He is considered the first Russian serial killer famous in the West, known for his brutality and ruthlessness. A detail that is far from irrelevant, considering that in the same period serial killers of the caliber of Andrej Čikatilo and Serhij Tkac acted. Also known as the Vitebsk Strangler, Gennady Mikhasevich he is among the most prolific killers of the former USSR with 36 confirmed murders between 1971 and 1985. But, according to many experts, the toll could be much heavier: the victims could be more than 50.
Childhood and adolescence
Gennady Mikhasevich was born in the village of Ist, Vitebsk Oblast, then the Soviet Union, on 7 April 1947. There is not much other information about his childhood and adolescence, also due to his reluctance to talk about the past. His father is an alcoholic and often vents his anger against him from an early age, while his mother is often absent, only interested in his school performance. Mikhasevich grows up in solitude and is often at school victim of bullyingamidst mockery and beatings. Socially isolated, he is unable to build relationships with girls: he will only give his first kiss at university.
The first murder
Gennady Mikhasevich begins killing at a very young age. The first murder occurred in May 1971, at the age of 24. Having returned home after serving in the military, he discovers the betrayal by his girlfriend, who is determined to end the relationship with him and start a new life with another man. On the night of May 14 Mikhasevich has to take a bus to Polack, the city where his parents live. Dejected by the end of his love affair with his ex, he thinks about suicide until he meets by chance Lyudmila Andaralova. In that moment all his anger explodes: he strangles the young woman with his bare hands until she kills her.
The spiral of violence
Ljudmila Andaralova is only the first of dozens of victims by Gennady Mikhasevich. The second crime takes place on October 30, 1971: another woman murdered without mercy, this time forcefully stuffing a scarf down his throat. His body will be recovered near Vitebsk. But the fury does not subside. Between 15 April and 30 July 1972 he killed two other women, again by strangulation. He always acts in the same area, in “his” Vitebsk, but despite this the authorities do not connect the murders.
Gennady Mikhasevich continues to lead a normal life and in 1973 graduates from a technical school, before returning to Ist, where he starts working at the Disna company. Two years pass and the Vitebsk strangler returns to kill: the victim is a young girl from Duj. After suffocating her, he leaves numerous wounds all over her body with a pair of scissors. In this phase the modus operandi: After luring them to lonely places, he strangles or suffocates his victims and then sexually abuses them. He never carries weapons with him, at most a rope. He robs his victims of money and valuables, which in some cases he will give to his wife.
The Vitebsk Strangler (but not only)
In 1976 Gennady Mikhasevich married and became the father of two children, a boy and a girl. Apparently he is a good family man, a teetotaler and without vices, a metal worker who is all home and work, his only entertainment was volunteering. He is also very active politically as a member of the Communist Party, so much so that he became a local official. It therefore hides its dark side perfectly. To avoid making missteps, he also changes the area of action and fishes his victims from the villages of Koptevo, Ropno and Perhanščina.
In July 1976 he returned to killing. First he suffocates a woman lured to a bus stop, then he strangles and rapes another young woman. And it doesn’t stop anymore: two more victims at the end of October, always with the same modus operandi. Gennady Mikhasevich dares more and more and begins to take possession of the symbols of the victims, such as wedding rings. One of these he gives to his wife, while another uses it to make a dental prosthesis.
Gennady Mikhasevich decides to let some time pass between one murder and another so as not to attract too much attention. On 26 August 1978 he killed and raped a girl he met at a tram stop, then struck again a year later, again in Polack, and again in October 1980 in Ropno. Two more victims in 1981, the year in which he decided to change his murder pattern: he tried to exploit his charm and that of his car, a red Zaporozhets, by offering lifts to hitchhikers. In 1982 there was carnage: six women killed between July and October.
The investigation and arrest
The new modus operandi costs Gennady Mikhasevich dearly. The investigations into the series of murders began in 1980: the young detective Nikolaj Ivanovič Ignatovič began to evaluate the path of the serial killer immediately and noticed that several witnesses mentioned the presence of a red Zaporozhets in the places of the latest sightings. Investigators search among the owners of that car and verify over 200 thousand registrations. Concerned by the detective’s moves, Gennady Mikhasevich takes part in the investigations as a volunteer and manages to spy on their moves in advance.
Despite Ignatovič’s progress, Gennady Mikhasevich continues to kill: between 1983 and 1985 he kills 12 women between Vitebsk, Polack and Lepel. No one suspects him, on the contrary: in those years 14 innocent people were arrested. The turning point in the investigation comes thanks to a fatal mistake by the Vitebsk strangler: the man sends an anonymous letter to the local newspapers – Business Vitebsk and Vitebsk Worker – on behalf of the imaginary clandestine organization of the “Vitebsk Patriots”, created to kill women lascivious and communists. Message also found in the mouths of his last two victims. The letters, however, are handwritten, allowing investigators to carry out a calligraphic expertise on male residents of the region. After the analysis of 556,000 samples and 312,000 passports, Gennady Mikhasevich is arrested. The investigations into his account confirm the thesis: he is the Vitebsk strangler.
The death sentence
After denying everything at first, Gennady Mikhasevich confesses to 43 murders and leads investigators to a well where he had hidden the victims’ personal effects and above all where he had buried some of them.
Declared sane by psychiatrists, he comes to the trial sentenced to death by firing squad for 33 murders and one attempted murder. The sentence is carried out on September 25, 1987: Mikhasevich dies at the age of 40. But many doubts still remain today about the exact number of murders.