54-year-old Anatoly Onoprienko died in the Zhytomyr colony - Serial killer, responsible for the deaths of dozens of people. He committed crimes on the territory of Ukraine in the early 1990s, while he for a long time managed to hide from the police. After he was finally caught and tried, the killer was sentenced to death. However, the death sentence was never carried out: due to the moratorium on the death penalty introduced in Ukraine, the punishment was replaced with life imprisonment.
The killer, who was called the “Ukrainian Chikatilo,” died on August 27. The preliminary cause of death is a heart attack.
As the penitentiary service said, the guard, while making his rounds, noticed that Onoprienko, who was being held in one of the cells in the sector for life-sentenced prisoners, was in a “fainting state.” Doctors tried to help the prisoner, but their efforts did not bring results. The body of the deceased was sent for examination.
According to the chairman of the penitentiary service, Igor Andrushko, the serial killer had “heart problems,” including Lately he complained about his health. Although journalists who visited the colony at the beginning of 2013 argued the opposite: according to their data, during the entire period of his imprisonment - 17 years - Onoprienko was never sick.
The serial killer was kept in solitary confinement (“He is a serial killer, and according to prison laws such people can be killed,” noted the head of the prison, Vladimir Kudelsky. “Onoprienko wrote a statement that he wants to be alone in the cell”). He refused to work. Spent time reading books. He talked with the priest who came to the prison - “argued about the interpretation of biblical texts.”
Murders
Anatoly Onoprienko was a native of the Zhitomir region. He grew up in an orphanage, served in the army, then got a job at a naval school, and served in the navy. As lawyer Ruslan Moshkovsky, who was Onoprienko’s defender in court, later said, his client was written off to shore after the future maniac was convicted of petty theft.
After serving in the navy, Onoprienko got a job in the fire department. For some time he even worked as a deputy party organizer in the Zaporozhye region.
Answering the question later why he began to kill people, Onoprienko stated that he did it allegedly for the sake of money - for the purpose of robbery (however, this is only one of the versions he voiced). He actually took some things from his victims, but they often had no significant value. “The largest amount he took from the victim was a thousand dollars,” says the lawyer. “But mostly pennies... lipstick, cosmetics, a pair of shoes...” In one case, the “loot” consisted of a bucket of herring.
Another explanation was offered by Onoprienko’s acquaintance, Sergei Rogozin, who received 12 years in prison on charges of accomplice (Onoprienko and Rogozin were small business partners: they bought a car together and used it to transport vegetables for sale; during their joint trips, Onoprienko committed several murders - Rogozin later he claimed that he was only waiting for his partner in the car and did not personally take part in the crimes).
“He’s generally a hunter,” an accomplice said about Onoprienko. - Officially he was a member of a hunting organization. Everywhere we went with him, his registered gun was in the trunk. When he sees a hare, he stops and goes to shoot. I think that he went out to people as if he were hunting.”
Onoprienko began killing back in 1989. The first victims were spouses who lived in one of the villages in the Dnepropetrovsk region. A month after this, another married couple was killed - already in the Rivne region. A month later, five residents of the Zaporozhye region became victims of the “hunter”.
Anatoly Yuryevich Onoprienko, (Ukrainian: Anatoliy Yuriyovych Onoprienko, born July 25, 1959 in the village of Laski, Zhytomyr region) is a Ukrainian serial killer. Ukrainian. Nicknames: "Ukrainian Beast", "Terminator" and "Citizen O". Between 1989 and 1996, he killed 52 people: 9 victims from June 14 to August 16, 1989 and 43 victims from October 5, 1995 to March 22, 1996.
Anatoly Onoprienko is, along with Chikatilo, one of the most bloodthirsty killers of the former Soviet Union, just like Chikatilo, he is widely known in the West. At the peak of his fame, in the mid-nineties, he topped the ranking of the most bloodthirsty killers of the last two centuries, according to the France-Presse news agency. Not in vain.
Anatoly Onoprienko was born on July 25, 1959 in the small village of Laski, Narodichsky district, Zhitomir region. Tolya's mother died when he was not yet five years old, and by that time his father had already left the family. Until he was seven years old, he lived with his grandparents, then he was raised in an orphanage. Onoprienko's childhood was difficult and joyless, he was deprived of a family, and this may have influenced his development as a robber and serial killer.
The future maniac's youth was quite ordinary. After the shelter, I studied at a technical school to become a forester, did not graduate, and went into the army. After serving near Leningrad, he returned to Ukraine, studied at a naval school in Odessa, and then until 1986 worked as a sailor mechanic on several ships. After leaving the navy, he worked as a fire chief in the city of Dneproprudny, Zaporozhye region.
Onoprienko began his “career” in 1989, carrying out robberies with his accomplice Sergei Rogozin, an Afghan veteran. His first victims were a husband and wife, whom Anatoly shot as they walked to their car. Later, at the trial, Onoprienko will say that he received neither pleasure nor benefit from the murder.
In total, nine people were killed in 1989, all the murders were committed in a similar way: Onoprienko simply shot his victims. Among others, an 11-year-old boy who was sleeping in the car died. Along with him, four other passengers were shot; Anatoly burned all the bodies. Onoprienko will say about this episode that he had no intention of killing people, the purpose of the attack was simple robbery.
After this year, a long gap occurred in Onoprienko’s bloody series. From 1989 to 1996, he traveled around Europe illegally, without a visa, from where he was expelled twice: from Germany and from Austria. Little is known what Onoprienko did during this period of time; in his own words, he was a simple worker. However, there is a version according to which Anatoly lived by robbery, burglary and petty robberies; most likely, it is absolutely true. However, there is no evidence that Onoprienko could kill in Europe; he himself categorically denies this.
He continued his murders in Ukraine, when he finally returned there at the end of 1995. Now the killer acted without accomplices, in cold blood, according to a clear, well-developed scheme. There is not a drop of pity in him for his victims, which he will say more than once in court. “I have never regretted anything, and I don’t regret anything now,” are his own words.
