Yuriy Kuzmenko
Yuriy Mykolaivych Kuzmenko, known as The Boiarka Maniac, nicknamed Elvis Presley or Shatun, is a Ukrainian serial killer and rapist who was linked to the rape-murders of at least 13 girls and women in the Kyiv Oblast between 2005 and 2009. Following his arrest, Kuzmenko himself claimed to be responsible for the murders of a total of 206 people, a claim that has never been verified.
The investigation into his crimes proved to be one of the most high-profile in the country's history, further complicated by the fact that two unrelated serial killers operated in the same area at the same time. The materials and methods used in the investigation were later intensely studied, and are currently utilized as a framework on similar cases.
Early life
Yuriy Kuzmenko was born in 1974 in the village of Velyka Vil'shanka, Kyiv Oblast, and had a brother and sister. He grew up in an unstable family due to his father's antisocial behavior and frequent acts of aggression towards his mother. During his school years, Kuzmenko was fond of sports and was considered popular among his peers and neighbors. In order to assert himself, he often fought and beat up older boys.After graduating from school, he received a secondary vocational education as a carpenter. In the early 1990s, he was drafted into the Ukrainian Air Assault Forces, and after demobilization, he returned to the Kyiv Oblast and changed several jobs, mostly working as a low-skilled laborer. Throughout the years, he is known to have worked as a carpenter, tower crane operator, cab driver and security guard.
In the late 1990s, Kuzmenko got married and had two children, but the marriage did not work out and he soon divorced his wife, instead moving in with another woman, Olga Vanyukhova, who had a son from a previous marriage. Prior to his arrest, they lived on Yasnaya Street in the city of Boiarka.
In 2002, Kuzmenko was arrested for a robbery committed near the Hryshko National Botanical Garden in Kyiv, for which he was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison. During his prison stint he worked as a carpenter, and was paroled after eight months for good behavior. He then returned to Boiarka, where he retained a good reputation among friends and acquaintances.
Murders
Modus operandi
Sometime after his release from prison, Kuzmenko started committing murders, all of which he did in using a certain modus operandi. Driving around in his Lada Riva, he would look for potential victims on the streets or at public transportation stops, and would then offer them a ride. Alternatively, he would outright ambush them near woods or on the outskirts of villages near railroad tracks and train stations. Due to his tall stature, athletic build and attractive appearance, he easily earned the trust and comfort of victims.If he found a potential victim, Kuzmenko would drive to a deserted area where he would rape the victim, only killing them if he was sure they had seen his face clearly. He strangled most of the victims, and is known to have stabbed to death only one. Most of the attacks were committed along the Kyiv-Fastiv train route in the Kyiv-Sviatoshyn and Vasylkiv Raions.
In terms of victim preference, Kuzmenko's only apparent criteria was if the victim was female – he demonstrated no apparent preference for age, height, social status, ethnicity or any other category. Most of the times he acted in a very organized manner, planning ambushes and even constructing temporary huts to wait for a potential victim, but occasionally just attacked spontaneously and without premeditation.
Investigation
As the murders continued, a specialized task force was set up to investigate them, headed by the Kyiv Prosecutor's Office and the Ministry of Internal Affairs. More than 10,000 people were investigated as potential suspects and several thousand cars were checked, but few clues came about as to the killer's identity.The first time the theory of a serial killer was put forward was in 2007, when investigator Vasyl Paskal determined through a DNA test that the same was responsible for at least three of the murders in the Vasylkiv Raion. The killings were combined into one case at the turn of 2009, after further inspection of the crime scenes led investigators to conclude that five of the murders were linked to the same perpetrator. Since most of them were committed at a considerable distance from railway stations, the agencies requested satellite images of the areas from NATO. Investigator Ruslan Sushko later stated that NATO provided the Ukrainian agencies many images, paying $1,250 per image. With these images, they concluded that the killer drove either a Moskvitch or a Lada Riva that was either green, blue or red in color. In order to capture the perpetrator, the agencies organized several operations across wooded areas.
