Keller - True Crime: Soviet Monsters

Soviet

Monsters

Terrifying Serial Killers from

Russia & the former Soviet States

Robert Keller

PUBLISHED BY:

Robert Keller

Copyright 2016

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be copied or reproduced in any format, electronic or otherwise, without the prior, written consent of the copyright holder and publisher. This book is for informational and entertainment purposes only and the author and publisher will not be held responsible for the misuse of information contain herein, whether deliberate or incidental.

Much research, from a variety of sources, has gone into the compilation of this material. To the best knowledge of the author and publisher, the material contained herein is factually correct. Neither the publisher, nor author will be held responsible for any inaccuracies.

: known as Metal Fang due to his unique dental work, Dzhumagaliev served up the flesh of his victims to his unsuspecting dinner guests.

: a killer so brutal, so bloodthirsty, that the Ukrainian government mobilized an entire army unit to stop him.

: Deadly teenaged duo who recorded their sick crimes on video and posted them on the internet.

: ex-homicide detective who used his knowledge of forensics to evade the Ukrainian police for over 20 years, during which he killed 100 times.

: inflicted such horrific mutilations on his 30 victims that the police refused to release the details, even after he was convicted.

: witnessing a fatal auto wreck turned this apparently respectable family man into a sadistic torture slayer of children.

: wannabe hitmen who murdered over 16 people in order to practice their killing skills.

: Siberian cannibal who preyed on street children, slaughtering them in his filthy apartment and handing over their flesh to his mother to cook.

In the early months of 1987, a school located in Kiev, Ukraine suffered a double tragedy. Two staff members died in quick succession, both with similar, inexplicable symptoms. The first of these was the school Partorg (a role that encompassed responsibility for ideological education as well as human resources); the second was the nutrition nurse, a woman in her twenties, who had appeared to be in good physical health. Doctors who examined the two were baffled by their symptoms, which included chronic joint pain and almost complete hair loss. Unable to determine the cause behind these afflictions, they fell back on the diagnosis prevalent in Soviet medicine at that time. According to their death certificates, both victims had died of heart failure.

A short while later, on an afternoon in March of 1987, a Kiev hospital was suddenly inundated with a rash of emergency admissions. Several desperately ill children arrived almost simultaneously, all of them writhing in agony. The youngsters had been picked up at various locations, although a common link was soon established. They all attended the same school. Then, as doctors fought desperately to stabilize their young patients, a call came in from the school itself. Two adults a teacher and a refrigerator repair man had been struck down by the same mystery ailment. An ambulance was immediately dispatched to bring them to the hospital. Within 24 hours, both adults, as well as two of the eleven children admitted on that horrific day, had died in agony.

A link was quickly established between those deaths and the two that had occurred earlier in the year at the same school. The question was, what had caused them?

Initially, it was speculated that some sort of infection was responsible. However, the symptoms displayed by the patients were inconsistent with this. None, for example, had shown any evidence of fever.

Then, it was thought the victims had been exposed to some sort of poison, radioactive material, perhaps. The Chernobyl nuclear disaster had occurred less than a year prior. Had radioactive material somehow made it to this Kiev school? Not wanting to take any chances, hospital administrators contacted the Sanitation and Epidemics Station (Russias version of the CDC). It wasnt long before SES technicians in protective suits were wandering the halls of the school with Geiger counters. The results, however, showed no signs of contamination.

Meanwhile, back at the hospital, the bloodwork of all the patients, including the four who had died, was back. And the doctors were in for a surprise. All had tested positive for the poison thallium. Tests were then ordered on the exhumed corpses of the two earlier victims and returned a similar result.

With the discovery of thallium in the bodies, the symptoms made perfect sense. But while that question was now answered, another was raised. How had the victims come into contact with the deadly substance? SES officials suspected accidental exposure, perhaps as a result of careless pest control measures. The school building was thus subjected to a thorough sweep. No trace of the poison was found.

That left only one explanation for the six deaths - deliberate poisoning. What had started out as the suspected leak of radioactive materials was now a homicide investigation.