he was young. He had this really rough childhood. His mom super abusive like always drunk, just beating on him. By the time that he's a toddler, he gets abandoned by his parents. His parents are like okay, well bye, I'm gonna leave you with the grandparents have a great time You're gonna do just okay. He's confused. He's like why didn't you take me with you? I don't understand why can I go to school wherever you're moving a few years later out of the blue

They're like hey, Mikael we're back We're gonna take you back on home without any explanation of where they had been none of that But this time when he gets home, there's a new family member. They got this new daughter. This is his sister. And it was very clear that his sister was the favorite child. The parents just didn't really care for McCale. I don't even know why they took him away from his grandparents because his parents showed

him absolutely no love. Like this was not a happy environment. He gets sent off to summer camp during the summers because his parents are like absolutely no love. Like this was not a happy environment. He gets sent off to summer camp during the summers because his parents are like, we don't want to deal with you. You're too active. Why are you this crazy little boy? Go be a toddler somewhere else. And every single weekend at the summer camp, all of the little kids, their parents come

to visit. Parents bring little care packages, little lunches. They spend the whole day with him on the weekends, and Mikael would sit alone in the corner, nobody came to him. There was just pity in other parent's eyes. The other kids would bully him. Like how big of a loser are you? That you're your own parents don't even like you. What you don't have parents? Like they would say things like that, and he's like, you know, I don't have to put up with this. Why am I sitting here getting bullied?

Maybe my parents just forgot where this was. Maybe they forgot that I'm here. Like that's an honest mistake, right? So he plots his escape from summer camp, says I'm just gonna stay home for the summer. Runs out, literally escapes with his little backpack, makes it all the way home. So stoked. He's gonna open that door in his parents room. We're like, where have you been looking for you?

Mom, I'm dead. You silly gooseies. You guys dropped me off at summer camp. But oh my god, my kill. We call the police. We gotta tell them we found you. He's expecting all of that. They're gonna be so happy.

Just invite him into their loving arms. But when he unlocks that front door, pushes it open. He sees his mom having sex with his dad's best friend. Are you kidding me? What? Like his dad's best friend. And she obviously was not happy to see him. So not only did this shatter his dream that his parents

just like forgot that he was at the summer camp and they were panicking, they missed him so much, but it also shattered his idea of love. My parents don't love each other, what's going on? I mean, this poor kid then goes on a losing streak. He decides to hang out with some of the neighborhood kids. I like one of those rope swings that just dangle over our lake. Now, he said that he didn't jump at the right time

so he had bonked his head. And again, even with this big wound, this big gash on his forehead, his parents just don't care. But that's fine, that's fine. Mikhail's gonna grow up, he's gonna be an independent man, he's gonna join the police, maybe the army, he's ambitious, he's got dreams,

people who knew him said that he was so analytical, he was intellectual, well read, just a smart cookie. Right before he even goes to the army He gets the support of girlfriend that he starts dating who tells him I know I know the army is gonna be rough I know it's gonna be tough on you, but I'm gonna be here for you when you get out I will be waiting every day by the bus stop for you to get out and your beautiful army uniform And we're gonna do it with your uniform on you know like it's like this whole thing It's so romantic trust me

I will wait for you because you're my one true love it said that two years later he comes back from the army She's married with children She's not even just like dating someone else. She's full on married with children Now there's some debate on this part of the story some sources said that she never told them that she would wait He just kind of assumed some sources say they weren't even dating he just had to crush on her some sources said that she never told them that she would wait. He just kind of assumed, some sources say they weren't even dating, he just had a crush on her. Some sources say he actually didn't even care about her, like this is a weird story. So I'm not really sure.

Regardless, Mikhail joins the police force and tries to live a normal life. He's like, I'm going to be the opposite of my parents. Meet the woman named Elena that he marries and has a beautiful daughter by the name of Katarina. And there were this really cute, close-knit family that went camping, bike riding, hiking. People said it was like a family filled with love. They just were always happy together. This is a weird thing.

A neighbor said, quote, they're the type of neighbors that would lend you money. I don't know what that means. Can you imagine just surviving someone like that? Like not even they're nice. But they're the type to give you money. Fascinating. So we start working on the police force in Angarsk, Russia. Now, during this time, things were rough in this part of town. It's like really rough.