Anatoly Onoprienko begins his new series, which will become truly terrifying, in the west of Ukraine with the murder of Nikolai Zaichenko and his family. Zaichenko, his wife and two children were shot in cold blood, like the previous victims of the maniac. Onoprienko profited from wedding rings, some jewelry, and warm clothes. When he left, he set the house on fire.
Onoprienko himself spoke about one of his murders this way: “When everyone was already asleep, he entered. First he shot the owner, then his wife, who begged: “don’t shoot,” he stabbed a six-year-old and strangled a three-month-old baby. Then he set the house on fire.” Apparently, the killer did not have a drop of pity even for his child victims.
The next murders took place on the last day of the year, December 31, 1995. The Kryuchkov family never managed to celebrate the holiday: a maniac with a gun broke into their house. A married couple and two young girls, their twin daughters became the new victims of the killer, who was nicknamed “The Terminator”: with such ease he dealt with adult men and their families. The body of one of the girls was found in the kitchen; before her death, she was so scared that she bit her hand to the bone. Onoprienko cut off her mother's finger - he couldn't remove it wedding ring. And from this house the criminal took a few expensive things, and this house burned to the ground along with its dead owners: the maniac almost always acted in one way.
On the same holiday, which for the residents of the quiet village of Bratkovichi turned into an unheard of tragedy, and in the same way, two more men were killed, who may have witnessed the previous massacre.
The first week of the new year 1996 has not even passed, and Anatoly Onoprienko has already continued his terrifying adventures. On January 5, four people were killed in the Zaporozhye region: two men in a broken down car, a random pedestrian and a policeman. Four more became victims of the killer the next day; in addition to rings and earrings, Onoprienko removed the shoes of the shot woman and took two bags of groceries. All the crimes were committed along the Berdyansk-Dnepropetrovsk highway, mostly Onoprienko killed people in parked cars.
On January 17, Onoprienko visits Bratkovichi again. The village, which became the main arena of the heartless maniac’s actions, will lose 7 people: for a family of 5 people (two adults, two elderly people and a six-year-old child) and two more people who met Onoprienko by chance, this day will become fatal.
At this time, the killer lived with his cousin Peter, in the military town of Yavorov, just 30 kilometers from the place where his crimes were committed. There, Onoprienko meets Anna Kozak, a divorced woman slightly younger than himself. Anna works as a hairdresser, has her own apartment, and has two children. Having literally fallen in love with Anatoly at first sight, she invites him to move in with her.
The woman is happy that she was able to meet a man like Anatoly - reasonable, calm - a reliable support in life. Of course, she does not have the slightest suspicion about her lover’s other life, and he, either under the pretext of a trip to his brother, or simply “on business,” travels around the country, slaughtering entire families.
Four people (two of them children) were shot dead in the Kyiv region on January 30. Three weeks later, in Oblevsk in the Zhitomir region, the Dubchak family was killed: father and son were shot from a gun, mother and daughter were beaten to death with a hammer. On February 27, the Bondarchuk family was killed in the Lviv region; two children were hacked to death by Onoprienko with an ax, and their neighbor.
The criminal committed his last murders on March 22, 1996, taking the life of a family not far from the same Bratkovichi in the traditional way. Onoprienko added five more people to his bloody tally, one child was literally ripped open with a knife from the stomach to the throat.
The Ukrainian police worked in high gear: the maniac (it has now become clear that this is one person, and not a group of accomplices, as was initially believed) must be caught at all costs. According to his lawyer Ruslan Moshkovsky, said many years later, the killer could have been stopped at the beginning of his bloody rampage in 1989. Then Rogozin and Onoprienko were practically accused of committing several murders; all the evidence was there. However, at the last moment everything fell through; for some unknown reason they stopped digging under Onoprienko. (You can read more about this episode in, which contains enough interesting information both about the case and about the court).
Finally, after months of labor-intensive work done law enforcement agencies, the killer was identified and it became known where he lived. The raid on the criminal became the largest in the entire history of Ukraine; special forces armed with heavy weapons were involved in the case; in total, about 2,000 people were involved.
All these measures turned out to be unnecessary. On April 16, Onoprienko, not even suspecting how large-scale the hunt was being launched for him, calmly opened front door Anna Kozak's apartment. The policemen burst in and instantly tied up Anatoly. So terrible a series of murders that began in the USSR and lasted six bloody years, it was over.
After this, Onoprienko was kept in solitary confinement for a long time, taking advantage of a significant delay in the beginning of the trial, which, unfortunately, often happens in domestic justice. Most of the time was spent preparing the parties for the trial, because the volume of the case amounted to a huge number of volumes, in addition, some problems with financing played a role: it was necessary to pay for travel and accommodation for more than 400 witnesses.
Finally, on November 24, 1998, the process began. As already mentioned, Onoprienko’s lawyer was Ruslan Moshkovsky. By the way, during the trial the criminal asked to replace his lawyer with a more experienced and independent one, but his request was rejected.
There was an incredible amount of excitement surrounding the Terminator trial. The courtroom was almost always crowded, and people crowded around the courthouse during hearings. The killer himself had to be protected no less carefully than the people around him from him: almost everyone wanted Onoprienko to die, while many stated that it should be painful.
During the hearings, Onoprienko behaved quite defiantly. He refused to name his nationality, called himself a “hostage of justice,” and did not testify. At the same time, he completely calmly admitted the murders of more than 50 people, moreover, as if he was proud of them, attributing even more to himself. He spoke quite calmly about his murder of small children, declaring that they did not evoke in him a drop of compassion, or an emotional outburst, in general, no emotions.
The killer explained his crimes by saying that some voice from above ordered him to kill. It’s hard to believe, besides, such an “excuse” from criminals is far from new, let’s just remember. In general, Onoprienko spoke a lot about motivations for murder and rather far-fetchedly. If you believe his words, the following picture emerges.