Following Bondar's murder, a witness came forward that provided crucial information. The man, a cab driver and former senior police inspector who knew the victim personally, said that he saw her enter a green-colored Lada Riva that was either 5th or 7th generation. In addition, he remembered one part of the license plate, the letters "VI". Based off this information, the investigators started searching for any such cars across the country. Out of a total 7,043 cars, only 50 were registered in the Kyiv Oblast – Kuzmenko was never considered a suspect, as he drove the car by power of attorney, and the real owner had an alibi for the day of Bondar's murder. After this, Paskal ordered that the investigators make a special questionnaire and distribute it across the Kyiv-Svyatoshynskyi and Vasylkiv Raions.
In May of the same year, law enforcement officers came to the house of Yuriy Kuzmenko in Boiarka, where they talked with him and found out that he was driving such a car. During the conversation, Kuzmenko, at the insistence of a local district police officer, gave a saliva sample for examination. His sample proved be a match, leading officers to consider detaining him for further questioning. However, Kuzmenko felt threatened after the visit, gathered his belongings and fled. While searching his house and garage, investigators found a bag with women's underwear of different sizes and styles, some of which had bloodstains.
After he fled, Kuzmenko's wife gave law enforcement officers the address of his sister and brother's residences in Barakhty and Kyiv, where they soon organized ambushes. Initially, Kuzmenko hid at his sister's house, before traveling to Kyiv to visit his brother.
Arrest, investigation and trial
On 29 May 2006, Kuzmenko was arrested without incident at the doorstep of his brother's house in Kyiv. During the first interrogation, Kuzmenko expressed his willingness to cooperate with the investigation and confessed to 11 murders. In the following days, he was escorted to the crime scenes to provide a reconstruction of how he carried out the murders. In order to ensure his safety and prevent reprisals from angry locals, Kuzmenko was forced to wear a helmet and armor, and was escorted not only by local law enforcement, but also by members of the Berkut and Kobra special forces.When pressed for a motive, Kuzmenko claimed that he started developing an inferiority complex at the turn of 2000, deciding to spend most of his time in the woods to reassert himself. At around that time, he started committing robberies and rapes, initially leaving the victims alive, but with time, he developed an addiction to killing. He was unable to explain what caused him to sexually assault the elderly victims, nor why he did not wear a condom during the rapes, despite knowing that leaving traces of his semen would eventually lead to his capture.
Once the investigation was completed, Kuzmenko was charged with 13 murders, several of the rapes and multiple robberies, with the case file totaling more than 140 volumes. The trial began in the spring of 2011 and was held behind closed doors. On 25 May 2011, Kuzmenko was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life imprisonment. During sentencing, he expressed no visible emotion, despite the fact that he appeared listless and disinterested throughout the court sessions.
Aftermath and current status
Following his conviction, Kuzmenko was transferred to the Romenskoye Colony No. 56 in Vyshneve, where he remains to this day.Ever since his conviction, there has been a debate about the true number of Kuzmenko's victims. He himself claimed to have murdered a total 206 young girls and women, and while most investigators believed this to be an embellished number, the task force was forced to admit that there were multiple cases where prosecutors refused to press charges against Kuzmenko. One example involved an 18-year-old woman that went missing from a disco during the winter, only to be found dead in a pond soon afterwards. Authorities refused to press charges, as they believed that the girl died by suicide.
According to the head of the Kyiv Special Task Force, the bodies of around 56 young girls and women were found around the area in early 2008, some of whom were suspected to be victims of Kuzmenko. However, since he had a poor memory and struggled to recall details about the victims, they were unable to conclusively link him to most of these crimes. Investigator Ruslan Sushko also speculated that some victims' remains might have been scattered by wild animals or buried by local police officers to improve solved crime statistics, a practice that Sushko claimed was standard for regional law enforcement agencies.