So there were only a few thousand full-time residents that were living inside this town, not including those that commuted in for work. So during the day, it'd be a lot more people inside this town because you've got workers, employees, maybe other people traveling through, but there were at least two murders a day. In a town that had about a couple thousand full-time residents, there were dozens of different criminal gangs in the area.

A lot of it was turf force, just taken over the place. The gangs would primarily target woman and children of other rival gang members so not even other gang members so if you had a problem with the rival gang you wouldn't kill them you would kill their wife and children that accounted for majority of the murder victims in this town which kind of

might explain why the police had no idea there might be a serial killer on the loose it's just the gangs you know it's just women and children. Let them be. Majority of the police force was like, well, boys will be boys. Like that was a vibe. There was only a couple of police officers that seemed to care that there were so many murders, mainly of women and children. McKayle being one of them. So whether he liked to just do his job and do the bare minimum, or maybe he felt like that could have been my wife, that could have been my daughter.

I'm not really sure, but he wanted to put a stop to these killings. So McCale's in uniform one day, getting off his shift, and he spots a woman just walking home drunk. Alone, at night, he's like, what are you doing? What are you thinking, lady? He pulls over, and she's bawling her eyes out. What's wrong? Well, I've been drinking with a few off-duty police officers, and I thought I could trust

them because they're police, right? We're having fun, I was partying with them, and one of them tried to rape me, so I ran away. Here comes another police. And my kella's like, oh my god, well like do you want to file a report? Do you want me to take you home? Like what do you what? So she's like, yeah, gets into the car and you know, Michele starts kind of making it a habit. Whenever he sees a drunk woman struggling to get back home at night, he would offer them a ride. He had a duty to like protect the city and the citizens.

Remember, this could be his wife, this could be his daughter one day. He's not just gonna let them walk home, risk walking into a predator or a gang or someone that people are calling the werewolf in this town. A werewolf that prays on women and children to kill him. So he's trying really hard. It's just a shame that all those same women that he took home ended up raped, tortured, and murdered that same night. This is the story of how Mikhail Popkov became one of the most notorious deadly serial killers in Russia. It's suspected that he has, he has confessed to over 83 victims, he's been charged to 73 victims, well convicted, of the murders of 73 women and will want to die 73 women and was active as a cop.

Yes. Crazy. Yeah. But the police suspect that he kills over 200 people. If not more, I mean, this is all also in his hometown or nearby. He even left a majority of his victims bodies in the forest on the side of the same road, the same isolated road. So around 30 or 40 women were just left dead on that road and still the police were like, it's just the gangs. So every time he kills someone, he will drop them off there or just toss their... He killed them there.

In the woods. Yeah. But the bodies were discovered one by one, right? Not all of the ones. One by one. Women were Not all of them. No, one by one. Women were terrified to leave their homes. So even at the police, they're like, well, it's just the gangs. I mean, they're catching on pretty quick.

These women are like, yeah, I don't think so. I listen to true crime podcasts. I don't know if they do, probably not at the time. But these weren't gang-related murders. They're like, this is someone's offering us one by one. They started calling him their werewolf, because he would strike at Nike. He would leave these slashes and blunt force trauma all over the bodies. I mean, it was terrifying.

So when Mikhail joined the police force, it didn't seem like he had the intention to kill. It didn't seem like he joined it just so he could go undercover, you know, off duty, be a part of the investigation for his own crimes, it didn't seem like that. It really seemed like he was trying to live a normal life, but he had a couple big life events that happened. After joining the police force, one day he gets off early. He's driving home, he's excited.

His little daughter's at home, maybe dinner's ready, and he sees his daughter who's about five at the time, just sitting outside playing on the lawn. Now, it's freezing inside Beery at the time. She doesn't have a lot of clothes on. What are you doing? So she says, well mommy had a friend over. What? Okay, that's weird. Takes her inside to get her warm and he sees his wife just lounging on the couch. She looks relaxed. She looks happy. Katarina told me that you had a friend over. Elena, what's going on with that? She's like, oh, just a girlfriend stopped by. Okay, doesn't think anything of it.