The killer planned 3 series of murders, each supposedly aimed at good: 9 victims in the first (against dying communism), 40 in the second (against neo-nationalism) and more than 300 in the third (against the plague of the 21st century). This is explained by the fact that the dead are commemorated on the ninth and fortieth days, as well as every year. The first series was committed together with Sergei Rogozin (Onoprienko does not explain his role in this “mystical” story), but acting alone, the killer “exceeded the plan”: he had 43 human lives. Another series of bloody events was prevented by arrest; the “benefactor” failed to save humanity from the plague.
It is obvious, in general, that Onoprienko’s ravings pursued several goals, such as: presenting himself as more abnormal than he really is, or simply playing to the public. However, his words about many new victims were most likely not an empty phrase. The defendant told his lawyer (in his words) that he committed his murders out of a desire to profit. This, however, is also doubtful: there was no special profit from the crimes. One way or another, the trial of the maniac continued.
The trial lasted about four months and ended with Onoprienko's death sentence on March 3. The judge had to read the verdict several times because... many people shouted insults and curses at the defendant from the seats, and there was incredible noise in the courtroom. Onoprienko met the sentence of execution by calmly staring at the floor. His accomplice Sergei Rogozin was sentenced to 13 years in prison (the prosecution asked for 15).
In 2000, a moratorium on the death penalty was introduced in Ukraine; the sentence was not carried out. However, residents of Zhitomir and other Ukrainian cities organized a collection of signatures for an appeal to President Kuchma, calling for the suspension of the moratorium specifically for Onoprienko. These requirements were not met. More than seven years have passed since then, and he is still being held in the Zhytomyr prison. The guards say that the criminal reads a lot, behaves with restraint and decentness and hopes to someday be released. However, I would like to believe that this will never happen, because Onoprienko once said: “If I manage to get out, I will start killing again.”
The guilty verdict for the atrocities of the “Zhytomyr maniac” Anatoly Onoprienko and the testimony of witnesses resemble a creepy horror movie script. Dozens of dead and hundreds of terrorized victims. The cold-bloodedness of the maniac and his obsession with murder made even investigators who had seen a lot of things in their lifetime shudder.
Application
Part of the indictment protocol - a list of Onoprienko's victims
The document presents a chronology of his atrocities in Ukraine from June 14, 1989 to March 22, 1996. However, they say that this official list of people killed by Onoprienko is far from complete. The killer himself said that he committed his first murder in 1989 in Odessa. It was the landlady of the apartment where Onoprienko lived: he became bored and needed money to leave - so he killed her. Her name is not listed in the indictment protocol.
"1. Bandit attack and destruction of Melnykiv, Sinelnykivskyi district, Dnipropetrovsk region. 14 June 1989.
Input: Melnik O.V., born in 1958
Melnik L.M., born in 1958
2. Bandit attack and destruction of Vasylkiv, Koretsky district, Rivne region. 16 lipnya 1989 roku.
Driven in: Vasilyuk Viktor, born 1946
Vasilyuk Anna, born in 1957
3. Bandit attack and driving in Podolyak, village. Novogorivka, Zaporizhzhya region. September 16, 1989.
Input: Podolyaka E.O., born 1954
Seleshok O.P., born in 1964
Seleshok L.P., born in 1967
Teslya Z.P., born in 1962
Podolyaka O.Y., born in 1978
4. Theft from M.P. Motsi, metro station Kiev. 2 Versny 1994 rock.
Suffered: Motsia M.P.
Baron V.R.
5. Theft from Kozerenko A.I., m. Malin, Zhytomyr region. 3 zhvenny 1995 rock.
Paterpily Kozerenko A.I.
6. Theft from Kushnir O.I., smt. Narodich, Zhytomyr region. June 14, 1995.
Patient Kushnir O.I.
7. Preparation, saving and wearing of food. Zhytomyr, Lviv, Odeska, Zaporizka, Kiev, Rivnensk, Dnipropetrovsk regions. Zhovten 1995 fate - Kviten 1996 fate.
8. Robbery attack and killing of Svitlovsky O.I. і Grishchenko G.O., m. Malin, Zhytomyr region. 5th June 1995
Input: Svitlovsky O.I., born in 1956
Grishchenko G.O., born in 1958
9. Robbery attack and killing Parashchuk M.P., Odessa city. June 28, 1995.
Driven by Parashchuk M.Z.
10. Theft from Palka Z.L., Busk metro station, Lviv region. 5th birthday 1995 roku.
Palka Z.L. suffered
11. Swing to drive in Barants I.I., m. Busk, Lviv region. 5th birthday 1995 roku.
Patient Baranets I.I.
12. Znishchenya Lane Palki Z.L. 5th birthday 1995 roku.
13. Theft of the sovereign lane, Ovruch metro station, Zhytomyr region. 7th birthday 1995 roku.
TKP "Polysyanka".
14. Theft from Lomeyk Yu.O., p. Orlyanske, Vasylkivsky district, Zaporizhzhya region. 25-27 breasts 1995 roku.
15. Robbery attack and killing of the family of Zaichenkiv, Gamarnya village, Malinsky district, Zhytomyr region. 24th birthday 1995.
Entered: Zaichenko V.M., born in 1968.
Zaichenko Yu.V., born in 1970
Zaichenko B.V., born in 1992
Zaichenko O.V., born in 1995
16. Robbery attack and killing of Malinovsky M.Y., p. Bratkovichi, Gorodotsky district, Lviv region. 29th birthday 1995 roku.
Driven by Malinovsky M.Y., born in 1962.
17. Robbery attack and killing of the Krichkovsky family and Galushok sisters, village of Bratkovichi, Gorodotsky district, Lviv region. 30 June 1995.
Input: Krichkovsky P.A., born in 1968.
