Barnaul Maniac

The Barnaul Maniac is the name of an unidentified Russian serial killer who committed the murders of 9 girls and 2 women from 1997 to 2000 in the city of Barnaul and the village of Buranovo. The motives of the perpetrator remain unknown, with the main suspect in the murders having committed suicide a long time ago.

Barnaul Maniac
DiedNovember 1, 2000 (allegedly)
Cause of deathSuicide (alleged)
Other names"The University Maniac"
"The Tutor"
Details
Victims11
Span of crimes
1997–2000
CountryRussia
State(s)Altai Krai
Date apprehended
October 27, 2000 (alleged)

Crimes

On June 7, 1998, an applicant to the Altai State Pedagogical University named Yana Shalamova disappeared. A week later, her body was discovered by fishermen floating in the Ob River. Experts concluded that the girl had been strangled. In the same month, about 10 days after the disappearance of the first girl, another applicant named Galina Derina also went missing. A month later, her injury-ridden body, likely caused from a sharp object, was found buried in the forest belt near Buranovo. During an inspection of the area, the skeleton of an unidentified girl was recovered. According to authorities, he murdered was committed in 1997.[1][2] In the summer of 1999, another two applicants, this time to the Altai State Technical University, again disappeared from Barnaul. The body of one of them, Svetlana Oprarina from Tuva, was later found in the forest belt of Buranovo.

In the period between June and August 2000, a total of five university entrants disappeared in Barnaul: Yulia Tekhtieva (June 29th), Liliana Wozniuk (July 28th), Olga Shmakova (August 1st), Angela Burdakova (August 8th) and Ksenia Kirgizova (August 15th). All of the girls were last seen at the university. During the preliminary investigation, a total of 35,000 people were interviewed, including teachers, workers, students and university graduates. Several of the applicants said that during the exam period, they met a man who offered help with admissions: aged 40-45, of average build, 175-180 cms. in height, with dark brown hair, messy hair and overall nice facial features.[2] A composite sketch was drawn, and later shown on local television. According to said sketch, employees at the Altai State Technical University pointed towards one of their fellow colleagues, who was taken in for questioning, but his involvement in the disappearances couldn't be proven. In total, 71 photographs of individuals who offered work applications at the Barnaul universities were compiled, and even car owners who parked in nearby parking lots were checked, but it still didn't lead to an arrest.[3]

In parallel with the investigation, law enforcement agencies uncovered 36 other crimes. In the Altai State Technical University, cases of bribery, as well as sexual harassment by teachers towards students and applicants, were revealed. After checking such information, a number of the professors were fired from their jobs.[3] However, at the same time, in July, two women vanished from the city: 53-year-old Valentina Mihaylyukova from the Romanovsky District (on July 14th), and 43-year-old Nina Shakirova from the Krasnoshchyokovsky District (on July 18th).[1][2][4]

On September 4th, near the village of Yuzhny, in the forest along the Barnaul-Rubtsovsk Highway, torn clothes, a notebook, a certificate from the State Technical University and a map of the university itself, items which belonged to Kirgizova, were located.[3] While examining the area, investigators uncovered 5 fresh graves in the village cemetery, which the locals didn't recognize. They were opened up, but turned up empty.

In early October, near Buranovo, local residents discovered a skeletonized female corpse. Examinations later established that the remains belonged to Angela Burdakova.[1] In the same month, the remains of Kirgizova, Mihaylyukova, Shakirova and Oprarina were found.[4] In 2001, the remains of Shmakova and Tekhtieva were discovered, on May 17th and September 23rd, respectively, followed by those of Wozniuk the next year.[3][5][6][7][8]

Psychiatrists tried to recreate the profile of the alleged offender: he was 35-40 years old, married, had children, has a car and his work allows him to take absences for a significant period of time.

Suspects

On September 11th, a student at the Altai State Technical University contacted Barnaul's Internal Affairs Directorate and said that she recognized a man whom she had seen repeatedly during the exam period. They met in the clothing market, with the man introducing himself as a dean from the Faculty of Economics and offering help with admissions. He was identified as 45-year-old Alexander Anisimov, who had previous convictions for hooliganism and theft, and promptly placed on surveillance. Customers from the market described him as a very sociable and helpful person, a married man with three children who owned a VAZ-2109.[3][4][8]

On October 27th, Anisimova was detained. When a police search was conducted in his apartment and garage, the police located two axes, knives, a shotgun, a hunting rifle, bullets and handcuffs. Initially, he denied ever setting foot on the grounds of Altai State Technical University, but 11 students confirmed that Alexander had proposed to solve their problems with admissions. Three days later, he wrote down a confession, where he declared his involvement in the disappearance and murders of the five girls who vanished between June and August 2000, with his alleged motive being robbery.[3][4][8]

While in jail, Anisimov unsuccessfully tried to hang himself on a jacket cord. On November 1st, during an investigative experiment in a 9-storey building on Georgy Isakov Street, in which he was supposed to show a tenant to whom he had sold the murdered girls' jewels, he jumped out of 8th-floor window and plunged to his death. After his death, the murders ceased.[3][4][8] However, in an interview with the former head of the Police Department of Barnaul, Major General Nikolai Turbovets, conducted on June 11, 2019, he expressed his still-lingering uncertainty concerning whether Anisimov was the culprit.[9]

Aside from Anisimov, other suspects questioned in the June-August disappearances included serial killers Alexey Ryzhkov and Alexander Pavlenko,[3] as well as the Novosibirsk-based gang of Evgeny Kvashnin.[10]

In the media
  • The programme Independent Investigation (broadcast October 19, 2000 on NTV) covered the crimes in the episode "Barnaul, University Maniac".
  • Documentary film Beauties and Monsters (first part) from the series "Criminal Russia".
  • Documentary film The Case of the Barnaul Maniac.

See also

References
  1. "Barnaul covered in horror" (in Russian). www.ng.ru. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  2. "The Barnaul Maniac is not a beginner" (in Russian). www.kommersant.ru. November 2, 2000. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  3. "Will the maniac return to Barnaul this summer?" (in Russian). Komsomolskaya Pravda. June 26, 2001. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  4. "Corpses are found, but there is no criminal" (in Russian). www.ng.ru. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  5. "The police are looking for killers of arbiturs in Barnaul. But in vain" (in Russian). Continent Siberia Online. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  6. "The remains of a past university entrant missing since last summer were found" (in Russian). NEWSru.com. September 28, 2001. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  7. "The remains of the last of the missing university students were identified" (in Russian). NEWSru.com. April 17, 2003. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  8. "In Altai, the investigation into the murders of 5 arbiturs was suspended due to the suicide of the suspect" (in Russian). NEWSru.com. September 24, 2007. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  9. "The ex-head of the Barnaul police stated doubts about the capture of the real murderer of arbiturs from the Polytechnic Institute" (in Russian). Bankfax. June 11, 2019. Retrieved July 6, 2019.
  10. "Kidnappers of girls added deadlines" (in Russian). Kommersant.
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