Walks to the kitchen, and when he leans over the trash can, he finds two empty beer bottles and a used condom. Inside of the trash can. Yes. So he confronts his wife, but she's like, well, yeah, that happened. I don't know what you're going to do about it because I'm not going to do anything about it. I'm actually gonna do anything about it I'm actually not gonna stop so she continued to cheat on him periodically allegedly sometimes with his cop friends She would just cheat on him with fellow police officers and he never divorced her because quote This is from him millions of people in Russia live like this. I'm just one of many I guess maybe his main priority was he wanted his daughter to live in a two-parent house

I guess maybe his main priority was he wanted his daughter to live in a two-parent house. But it just grew this anger that he had in him, this deep-rooted anger at woman he felt discarded by his own mom, who would later go on to repeatedly cheat on her husband, which is his dad in front of the children, you know, with some of the husband's closest friends, are you kidding me like imagine how traumatizing. Now his wife is going off and doing the same thing. So instead of doing the normal thing, the rational thing, which is to get a divorce, go to therapy. Like go to therapy, figure out how to solve this psychological

trauma. He decides it's his duty to get rid of women like this. So his first murder, he's driving in his police car at night when he sees a sex worker walking down the road by herself, she seems a little bit drunk, and he's said that he's slowed down to do his job to make sure she's gonna get home safe because that's what he's supposed to do as a police officer, but instead when he looks at her, she looked just like his mom.

It wasn't her, but she looked just like his mom when his mom was younger. Something in him told him that if he just kills her, maybe it's going to help with those feelings that he has towards his mom. Technically, he's killing his mom without killing his mom. He's getting revenge. Guys with mommy issues are probably the most terrifying people on this planet. I don't know what else to say, but like it has never ended well. I have never seen a story where I've been like, oh, like you're dating someone with mommy issues, that's fine. I'm sure it'll be great. No, it has never ended well.

So he claims that he had lost control that night, dragged her into the woods, raped her, tortured her, and killed her. But he didn't regret it. He said he felt great. It was like this rush. He felt like he was helping society So he vowed from that point on that he would just get rid of all women like his mom He wouldn't feel bad about it because he's helping other men I just want to punch him So that woman that we were talking about earlier where he was driving and he saw her just drunk and emotional and she's Confessing like listen. I was hanging out with these off-duty police officers one of them

tried to rape me and he's like okay we'll get into my car I'll follow a report I'll take you home but instead of taking her home he hit her on the head knocked her unconscious drove to the woods dragged her out by the hair and kept telling her why were you with them in the first place didn't you know that you were gonna get raped so she tries tries to tell him, but of course I didn't because of I don't know human rights and decency And he pulls out a knife and starts stabbing her in the chest and the neck His way of killings were almost like the same every single time they were like a twisted game He would drive around that night looking for women alone and drunk

Now you might think that he wants to find drunk women because maybe they're not thinking as sharply. Maybe they're not as sharp as when they're sober. Maybe he's trying to take advantage of these intoxicated women. But it seemed like he liked them because it reminded him of his mom who was always drunk. They were always between 17 to 40 years old more on the, I don't really like this word, but I don't know what else to use volumptuous side like a little bit volumptuous He would always be in his police uniform or in his police car would pull up so if he was in his regular car He would show them the badge and he'd probably be in uniform Then he would pull up next to them flashes badge ask him do you need help getting home? Most of them accepted because it seems like wow

It's pretty safe to get a ride home from a police officer versus taking your chances in the dark. You never know, you might run into like a group of five dudes who were thinking horrible things that night. So they hop in. Then he asks them what he believes to be the most important question of their lives. The one question that's gonna determine

whether they deserve to live or if they have to die. Which is, do you want to go home or do you want to keep parting with me? He said that if they say they want to go home, he drops them off at home. Because these are nice women who were trusting of police, had loved ones at home, and had the right to live. If they wanted to keep partying with him, they were dirty horse and they needed to get rid of them to protect the town. They were quote, fallen woman.

And he said that he never actively went out of his way to look for these fallen women. He said that the whole thrill is in the game of the question essentially. So it looked like he didn't purposely look for women whom he thought that would want to party more, but he actually wanted the answer to surprise him. I mean it's just so eerie. This is from my true crime documentary fans because listen it's hard, you're looking for a new one that you haven't already watched 5 million times and you feel like there's gotta be more out there.