Krichkovska M.Ya., born in 1972
Galushka L.Ya., born in 1977
Galushka M.Ya., born in 1977
18. Robbery attack and killing of Odintsov S.V. and Dolininoya T.V., m. Energodar, Zaporizhzka region. 5 sіchnya 1996 roku.
Entered: Odintsova S.V., born in 1956
Dolininu T.V., born in 1964
19. Robbery attack and killing of Ribalka O.M. і Garmasha S.I., Vasylkivsky district, Zaporizhzhya region. 5 sіchnya 1996 roku.
Driven in: Ribalko O.M., born in 1964.
Garmash S.I., born in 1960
20. Killing Savitsky A.I., Vasylkivsky district, Zaporizhzhya region. 6 September 1996
Driven by A.I. Savitsky, born in 1950.
21. Robbery attack and killing of Kasay V.V., Vasylkivsky district, Zaporizhzhya region. 6 September 1996
Driven by Kasaya V.V., born in 1960
22. Vbivstvo Kocherginoya N.V., Vasylkivsky district, Zaporizhzhya region. 6 September 1996
Driven to Kochergin N.V., born in 1960.
23. Robbery attack and killing of the family Pilates, village of Bratkovichi, Gorodotsky district, Lviv region. 17 June 1996.
Entered: Pilat V.I., born 1934
Pilat O.I., born in 1936
Pilat I.V., born in 1965
Pilat L.Y., born in 1970
Pilat O.I., born in 1989
24. Robbery attack and killing of Zakharka S.M. i Kondzioli G.V., p. Bratkovichi, Gorodotsky district, Lviv region. 17 sіchnya 1996 roku.
Input: Zakharko S.M., born 1940
Kondziola G.V., born in 1966
25. Robbery attack and killing of Zagranichny S.V., Marusina S.A. and children, m. Fastiv, Kiev region. 30 June 1996
Input: Zagranichny S.V., born in 1964
Marusin S.A., born in 1967
Marusina B.V., born in 1989
Marusina D.V., born in 1990
26. Robbery attack and killing of the family of Dubchakiv, Olevsk city, Zhytomyr region. February 19, 1996.
Input: Dubchak A.Y., born in 1964.
Dubchak Yu.M., born in 1965
Dubchak V.A., born in 1987
27. Robbery attack and killing of Gudzya V.V., Malin, Zhytomyr region. 26 fierce 1996 rock.
Driven by Gudzya V.V., born in 1956
28. Robbery attack and killing of Bondarchuk, m. Malin. February 27, 1996.
Driven in: Bondarchuk S.S., born in 1969.
Bondarchuk G.G., born in 1965
Bondarchuk V.S., born in 1987
Bondarchuk T.S., born in 1988
29. Robbery attack and killing of Tsalko B.B., Ovruch m., Zhytomyr region. 14 Bereznya 1996 rock.
Driven by Tsalko B.B., born in 1968
30. Robbery attack and killing of the family of Novosadiv and Kucheryavoi I.P., Busk, Lviv region. 22 February 1996.
Driven by: Novosad M.M., born in 1960.
Novosad G.P., born in 1965
Novosad L.M., born in 1986
Kucheryava I.P., born in 1970.”
But the verdict never came into force. In March 1997, a moratorium on the “tower” was introduced in Ukraine. Exactly one year after the arrest of Anatoly Onoprienko. In February 2000, the country ratified Protocol No. 6 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, concerning the abolition of the death penalty. On September 1, 2001, the new Criminal Code of Ukraine came into force. It replaced the death penalty with life imprisonment. In 2002, Ukraine completely abandoned the “tower”.
Relatives of the victims were beside themselves with indignation. Couldn't an exception have been made? Residents of the Zhytomyr and Lviv regions began collecting signatures for the execution of the sentence Supreme Court. They even begged for the guards to “accidentally” take Onoprienko out into the street, and for the axes and scythes of the crowd to finish their job. Thanks to Ukraine’s “European choice,” the killer, as well as his accomplice Sergei Rogozin, who killed five, survived.
People don’t understand how “humane values” can be applied to a monster when he doesn’t even have the beginnings of humanity? And who will guarantee that the same Onoprienko will not escape from prison and kill a dozen more people along the way? And won’t such impunity give the hands of other Onoprienkos a free hand, who will kill, knowing that in any case they will live? Moreover, those sentenced to life imprisonment can appeal. Onoprienko also plans to apply for a pardon over time. Lo and behold, they will release you for good behavior. But experts say serial killers sooner or later return to their bloody path.
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According to investigators, over seven years Anatoly Onoprienko killed 52 people, including 11 children.
In fact, the scumbag evened the bloody “score” with the Rostov monster Andrei Chikatilo, who killed 53 people in 12 years. Only unlike the necrophiliac maniac Chikatilo, Anatoly Onoprienko often killed for the sake of killing itself.
All maniacs come from “childhood,” said the famous forensic psychiatrist Alexander Bukhanovsky in one of his interviews. The most famous serial killers were examined at its center in Rostov-on-Don. It was there that the term “Chikatilo phenomenon” appeared. According to the psychiatrist, serial killers have neither historical nor national roots - this is a characteristic of a person who has a pathological tendency to serial murders. They simply cannot live without it.
Anatoly Yurievich Onoprienko
The future bloodiest maniac in Ukraine was born in 1959 into a simple peasant family in the village of Laski, Zhitomir region. His mother worked on a collective farm. My father fought in the Great Patriotic War while still a teenager, and after the war he was convicted twice. Parents divorced when Anatoly was still young. And then he was completely orphaned - his mother died of a heart attack, his father did not need him (he was raising children from his second wife). So seven-year-old Anatoly Yuryevich Onoprienko ended up in an orphanage.
For a long time he had to earn authority among the boys in the orphanage, enduring humiliation and beatings. He grew up obstinate and cocky, and his teachers also often severely punished him and called him a bastard. Even then, educators noted signs of clinical sadism in the character of Anatoly Onoprienko - he liked to stab children with a screwdriver or a needle, he took pleasure in it.
