In Russia, 20 has been looking for the bloodiest maniac in the history of the country for years.

In the Irkutsk region of Russia, the investigation of the criminal case against Mikhail Popkov, a policeman from the city of Angarsk, known as the Angarsk maniac, continues. In 2015, the court sentenced him to life imprisonment for 22 murder and 2 assassination attempt.

In January, 2017, it became known that Popkov confessed to the 59 killings from 1992 to 2010. If his guilt is proven, he will become the bloodiest serial killer in the history of modern Russia. Andrei Chikatilo, Rostov murderer and rapist - 53 proven murder.

The history of the search and detention of a maniac told the publication “Medusa".

After the collapse of the Soviet Union in Angarsk, as in many Russian cities, criminal wars began.

The police were not surprised when the bodies of young women — raped and killed with extreme cruelty — were found in the forest belt adjacent to the city. It was assumed that they, too, were victims of criminal squabbles or individual gangsters. Then they did not pay attention to the same handwriting of the killings (the corpses were found with stab wounds and completely naked).

In the middle of the 1990-s, Mikhail Popkov worked as an assistant duty officer in the central department of the interior of the Angarsk Department of Internal Affairs. He was a candidate for master of sports in biathlon; colleagues called him Misha Smile for goodwill. Popkov made a good impression in the team was in good standing.

Wife Popkova Elena worked at that time in the passport office in the same duty room, and the family lived in 50 meters from the office and seemed to her colleagues as an “ideal family”.

After the arrest of Popkov, the details of their life together will be known. Once, after returning from work, Popkov found used condoms in the trash can - that’s what the Angarsk maniac’s former colleagues believe is, and provoked him to the first killings. Apparently, the betrayal was not the only one, Popkov was thinking about the murder of his wife, but did not do this - he wanted his daughter to have a full-fledged family.

In an interview that Popkov gave after the verdict in June 2015, he said that his victims were guilty of having thrown their loved ones at home - and were walking.

“You can make so close that people didn’t guess about it, didn’t know, and don’t hurt them,” Popkov said.

He stopped his service Niva when he saw a voting drunk woman. He offered to take her home, on the way asked if she wanted to continue the evening somewhere else. If the passenger rejected the immodest offer, took her home, if she agreed, she killed her with particular cruelty, using a knife, an ax, a screwdriver - everything that came to hand.

In March, 1997, Popkov, asked for help from the shift supervisor and drove for the pies. Leaving the road, he saw a young woman who was walking to the station to meet her mother. Popkov killed her a few hundred meters from the station, and threw her body along the road. It was almost the only victim of Popkov, who at the time of the murder was not intoxicated, and one of 3, on the body of which Popkov's sperm was found, thanks to which in 2012 and managed to prove his involvement in the killings.

Later, during interrogations, he would call this murder a “technical error” and could not explain to the investigators what caused the outbreak of aggression. On the same day, when the corpse of the woman was discovered, Popkov returned to the crime scene as part of the operational-investigation team.

Only 2 women survived, whom Popkov tried to kill. Neither Svetlana Misevichus nor Yevgeny Protasov could identify the perpetrator: both received serious craniocerebral injuries. Misievichus was accidentally found by workers who were walking in the morning with an electric train. She did not show any signs of life, but she came to herself when she was identified at the morgue. Protasov was found mushroom pickers and immediately sent for an operation in Irkutsk. Both women had a long rehabilitation course.

For all 20 years, the criminal carefully cleaned the traces: no fingerprints, no crime instruments were found. He didn’t think only about tire tread traces - and that it can be calculated as a result of DNA analysis.

In March 2002 of the year, an operational-investigative team of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia and the Prosecutor General's Office were created to search for a serial maniac in the Irkutsk Region, headed by investigator for particularly important cases Yevgeny Kostarev.

This group achieved a genetic examination, and its genotype was determined from the killer sperm found in 3 bodies.

Before 2008, DNA tests were carried out only in Moscow - and they cost about $ 10 thousand, so no more than 5 similar analyzes were performed per year.

The investigation continued, and by 2009, quite a lot was known about the maniac: there was a rough understanding of his place of residence or work, there was his genotype, it was known that he had a 3 positive blood type, and that he was driving a Niva car.

“A single list was compiled with all persons who had at least one of the signs present - more than 30 thousand of them turned out. Further, those who have met 2 and more of a sign have already been selected. So we got about 600 suspects, ”- said the investigator.

The list, compiled in alphabetical order, began to work from the end of 2010 onwards. Then in Irkutsk a regional forensic forensic center was already operating - and genetic examinations could be carried out faster and cheaper. In the year it was possible to check the order of 400 people. Before the letter P reached in March 2012; then Mikhail Popkov received the agenda.

He came to the Criminal Investigation Department at the specified time, answered all questions from the investigator, confirmed that he owned the Niva car, that he had a 3 blood group, and voluntarily passed a biological sample, which he immediately sent to the laboratory. There was no reason to detain Popkov then, so he went home.

As it turns out later, shortly after going to the investigator, Popkov quit his job, bought a train ticket and went to his mother in the Lipetsk region, then returned to Angarsk.

When the conclusion of the comparative examination was received, a decision was made to detain Popkov, the maniac was detained on the train en route to Vladivostok.

14 January 2015, the Irkutsk Regional Court sentenced Mikhail Popkov to life imprisonment in a special regime colony for committing 22 murders and 2 attempted murders. But the investigation of the crimes continued, since Popkov continued to write guilty pleas about dozens more murders.

Popkov's unique memory helps the investigation. Popkov gives very accurate information about new episodes of his crimes: he calls the approximate time of the murder, the car on which he was; where he picked up the victim, how she looked about and what she was wearing, what they drank with her, where and with what weapon he committed the murder.

But Popkov did not repent, he hopes to be released on parole in 25 years.

After the sentence, Popkov’s wife and daughter left Angarsk for another Siberian city and have not returned since. Now that Popkov is being taken to investigative actions, he is sometimes allowed to call the family and talk to her on the speakerphone in the presence of the police.

Read also on ForumDaily:

911 call rules that can save lives

How to escape from a lone terrorist: a school of survival

Russian women are recommended not to exceed the limits of self-defense in rape

Do you want more important and interesting news about life in the USA and immigration to America? — support us donate! Also subscribe to our page Facebook. Select the “Priority in display” option and read us first. Also, don't forget to subscribe to our РєР ° РЅР ° Р »РІ Telegram  and Instagram- there is a lot of interesting things there. And join thousands of readers ForumDaily New York — there you will find a lot of interesting and positive information about life in the metropolis.