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He was just killing people. So once the quote, fallen woman answered, he would knock them out by hitting them on the head with something in the car, drives the outskirts of the city where there's a huge stretch of road that's lined with forest, drag the women out of the car,

undress them and start attacking them with just any blunt object that he had, hammers, axes, knives, pool cues, like the sticks for, you know, billiards, tables, pool tables, screwdrivers, baseball bats, he did not have a preference, like a weapon of choice that he liked. Any weapon that can make a woman bleed was his favorite. Once they were bloody and beaten, so he drags him out undresses them, beats them, till they're just a bloody pulp. A lot of them would be found with like 150 or 170 stab wounds, he would sexually assault them. Now this order it seems really important to him because the beating itself is what's turning him on. Then he sexually assaults them to

reach his climax, then he kills them after. So he either decapitates them, strangles them, or stabs them to death. Now in a lot of cases, he would get so turned on again by the act of killing that he would have sex with their dead bodies. And then would leave them abandoned in the forest where he had taken them, or sometimes he would actually bring the bodies closer to the road so that they could be found, or sometimes he would drive them to grave yards and just throw them on top of grays. Then he picks up a woman by the name of Oksana, so after work she had met up with a couple of friends to have a few drinks to relax. I mean, she's a mom, she works full-time, this is her time to just let loose with her girlfriends.

On her way home, a nice police officer asked Do you need a ride? She gets into the car and he's like, do you want to have a drink with me? Sure, I mean she kind of felt bad because he offered her a ride could she really say no She didn't know exactly how to do about it. She's thinking okay one drink then I'm gonna make up some excuse We're gonna drive to my house. It's gonna be okay She accepts it and he knocks her unconscious, drags her into the woods to torture and kill her. When she doesn't come home the next day, her husband and children, I mean they start full-on freaking out.

The police find her body and now the kids are so confused. You mean to tell me, one day, mom is home, then a week later, we're going to her funeral, like none of this is making sense, we need answers, what happened in between this time that led to this. And I think the most important thing about this is like the police attitude itself once they found her raved and strangled body in the woods was her underage sons were home. Why was she still out having drinks? What about her kids? Like they just thought it was her fault. They thought she was a irresponsible mom.

So the more Macayl gets away with these murders, like the more confident he's becoming. He starts taking women to the very same camp spot that he would take his wife and kids. He would bury his victims close near the trees at the campsite where he tents, where he puts up his little tent and he sleeps with Elena and Katarina.

A little family getaway right at the crime scene. There are photos of him happy with his daughter reading books at this spot with her. One day he's driving looking to play a sick game of like fallen woman and he spots 17-year-old Spatlana. She's walking home, it's freezing. The cop pulls up in the cop car. Hey, you wanna to get in? Let me take you home. You're way too cold. You're not dressed for this weather. And she

gets it. I don't know at this point if he had asked her the little million dollar question in his mind of, do you want to go home or do you want to keep partying? I don't even think that she was drunk at this point. I think that she was genuinely just walking home. I feel like don't you feel like a certain point? He's just picking. If he wants to kill someone or do something to someone, he doesn't even wait for the answer. I don't think he has like an ethical code where he's like, oh yeah, for sure, if they want to go home, I'm going to take them home. And I feel like he will justify anything in his mind, right?

Exactly. Because when they pass her house, she's like, where are we going? So I don't think that she had plans to do anything with him. The next thing she remembers, like I said, is her head smashing up against the tree repeatedly, just seeing his dead, soulless evil eyes the whole time. She knocks out, manages to run away, gets attacked again, and she wakes up in a morgue. They thought that she was dead. Yeah, when they found her, they didn't even think. They thought that she was dead. Yeah, when they found her, they didn't even think there's no way she survived that.

She was completely bloody. Half of her hair had been ripped out of her scalp. So they're not thinking this girl is alive. This tiny little 17-year-old girl is alive. They put her in the morgue and she wakes up. The worst part is half of her body was paralyzed from the attack. She couldn't even just get up and walk around being like hello. I'm in the morgue.

She's panicking. She doesn't remember why she's here. She doesn't remember this place. What is this place? She doesn't even remember her name. She can't walk. She can't talk. She can't even move.