After the eighth grade, Anatoly Yuryevich Onoprienko entered the forestry technical school. He studied poorly, fought, stole (he did this back in the orphanage). Then he dropped out of school and joined the army. In the army he came under the pressure of hazing because of his obstinate character and was severely and often beaten.
After demobilization main goal life became materially well-being, and Anatoly Yuryevich Onoprienko entered the naval corps - so that he could go on voyages abroad. He sailed as a motor mechanic after graduating from college, became quite rich by Soviet standards, and also smuggled and stole from cabins. He saw abroad and the beautiful life there, which became his dream.
Had a child with the waitress Irina in civil marriage. I bought a two-story house in the village of Mayachki, then a car, bringing every penny to my family. But the family broke up - the wife found out that Onoprienko was cheating on her.
By that time, Onoprienko had already been written off from the fleet - the captain could no longer tolerate the thieving sailor, and Onoprienko got a job at the fire department in the city of Dneprorudnoye, where he made significant progress along the party line - he became a deputy party organizer.
Colleagues respected him for his strength and hard work (no one here knew about his naval sins). I bought the treasured hunting rifle, which I had dreamed of since childhood, and joined the Society of Hunters and Fishermen. Onoprienko enjoyed success with women and had a reputation as an excellent lover. And suddenly, unexpectedly for everyone, in 1989 he sells the house and leaves.
Murders on the highway
Perhaps the beast in Onoprienko was awakened by a traumatic brain injury received during a fight with a friend whom he found in the arms of his mistress even before the start of the first series of murders. He did not go to the hospital; a surgeon he knew simply stitched him up right at home. He later told psychiatrists about his desire to kill people: “And this was at 10
times more desirable, just like I haven’t been with a woman for a year and you want her, I wanted to kill just as much.”
Onoprienko met his accomplice Sergei Rogozin in early 1989. Former special forces soldier Rogozin served in Afghanistan and received government awards. In civilian life I had my own small business. They found each other in the gym, where they both went to work out their muscles. And they tried to do joint business selling used cars, but business was going poorly, and the friends traveled around Ukraine, selling fruits and vegetables grown on their plots. During these trips, Anatoly Onoprienko came up with the idea of how to get rich - to rob the rich, who at night rest in cars on the side of the roads. Rogozin agreed - Onoprienko promised that he would take over the killings.
On June 13, 1989, the newly minted bandits, having sold cherries, were returning from the Novgorod region along the Moscow-Simferopol highway. We drove quietly, waiting until the highway was empty. When it got dark, we noticed a Zhiguli with a trailer parked on the side of the road. There was no light in the cabin - that means they were sleeping. Onoprienko, taking the hard drive, got out of the car, ordering
Rogozin should drive a little further and wait for his signal. For some time he looked at the Melnik spouses sleeping in the car, thinking about how best to shoot. And then he shot through the glass at the sleeping man. Anatoly Onoprienko pulled the sleepy, uncomprehending woman out of the car and drove to the forest belt. She screamed and he shot her in the chest.
I took documents and anything valuable from the car. Single-handedly he hid the corpses in the forest belt, digging them up and throwing them over them with branches. And then he drove onto the highway in the car of the dead and flashed his headlights - he gave the prearranged signal to Rogozin. Following the same scenario, they carried out two more attacks, killing a total of 9 people.
Onoprienko shared the loot with an accomplice. He now began to burn the corpses, after dousing them with gasoline. After the third attack, there was a chase, but Onoprienko escaped from the police in a stolen car and burned the car in the thickets of corn.
Soon he and Rogozin broke up - Onoprienko decided to leave for Europe. He literally lived homeless abroad and was deported to Ukraine more than once, but again and again he crossed the border illegally. He went to prison more than once for theft and robbery. I tried to get political asylum in Germany, but was refused. Then he robbed a store, hoping to go to prison and receive citizenship after his release. He himself came to the police and confessed. But it didn’t work out either. As a result, he ended up back in Ukraine.
Onoprienko is a maniac
On May 31, 1994, Onoprienko was detained by police at the Kiev railway station - he behaved inappropriately and aroused suspicion. And then there was a psychiatric hospital, from where he was discharged three months later with a diagnosis of schizophrenia, a paranoid form. In Kyiv, Onoprienko engaged in burglary, stealing food and everything he could get his hands on. Then he temporarily stayed with his brother. All this time, the desire to kill literally incinerated him from the inside. In 1995, he began a second series of murders in Ukraine, now alone, by stealing
A friend has a gun.
The maniac Onoprienko traveled around Ukraine, killing entire families in villages. The scenario was already familiar. He chose a house on the outskirts, ripped the door off its hinges at night and broke in. He shot men immediately, killed women and children with a knife - it was a pity to waste bullets. Or he would throw a stone at the window and shoot the owner who came out of the house at the noise, and then dealt with the household members.
Residents of the village of Bratkovichi still remember with horror the years 1995 and 1996 - in two sessions, the maniac Onoprienko killed 12 people in the village. The entire police force of Ukraine was looking for Onoprienko, but he remained elusive. And only in 1999 they managed to detain him. They took the “Polesie ghoul” from the apartment of his partner. Half asleep, wearing only his shorts, he himself opened the door for the police. They also found evidence in the apartment, including the belongings of the murdered people, among which was the jacket of a little boy from the town of Malina.
During the investigation, Onoprienko looked like a psycho - supposedly “divine voices” ordered him to kill. He talked about the annual plan for murders, saying that the geography of murders should resemble a cross on the map of Ukraine. The idea of being labeled as a psycho was suggested to him by a lawyer, but psychiatrists declared Onoprienko sane. The trial was difficult, the relatives of the murdered were terrified of Onoprienko, who broadcast that he would return soon. People simply did not come to meetings out of fear.
