Alexander Labutkin

Labutkin was born in 1910 in St. Petersburg to a working-class family. At the end of the 1920s, he got a job as a gunsmith at the Krasnoznamyonets arms factory. In 1930, while engaged in uprooting stumps with pyroxylin, Labutkin accidentally produced a premature detonation, as a result of which he lost his right hand. In this regard, he could no longer work as a gunner, and therefore he got a job as a steam conductor at the Okhta Combine in Leningrad.[1] Labutkin was extremely passionate about fashionable things. According to the memoirs of his acquaintances, he was very fond of wearing a dark jacket and a wide-brimmed hat, which created an opinion that he was an important personality.[1]

On August 30, 1933, Labutkin, disguised as a mushroom picker, took a revolver and went to the forest located behind the Powder plants in the area of Prigorodny village. There he met a company of two men and three women, after which he fired several shots at them. Four died on the spot, and one woman died after some time in the hospital, without having time to give the investigators any evidence. The bullets that the killer had used in committing the crime were made by his acquaintance from the elements of a ball bearing. From the crime scene, Labutkin took away items of insignificant value, which suggests that self-interest was not a driving force in his crimes.[2]

On December 2, 1933, in the same forest, Labutkin shot two more people. He took a couple of valenki, food and several other items from the corpses. On April 11, 1934, Labutkin ambushed and shot down an elderly locksmith. The murderer stole money and the suitcase with instruments from the murdered man, also pulling off the gold crowns from his teeth.[2] Labutkin's crimes were characterized by long pauses between the attacks. Six months later, on November 13, 1934, he shot a birdwatcher who was inspecting songbirds. The criminal then stole a cage with captured birds in it.[2] On January 11, 1935, Labutkin shot down two married couples walking in the woods in the span of two hours. Again, he did not steal items of any special value from the crime scene. A month later, on February 17, 1935, he killed a lonely worker. He used his wife Maria to distract his last victims.[1] On March 18, 1935, Labutkin made another attack on a couple. The man was killed, but the woman survived with slight injuries. She identified the murderer, and Labutkin was soon detained.[1]

• List of Russian serial killers
• List of serial killers by number of victims

• A. I. Rakitin: Socialism does not breed crime - Yekaterinburg: Cabinet Scientist, 2016 - 530 p.