Finally, someone realizes this person's eyes are blinking. This person is trying to move their fingers. Something weird's going on. They transported her to the regular hospital, not the morgue. And she truly, still to that point, did not remember her name. Her age had a walk, had a talk. What had happened? She would never escape the PTSD of what happened.

She had to learn everything from the beginning again, learning how to walk. Later, she finally starts remembering these little bits and pieces. The little bits and pieces of the police car pulling up. Of her getting her, her head smashed into a tree of trying to run away. The passerby's who didn't stop for her. She starts remembering these. She rushes to the police, tells them the description of the attacker. The police officer who raped her, who tried to kill her. And it fit, Mikhail, so much so that the officers talked to him.

But they did it like this. Hey listen, this girl's crazy, we know it, you know it, but you know, we don't want the big boss to think we're not doing our job, so it's just procedure. What were you doing that day? Well of course I was home with my my wife Elena, you can ask her. Okay, perfect, sounds good. So the other cop didn't care or just- No, just did not care. Svetlana would have to wait another 17 years before she got justice for what was done to her.

Nobody believed her. Nobody believed that a police officer did that to her. They knew that something happened to her. Like they're not trying to say, you did that to her. They knew that something happened to her. Like they're not trying to say, you did that to yourself. They believed that she remembered it wrong. Or maybe some of them were speculating that she was so mad that the police didn't catch the guy that she's making up lies

to say that it's a police officer. And when she kept pushing, are you kidding me? Absolutely not. That's not what it is. I know for a fact who it was. They just kept saying, you didn't even know your name like a month ago. Then there was another survivor of Jennia. And she was 18 years old.

She was out with her boyfriend for dinner and during the whole dinner, I mean, this guy's really annoying. This boyfriend is like, please come home with me. And you know what that's implying? Please, like, please, I just want you to sleep over and she kept refusing. No, I'm not doing that. I don't feel comfortable outside the restaurant.

He's like, come on, let's start walking to my house. And she says, please, I don't really want to do that. And he says, yeah, we're fine. Then you go home by yourself. Walk home by yourself. I don't care. And just leaves her. So she's walking home completely alone,

probably emotional, just crying from this fight that she had and this car shows up. Not a police car, but the guy inside is wearing a police uniform and he flashes a bat. Hey, are you okay? Do you need to ride home? It's dangerous out here. You didn't hear? There's like a rapist on the loose.

He convinced her that he was completely harmless. She gets into the car and in both situations, like I said, I don't think that he asks this question. So she's in there, he hits her on the head, she blacks out. He starts driving to the forest and she said that she was coming in and out of it and she saw this is just heading into an isolated place. She's freaking out. He parks, drags her out by the hair, and starts beating her.

She tries to slip away. She slips off her high heels that she's wearing, runs straight into the woods, trying to escape, and she kept saying he looked like a beast. I was completely terrified. She thought that she had escaped. She thought that he's not going to chase her into the woods, but at the last thing she remembers is him coming up behind her, slamming her head into a tree, and knocking her unconscious. He raped her, tortured her, and then left. I assume that he believed that she was dead. A few hours later, a group of mushroom pickers were in the woods. They're walking around, looking for shrubs,

mushrooms, the edible ones. Well, the food ones, the cuisine. They find her completely naked, blood everywhere, probably dead. So they bring her into the hospital, she had severe head injuries, and she managed to survive. And she, this time she remembered most of it.

She knew her name, she knew her age, she knew exactly what happened, and she had seen his police badge, which has his name on it which is Mikhail popkov She remember the names Wow and so they look at her and they tell her the police they look at her and they tell her Yeah, no whoever did this to you is definitely not a police officer What are you talking about I I saw it? Why would I just come up with a random name?