Anatoly Onoprienko is one of the most famous Ukrainian maniacs. Died on August 27, 2013 in prison, after 17 years in prison
As a result, the bloodiest maniac in Ukraine, Anatoly Onoprienko, was sentenced to death, but due to the moratorium, the execution was commuted to life. No one visited the maniac in prison. He was in solitary confinement - other convicts refused to be near him. For seven years, he never violated the regime, read books, went to prayer, and constantly started arguments about religion with the priest. Anatoly Yuryevich Onoprienko categorically refused to work.
Maniac Onoprienko died in prison in 2013 at the age of 54 from a heart attack. At least that was the doctors' diagnosis. According to official statements by law enforcement officers, this was not Onoprienko’s first heart attack. They pumped him out several times. But in last time There was no time to provide assistance in time. Or they didn't want to.
(1959-06-25 ) (53 years old)not exactly known
Anatoly Yurievich Onoprienko, (Ukrainian) Anatoly Yuriyovich Onoprienko, born July 25, 1959 in the village of Laski, Zhytomyr region) is a Ukrainian serial killer. Nicknames: "Ukrainian Beast", "Terminator" and "Citizen O". Between 1996 and 1996 he killed 52 people: 9 victims from June 14 to August 16, 1989 and 43 victims from October 5, 1995 to March 22, 1996. At the same time it remains big number episodes incriminated against him, but not proven.
Birth and life before the murders
Anatoly Yuryevich Onoprienko was born on July 25, 1959 in the village of Laski in the Zhitomir region. He is the youngest, his older brother Valentin Onoprienko (born 1946) is 13 years older than him. Father Yuri Onoprienko participated in World War II and was decorated for bravery, but then was convicted twice and brutally treated his wife and son. (My father went to the front at the age of 14, rose to the rank of sergeant, he had awards for bravery. He worked as a locomotive fireman, a driver, and was engaged in trade. He was convicted twice: the first time for stealing a piece of lard, the second time for borrowing money from relatives and did not return, in 1970 Yuri Onoprienko was sentenced to a settlement and lived in the city of Frolovo, Volgograd region, where he died.)
When Anatoly was 3 years old, on September 15, 1962, his mother died of heart failure.
He was raised by his grandfather, grandmother and aunt, who themselves required care for themselves, and at about 7 years old his older brother and father, who did not want to take him into their families (his father married again and had another son from new wife, and Valentin married early and had three children at once, but his salary as a rural teacher was small) they sent Anatoly to an orphanage in the village of Privotnoye. Subsequently, in one interview, Onoprienko said that this predetermined his fate - according to him, 70% of orphanage graduates end up in prison.
After the orphanage, he entered the forestry technical school, from where he was later expelled for poor academic performance.
After the army, he got a job at a naval school, served in the navy, and mainly made money by smuggling. After his dismissal in 1987, he began his career as a firefighter, became a department commander, and joined the Communist Party. He was even a deputy party organizer in the city of Dneprorudny, Zaporozhye region
Murders
Onoprienko killed with a hunting rifle. In the first series of murders in the summer of 1989, committed with his partner Sergei Rogozin, a veteran Afghan war(but Onoprienko committed the murders himself), he used his officially registered gun with a scope for hunting in dark time. After the murders, he is almost detained by the police during a chase. He flees to Europe, trying to obtain political asylum and citizenship different countries: Canada, Greece and Spain. Having achieved nothing, Onoprienko, confident that the police are looking for him in Ukraine, continues to travel illegally throughout Europe. What he did during his travels remains unknown; Onoprienko himself claimed that he was involved in thefts and occasionally worked as a loader at various enterprises. He also denies committing murder at the time.
Onoprienko was distinguished by his resourcefulness. After he is deported back to Ukraine, Ukrainian law enforcement does not encounter or arrest the killer. Onoprienko, believing that they are still looking for him, has been at Boryspil airport for a long time, awaiting arrest. However, seeing that no one is interested in him at the airport, he freely leaves for Kyiv. Later, at the train station, he feigns madness. He is sent to mental asylum them. Pavlova in Kyiv. While hospitalized, he takes advantage of the “free exit” and conceives and commits several crimes. After some time, he learned that those murders had not been solved. After leaving the hospital, he begins a new series of murders. In the second series in 1995 and 1996, Onoprienko acted alone. He killed with a sawn-off shotgun made from a TOZ-34 hunting rifle, stolen from a hunter he knew. This sawn-off shotgun was found by the police in the room in which Onoprienko was detained (in the apartment of his mistress Anna Kozak, where she lived with her children). Items were also found there, in particular, jewelry and a video recorder, which were stolen from the victims. Onoprienko's victims were couples, entire families, groups of people, but also individuals - in the second series of murders he could kill up to 7 people in a day (in one episode he killed 8 people in 2 days). He chose the places for his crimes so that they formed a cross on the map of Ukraine. In total, he killed 52 people, 11 of them minors. There was an episode where he had sexual intercourse with a woman he killed.
Methods
In the summer of 1989, Onoprienko killed couples (twice) and a group of people in or near cars on Ukrainian highways. In 1995-1996, he selected poorly protected private houses in villages in the west and center of Ukraine, entered them at night or early in the morning and killed everyone, including small children (so as not to “leave them orphans,” as he said). In addition, he killed random passers-by who met along the way in the same places, and sometimes shot at people from a car. The village of Bratkovichi, Lviv region, especially suffered at the hands of Onoprienko. When internal troops were brought into Bratkovichi, Onoprienko simply changed the place of the murders - he switched to other villages.
Investigation
For the 1989 murders, Onoprienko and Rogozin miraculously escaped punishment, as Onoprienko's lawyer Ruslan Moshkovsky talks about in detail in his interview. The search for the criminal after the second series of murders (however, it was not yet known that there was one killer at work - there were different versions) began in March 1996, after 8 families were brutally murdered in their homes. Most of the victims were in remote villages in the Lviv region near the border with Poland. In total, thousands of people took part in the “hunt” for Onoprienko, including ordinary operatives patrolling “critical” areas.
