Nighttime Killers

On June 18, 1996, a 44-year-old factory worker named Yevheniy Osechkin was found dead near the Karavaevi Dachi railway station in Kiev. An anonymous tipster called the police and claimed that someone was just shot with a silenced pistol. However forensics uncovered that the victim was actually shot with a .22 round (a single shell casing was recovered), and stabbed multiple times. The tipster was never located. Investigation quickly determined that Osechkin, a factory worker, had no enemies, and robbery was ruled out as a motive as Osechkin still had the salary he received the day of the murder on his person.

Investigators then began looking at other murders in the area, and found that some months earlier a homeless man had been shot with a .22 rifle and stabbed in the same area, just 100 meters away from the spot where Osechkin was murdered. Investigators began canvassing the area, and set up surveillance at the train station. Some people that raised the suspicion of the investigators were arrested, but all had alibis for the time of the murders.

Two weeks later a well-known local doctor named Oleksandr Yehorov was shot and killed in his car in broad daylight. Some witnesses to the murder were located, who provided a description of a suspect described as a lone man of about 30 years of age.

Less than an hour after Yehorov's murder, another male victim was found several blocks away, again shot with a .22 rifle and stabbed. Description of a man seen loitering in the area matched the suspect in the Yehorov and the Osechkin murders. Fingerprints were also recovered from both scenes.

However, no match was found for the fingerprints in any databases, and the description offered few leads. The investigation stalled until another murder was reported two weeks later. The new victim was a man named Oleksandr Shpack. Prior to the murder he was at a birthday party with his girlfriend. After getting drunk, Shpack got into an argument with two men who crashed the party. All four then left the party. Shpack was found shot and stabbed a short time later. Shpack's girlfriend provided a description of the two men, which matched the earlier murders. She also remembered that one of the men was named Volodymyr.

According to a psychological profile prepared by the prosecution, Kondratenko had been a model child until he started school, when a constant physical abuse by his father began to take its toll. Kondratenko was initially a good student, but his perfectionist father would severely beat him for any grade below a 5 or Excellent. Kondratenko's personality quickly changed; first he'd get on his knees and beg his teachers not to give him lower grades, but quickly stopped and became shy and withdrawn. After graduation Kondratenko's father, a construction worker, forced his son to go into an architectural college. Kondratenko dropped out after one semester, and at the age of 18 was drafted into the Soviet Army.

Army service was reportedly hard on Kondratenko, who was frequently injured, once receiving a serious concussion after falling from a tank. He was also constantly abused in the atmosphere of rampant hazing (dedovshchina). He was discharged after the compulsory service, and reported back home in civilian clothes, instantly inviting a beating from his father for not being in uniform. Kondratenko planned to go back to school, but came down with a severe case of jaundice which left permanent disfiguring marks on his face. Kondratenko was so unhappy with his appearance that he refused to go outside for months. He was eventually committed to a psychiatric institution by his parents, but after some time was deemed sane and released. Unable to find a job, and continuing to stay at home most of the time, the conflict between Kondratenko and his father continued to grow. Kondratenko knew that he needed to move out, and in order to move out, he needed money.

Vladyslav Volkovich, according to prosecution, had "an even less interesting background than Kondratenko". He was reportedly a twin, growing up in an uneventful household with no reported instances of abuse or aggression. Growing up in poverty, Volkovich was always preoccupied with appearances and looking for ways to make money, but did not want a full-time job. He made friends with Kondratenko and the two men often discussed various ways of making money, as well as various philosophical concepts, eventually deciding that "there is no such thing as morals or honor in this world".

The two men discussed becoming contract killers, thinking that this would be a perfect job for them. They also discussed killing some of their friends for more immediate financial gain. However they did not know how to look for contract work, and were unsure they'd be able to kill a friend on the first try, so they decided to practice on the homeless. They reportedly killed at least five before risking to attack a more dangerous target. They eventually settled on attacking car owners; owning a personal vehicle was a considerable luxury and a sign of wealth in the former Soviet Union of the early 1990s. However the killers admitted that they did not have much luck killing random car owners, as most of them had little if any money on them, and taking and later selling their cars was difficult. By this time however both men admitted that they enjoyed the act of killing by itself, and continued to kill even if it didn't bring financial gain.

Speaking of their victims at trial, Volkovich stated that "they were nothing to me, not people, just items in a list". He then added that murders became like a drug to him. "They made me feel like a superman", he said. The only victim he expressed any regret over was their last, the woman he had accidentally hit while drunk driving, and the pair's only known female victim.[4][5]

• Dnepropetrovsk maniacs, two Ukrainian serial killers who also worked in a group, occasionally robbing their victims.
• Thrill killing