I-I don't even know this guy. She had no connection with Mikhail. It's not like an ex-boyfriend she's trying to get back at. How would I even know that this guy is a police officer? Unless he showed me his badge! Yeah, it's clear your head injuries are a lot worse than we thought. You're probably making all of this up. The truth is, I don't think that the police really cared to go through the extra work of charging a police officer

or investigating a police officer because it's a lot of extra work. They also didn't want another police officer to be charged with rape and attempted murder because it kind of destroys the idea that police are untouchable. And fellow police officers probably don't want that. There was another woman named Marina who went missing and she was married

with kids that she adored. I mean she worked as a supermarket manager just all around a well-rounded person, loved her husband, loved her job. That night she goes out with a few friends, has a couple of drinks. All of the taxis were gone for that night so she's forced to hitchhike or walk home. She gets into McHale car, and when her husband later reports her missing, they look him in the eye and they say, well she's probably with her boyfriend. Even when the police find a crime scene with two bodies, they still don't jump to action. Apparently, Mikhail had come across two women who were hitchhiking together, drove them out into the woods, knocked both of them unconscious in the car, debated for a really long time, which one should I torture first? Then dragged one out into the woods knocked both of the unconscious in the car, debated for a really long time.

Which one should I torture first? Then dragged one out into the woods, assaulted her, killed her, then came back, got the second one through her, near the body of the first one, to torture her. Left their bodies together, but the next day, he's trying to have a normal day with his wife and kid, and he realizes that he had left his police badge there. Freaks out, leaves the house, goes back to the crime scene, quietly is trying to get his badge back. But one of the women starts talking. He looks at her and he's pissed. Goes back to his car, grabs the weapon and kills her.

Goes back to his car, grabs the weapon, and kills her. She had survived. Through the night. And he starts getting ball-seer and ball-seer. There was a woman that allegedly looks similar to his mom that was walking to the train station not at night. She was completely sober. Not that that means anything truly doesn't mean anything, right? But it's just a lot more dangerous to commit these crimes at night,

with maybe people who are more sober just because look at the way that the police are handling it. They're like, oh, drunk woman, they should be at home with their husbands. She's minding her own business. He stops her, drags her into an abandoned building, and starts raping her. And the police just keep pushing all these cases aside. They just don't care. Until an article is published, if the police are not doing their job already,

they have to have some public outrage to start doing their job that they're getting paid for. So the article is titled The Wednesday Killer. There was a serial killer on the loose, loves to attack women on Wednesdays, the only evidence police have gathered are some DNA and some tire tracks. But at the time, I mean, what does DNA really mean? And the article is implying maybe it's the police's fault. Because this town has a history. I mean, most police in Russia have a history that the evidence rooms are always flooding

from broken pipes, the heating pipes, which is break in these record rooms, at least 20% of the evidence in most cases have been destroyed or lost. Are you kidding me? 20%. Who's to say that the 20% is not the most important percent, you know?

There's not a clear system for evidence easy for things to be taken or quote-unquote loss Just calling out the police in general on their way of handling this. They included a crime scene photos The public was outraged so much so that the Ministry of Internal Affairs they start panicking They create a task force. This is in 2002 Years later. Oh wow, okay. It's recent. Yeah, and he was active I believe from 95 to 2000 also 2002 was like 20 years ago I don't know how we wait 95 to 2000. That's only five years and you want to know the reason why he was He stopped being active. He caught syphilis and he couldn't get a bonbon anymore. That's why he stopped. He stopped because he couldn't get a bonbon, a boner.

Well, there's a word for it. He was in impotent. Now, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, they created Task Force, sent in investigators from Moscow to this town to help. First priority, find out which cases are linked together. Really, if there is a serial killer on the loose, how many of the cases are linked to him? They were able to connect at least 30 women without DNA just by looking at the way the cases happened. So this could have been done sooner. It's not like they brought in this new technology and was like, oh, it's because of the new technology that we were able to connect the cases. No, just straight up looking at the MO, looking at the crime scenes, that's it! But even then, a lot of the Moscow police that were sent to this tiny town didn't believe that there was a serial killer.

And if there was, they believed there's no way and no point in catching them. But it seemed like the truth was they just really didn't want to be in Siberia. I don't know. I don't know. They just wanted to go back home to their families in Moscow. They thought that this was pointless. They didn't want something on their record that said that they couldn't solve it. And this seemed like such a big thing to solve, a big thing to just put all their time and effort to. It just wasn't worth it to them. Then they started debating. Should we send DNA for testing? Now that the technology is available, so one test at the time would cost thousands of dollars.