Motive
Onoprienko's motive is not exactly known. He himself claimed that some higher powers ordered him to carry out three series of murders: the first (9 people should be killed in it) was against communism, the second (40 people) - against nationalism, the third (360 people) - against the plague of the twenty-first century. According to some sources, it was Onoprienko’s lawyer who told him to explain his motives this way. Some believe that he killed only for the sake of material values, which he carried away from crime scenes.
Detention and trial
In March 1996, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and specialists from the Prosecutor's Office detained 26-year-old Yuri Mozola as a suspect in several brutal murders. During three days 6 employees of the Lvov SBU and a representative of the prosecutor’s office “interrogated” Mozola in the prosecutor’s office building using torture by fire, electric shock and beatings. Mozola refused to confess to the crimes and died during torture. All 7 people responsible for his death were sentenced to prison terms. 17 days later, the real killer was detained - Onoprienko, about whom someone reported to the local police officer - it was said that in such and such an apartment at Anna Kozak's there lived a suspicious person who seemed to be hiding. Seeing the policemen entering, Onoprienko, who had just woken up, rushed to the bag with the sawn-off shotgun, but was captured. Onoprienko was sentenced to death on March 31, 1999, but due to Ukraine's intention to join the Council of Europe, the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment (then President of Ukraine Leonid Kuchma appealed to a number of international organizations, with a request to make an exception from the moratorium on the death penalty, especially for Onoprienko). Onoprienko's accomplice Rogozin was sentenced to 13 years in prison. IN this moment Onoprienko is serving his sentence in Zhytomyr pre-trial detention center No. 8.
Anatoly Onoprienko is, along with Chikatilo, one of the most bloodthirsty killers of the former Soviet Union, just like Chikatilo, he is widely known in the West. At the peak of his fame, in the mid-nineties, he topped the ranking of the most bloodthirsty killers of the last two centuries, according to the France-Presse news agency. Not in vain.
Anatoly Onoprienko was born on July 25, 1959 in the small village of Laski, Narodichsky district, Zhitomir region. Tolya's mother died when he was not yet five years old, and by that time his father had already left the family. Until he was seven years old, he lived with his grandparents, then he was raised in an orphanage. Onoprienko's childhood was difficult and joyless, he was deprived of a family, and this may have influenced his development as a robber and serial killer.
The future maniac's youth was quite ordinary. After the shelter, I studied at a technical school to become a forester, did not graduate, and went into the army. After serving near Leningrad, he returned to Ukraine, studied at a naval school in Odessa, and then until 1986 worked as a sailor mechanic on several ships. After leaving the navy, he worked as a fire chief in the city of Dneproprudny, Zaporozhye region.
Onoprienko began his “career” in 1989, carrying out robberies with his accomplice Sergei Rogozin, an Afghan veteran. His first victims were a husband and wife, whom Anatoly shot as they walked to their car. Later, at the trial, Onoprienko will say that he received neither pleasure nor benefit from the murder.
In total, nine people were killed in 1989, all the murders were committed in a similar way: Onoprienko simply shot his victims. Among others, an 11-year-old boy who was sleeping in the car died. Along with him, four other passengers were shot; Anatoly burned all the bodies. Onoprienko will say about this episode that he had no intention of killing people, the purpose of the attack was simple robbery.
After this year, a long gap occurred in Onoprienko’s bloody series. From 1989 to 1996, he traveled around Europe illegally, without a visa, from where he was expelled twice: from Germany and from Austria. Little is known what Onoprienko did during this period of time; in his own words, he was a simple worker. However, there is a version according to which Anatoly lived by robbery, burglary and petty robberies; most likely, it is absolutely true. However, there is no evidence that Onoprienko could kill in Europe; he himself categorically denies this.
He continued his murders in Ukraine, when he finally returned there at the end of 1995. Now the killer acted without accomplices, in cold blood, according to a clear, well-developed scheme. There is not a drop of pity in him for his victims, which he will say more than once in court. “I have never regretted anything, and I don’t regret anything now,” are his own words.
Anatoly Onoprienko begins his new series, which will become truly terrifying, in the west of Ukraine with the murder of Nikolai Zaichenko and his family. Zaichenko, his wife and two children were shot in cold blood, like the previous victims of the maniac. Onoprienko profited from wedding rings, some jewelry, and warm clothes. When he left, he set the house on fire.
Onoprienko himself spoke about one of his murders this way: “When everyone was already asleep, he entered. First he shot the owner, then his wife, who begged: “don’t shoot,” he stabbed a six-year-old and strangled a three-month-old baby. Then he set the house on fire.” Apparently, the killer did not have a drop of pity even for his child victims.
The next murders took place on the last day of the year, December 31, 1995. The Kryuchkov family never managed to celebrate the holiday: a maniac with a gun broke into their house. A married couple and two young girls, their twin daughters became the new victims of the killer, who was nicknamed “The Terminator”: with such ease he dealt with adult men and their families. The body of one of the girls was found in the kitchen; before her death, she was so scared that she bit her hand to the bone. Onoprienko cut off her mother's finger - he could not remove the wedding ring. And from this house the criminal took a few expensive things, and this house burned to the ground along with its dead owners: the maniac almost always acted in one way.
On the same holiday, which for the residents of the quiet village of Bratkovichi turned into an unheard of tragedy, and in the same way, two more men were killed, who may have witnessed the previous massacre.
The first week of the new year 1996 has not even passed, and Anatoly Onoprienko has already continued his terrifying adventures. On January 5, four people were killed in the Zaporozhye region: two men in a broken down car, a random pedestrian and a policeman. Four more became victims of the killer the next day; in addition to rings and earrings, Onoprienko removed the shoes of the shot woman and took two bags of groceries. All the crimes were committed along the Berdyansk-Dnepropetrovsk highway, mostly Onoprienko killed people in parked cars.