To put it in perspective, Moscow Police Department, like the police, one person, was getting paid that same amount for the whole year. So it's one person's annual salary. For one DNA test. Wow. And in this tiny town, they only have the budget to send about 10 DNA tests a year from this town. I see a year from this town. But from this town that has like two murders a day.

Yeah. So I mean, they had a really debate. Do we try to catch the serial killer? But it's gonna be thousands of dollars. It would be years closer to a decade before they catch the killer. Finally, in 2012, the investigators sent in the DNA left at various different crime scenes, matched it against retired police officers, so they're going off the survivor stories

now. And it's match for Mikhail, at least three of them are. The retired police officer. In 2012, he was arrested. He was so calm. He didn't try to flee. He had this big rifle in his bag. It looked like he was trying to like maybe go somewhere, but when they came, I mean he just threw his hands in the air, he didn't try to run from them, he didn't try to take the rifle out of his bag, he didn't even bat an eye. In total he confesses to over 83 murders, he's convicted of 78 murders, and he confesses in three different rounds, so right after his initial arrest, he admits to killing 22 people. Then in 2015, he admits to killing another 56 people.

Then in 2020, just last year, he admits to killing another two people. And it seems that it's very strategic the way that he's doing it. Because every time that he confesses, he gets taken out of one of the worst maximum security prisons in Russia called the black dolphin. Just as scary as it sounds, there's YouTube videos about it.

The harshest prison in the world, it's like the black dolphin. I mean, they beat you. It's the type of prison where you can't even walk through a hallway. If they're walking you to your little cement room to get air, which is just a cage, they put a blindfold on you. They turn you around and they don't let you see. So you don't understand the layout of this prison. You have a tiny little cell.

You have practically no light, like no daylight, nothing, like it's miserable. So what do you mean by he does that strategically? So every couple of years when he gives a confession, he's transported back to his hometown where he stays in like a you know Like a more relaxed prison for a long time while he Recreates the crime scene so Russia is one of those countries South Korea does this too where they killer like recreate the crime scene with dummies So the police will take them out to the exact spot, give them a fake dummy, a mannequin,

and then a fake axe, and then on camera, they're like, then I did this, bonk, bonk. So he would just stall. Every couple of years, he's like, I can't do this anymore. He confesses to more murders. So there could be more coming. Definitely could be more coming. I mean, the police think that he has killed over 200 people. They called him for a little while, quote unquote,

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He told the police. The victims were those who, unaccompanied by men at night without a certain purpose were on the streets behaving carelessly. They were not afraid to enter into conversation with me or get into my car, then go for a drive to search for adventures for the sake of entertainment, ready to drink alcohol and have sex with me. Not all women became victims, but those of a certain negative behavior did. I had a desire to teach and punish.

They asked him how many victims did you kill in total. I did not count the number of my victims. In an interview, they asked, I wonder how one person can decide whether another person should be allowed to live or not. And he said, but that is not the question to ask me. The woman need to reconsider their behavior. Maybe it could stop them from immoral behavior. Maybe it could help control their desires and instincts.

So you think women who do not control their desires and are free to do whatever they please do not deserve to live? Hold on. They partied. How do alcohol? They wanted even more. They wanted the party to go on. I'm not making excuses for myself.

I am simply answering your question. What have they done to be murdered? They partied, wanted more, will bad luck for them to meet me. Do you think you're a reasonable person? I Guess not. Do you think you're a good person? Well, you want me to say that I'm not reasonable, but I'm good. You put me in an awkward position. It's just like the way he talks is so bizarre, no? She says, well, I talked to some of the victims' families and they regret not having the

death penalty in Russia. And he says, maybe I would have appreciated the death penalty too. I could have been killed in May of 2015. I wouldn't need to be here right now. Okay. Side note, there was a huge scandal during this investigation before the trial. So, Michele is sitting in jail waiting for this trial. His wife and daughter are being questioned all the time. The police are thrown off because neither of them look disgusted

or upset. It doesn't look like they're like, oh my god! I would have never seen a coming. He was such a family man. Are you kidding me? I did, I never imagined this is my dad you're talking about, you know. They just look like they wanted to get this over with so that they could move to a different town and start over. That was their entire just energy that they were given the police. But one day, the lead investigator on this case and his boss are in the car with Elena, this is Michele's wife. I don't know, maybe they were dropping her off after questioning her and she blurted out that she's making chicken for dinner.