On January 17, Onoprienko visits Bratkovichi again. The village, which became the main arena of the heartless maniac’s actions, will lose 7 people: for a family of 5 people (two adults, two elderly people and a six-year-old child) and two more people who met Onoprienko by chance, this day will become fatal.
At this time, the killer lived with his cousin Peter, in the military town of Yavorov, just 30 kilometers from the place where his crimes were committed. There, Onoprienko meets Anna Kozak, a divorced woman slightly younger than himself. Anna works as a hairdresser, has her own apartment, and has two children. Having literally fallen in love with Anatoly at first sight, she invites him to move in with her.
The woman is happy that she was able to meet a man like Anatoly - reasonable, calm - a reliable support in life. Of course, she does not have the slightest suspicion about her lover’s other life, and he, either under the pretext of a trip to his brother, or simply “on business,” travels around the country, slaughtering entire families.
Four people (two of them children) were shot dead in the Kyiv region on January 30. Three weeks later, in Oblevsk in the Zhitomir region, the Dubchak family was killed: father and son were shot from a gun, mother and daughter were beaten to death with a hammer. On February 27, the Bondarchuk family was killed in the Lviv region; two children were hacked to death by Onoprienko with an ax, and their neighbor.
The criminal committed his last murders on March 22, 1996, taking the life of a family not far from the same Bratkovichi in the traditional way. Onoprienko added five more people to his bloody tally, one child was literally ripped open with a knife from the stomach to the throat.
The Ukrainian police worked in high gear: the maniac (it has now become clear that this is one person, and not a group of accomplices, as was initially believed) must be caught at all costs. According to his lawyer Ruslan Moshkovsky, said many years later, the killer could have been stopped at the beginning of his bloody rampage in 1989. Then Rogozin and Onoprienko were practically accused of committing several murders; all the evidence was there. However, at the last moment everything fell through; for some unknown reason they stopped digging under Onoprienko. (You can read more about this episode in Moshkovsky’s interview, which contains quite interesting information about both the case and the trial).
Finally, after months of labor-intensive work done by law enforcement agencies, the killer was identified and it became known where he lived. The raid on the criminal became the largest in the entire history of Ukraine; special forces armed with heavy weapons were involved in the case; in total, about 2,000 people were involved.
All these measures turned out to be unnecessary. On April 16, Onoprienko, not even suspecting the scale of the hunt for him, calmly opened the front door of Anna Kozak’s apartment. The policemen burst in and instantly tied up Anatoly. Thus, the terrible series of murders that began in the USSR and lasted six bloody years was put to an end.
After this, Onoprienko was kept in solitary confinement for a long time, taking advantage of a significant delay in the beginning of the trial, which, unfortunately, often happens in domestic justice. Most of the time was spent preparing the parties for the trial, because the volume of the case amounted to a huge number of volumes, in addition, some problems with financing played a role: it was necessary to pay for travel and accommodation for more than 400 witnesses.
Finally, on November 24, 1998, the process began. As already mentioned, Onoprienko’s lawyer was Ruslan Moshkovsky. By the way, during the trial the criminal asked to replace his lawyer with a more experienced and independent one, but his request was rejected.
There was an incredible amount of excitement surrounding the Terminator trial. The courtroom was almost always crowded, and people crowded around the courthouse during hearings. The killer himself had to be protected no less carefully than the people around him from him: almost everyone wanted Onoprienko to die, while many stated that it should be painful.
During the hearings, Onoprienko behaved quite defiantly. He refused to name his nationality, called himself a “hostage of justice,” and did not testify. At the same time, he completely calmly admitted the murders of more than 50 people, moreover, as if he was proud of them, attributing even more to himself. He spoke quite calmly about his murder of small children, declaring that they did not evoke in him a drop of compassion, or an emotional outburst, in general, no emotions.
The killer explained his crimes by saying that some voice from above ordered him to kill. It’s hard to believe, besides, such an “excuse” by criminals is far from new, let’s remember David Berkowitz. In general, Onoprienko spoke a lot about motivations for murder and rather far-fetchedly. If you believe his words, the following picture emerges.
The killer planned 3 series of murders, each supposedly aimed at good: 9 victims in the first (against dying communism), 40 in the second (against neo-nationalism) and more than 300 in the third (against the plague of the 21st century). This is explained by the fact that the dead are commemorated on the ninth and fortieth days, as well as every year. The first series was committed together with Sergei Rogozin (Onoprienko does not explain his role in this “mystical” story), but acting alone, the killer “exceeded the plan”: he accounted for 43 human lives. Another series of bloody events was prevented by arrest; the “benefactor” failed to save humanity from the plague.
It is obvious, in general, that Onoprienko’s ravings pursued several goals, such as: presenting himself as more abnormal than he really is, or simply playing to the public. However, his words about many new victims were most likely not an empty phrase. The defendant told his lawyer (in his words) that he committed his murders out of a desire to profit. This, however, is also doubtful: there was no special profit from the crimes. One way or another, the trial of the maniac continued.
The trial lasted about four months and ended with Onoprienko's death sentence on March 3. The judge had to read the verdict several times because... many people shouted insults and curses at the defendant from the seats, and there was incredible noise in the courtroom. Onoprienko met the sentence of execution by calmly staring at the floor. His accomplice Sergei Rogozin was sentenced to 13 years in prison (the prosecution asked for 15).
In 2000, a moratorium on the death penalty was introduced in Ukraine; the sentence was not carried out. However, residents of Zhitomir and other Ukrainian cities organized a collection of signatures for an appeal to President Kuchma, calling for the suspension of the moratorium specifically for Onoprienko. These requirements were not met. More than seven years have passed since then, and he is still being held in the Zhytomyr prison. The guards say that the criminal reads a lot, behaves with restraint and decentness and hopes to someday be released. However, I would like to believe that this will never happen, because Onoprienko once said: “If I manage to get out, I will start killing again.”