So weird. The lead investigator is like, what? What's wrong with this woman? She's never like this. She's not like blurting things out all the time. Like she's not a very awkward person if that makes sense. Like this is some awkward conversations that are happening. Okay. He's thinking, why would she tell me that? She's probably not telling me that. Like, we've a really sour relationship. She probably hates me. Why would she tell me that she, what if she's not telling me? So that night after dropping her off, he stakes out a Lannus house. He parks her and watches. And that's when he sees his big boss going to her place. No way. To have a chicken dinner to do his laundry and to spend the night.

He reports this to his superiors and eventually the big boss was forced to resign and he moved in with Elena. What a town! Are you kidding me? One of the cops was killing people and then the cops boss's boss is sleeping with the kill. What is going on? Yeah. So other police officers, they come forward to say, Elena always wears revealing clothes around us. She would make eyes at us during the investigation, whether she's flirting with us to try to get her husband out of a life sentence, you know, because all it takes is a little booby here and there and let the killer go. Or maybe that's just how she is and that's her personality. It's hard

to say, but she never visited McKellen present. She never visited him, but she would always tell the press, I love him so much. I would rush back to him if he were ever released. What? Which is bizarre too. Does someone like that? What? Why would she suddenly- She said that she was so sweet. He's so sweet to them. He was never abusive to them.

Just all of it is bizarre. Mikhail, he tells the police in 2018 that he doesn't regret killing. So he's arrested in 2012. He's had a good six years. He doesn't regret killing. Only regrets getting caught. Doesn't feel shitty for destroying families. And the police say he's like a little cockroach. He's so resilient. Even in his 60s now he's 60 something. He's in like a crazy prison. Well he's

been moved around, but most of his time has been spent in like a maximum security prison. Yeah. He's still super healthy. He loves doing push-ups. I mean he He's the cockroach. Yeah You were crying just by seeing him in person, huh? I think I'd probably cry just by driving past the prison that he's in I feel like I know that guys in there somewhere Holy cow It's always in hindsight, right? I imagine if I were to meet him before he were arrested what would I think that there was something weird in his eyes? Probably not.

I think that's such a misconception that you can see in their eyes. Maybe during the act of killing it's different? But like, I think if I were just passing by him, or if he offered me a ride, I don't think this guy's evil. Yeah, yeah. I mean, if you look at pictures of him, he genuinely looks like a nice Russian dad. I don't know what else to say. Like in Korean, we have a word called ajashi, which means just plain dad.

Not a charismatic, not like a swab dad, but just a dad. That's what he looks like. So he has two life sentences, one that he got in 2015, and again in in 2018 when he confessed to another 56. I don't know if maybe he's gonna get another one for his 2020 confessions, but yeah, and that is where the werewolf of Russia is now. He is said to be the most prolific killer in Russia. Even above see I don't like to rank them, but they say that he's more terrifying than the butcher of Russia and even the chessboard killer.

I don't even, this is terrifying. Yeah, and this is not so recent. Yeah. That's what's scary. So recent. And the fact that the police just like, okay, if it was happening during a time, I mean, we always preface some cases where there's no such thing as a serial killer. It didn't exist yet.

Then you have these towns and these small town police officers who were really only used to like goats being shot by angry farmers. Like angry farmer neighbors are like suddenly, whoa, is serial killers on the loose highways? Was they handled this? You give them like a little bit of sympathy? Not a lot, but like a tiny bit. But this was, are you kidding? This was just like full on negligence. I wonder how many of the police knew that he was killing.

Exactly. I mean, it just, to me, it doesn't make sense to be a police officer and be like, yeah, I know. They said some crazy things in that hospital, those surviving girls, but it's not you. I just can't imagine that. I bet that they're more like, hey, keep it on the deal. What are your thoughts on this one? Do you think that he's gonna end up confessing more and more? Are there any truth to his confessions now? Or can we think that maybe he's just trying to get away from his maximum security prison for a little while?

And why did it take him so long to be caught? Let me know, and I hope you guys enjoyed this week's mini-sode and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Spookedtober, here we come. Bye! and I will see you guys on Wednesday for the main episode. Spookedtober here we come. Bye!