#29 | February 19 - 25, 1998 
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Yet Another Serial Killer, Part V: Now They Have to Turn Themselves In
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What do you have to do to get caught for serial murder in this country? Answer-there is no answer. It's impossible! Take the case of Yuri Artomonov of Izhievsk, the so-called "Santekhnik" apartment killer, about whom a Death Porn brief was published earlier last year. Although the capture of the six-time serial murderer was made public in early January, it was only through recent articles in Ogonyok and Kriminalnaya Khronika that those of us stuck in Moscow were made aware of just how twisted things have gotten in the provinces.
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| "Even I got lucky at the Hungry Duck on Ladies' Night" |
Let's begin with the first murder. Artomonov had a young wife, a mother and a brother who were all unemployed and penniless, and he decided he needed to kill to make money, since "after failing to find a job, all that was left for me to do was steal, and I didn't even know how to do that." No kidding. His first victim, killed in October 1995, was a young woman in a building near his home who'd placed an ad in search of a new 'vosmyerka.' Taking a line from the Albert DeSalvo/Land Shark serial murder playbook, Artomonov put on a pair of blue coveralls he'd borrowed from his brother and a small axe he'd borrowed from his mother, knocked on the door and said he wanted to check the meter. He entered, asked the woman for a glass of water, then chopped her head off, striking her 11 times with the axe. "It was the first time I'd ever killed," he said. "So please don't call me a sadist. I was just nervous." Leaving finger and shoeprints all over the apartment and even smearing his cigarette ashes on the walls, Artomonov robbed the place of 12 million rubles, a Toshiba VCR, a cosmetics set and a pair of men's sweatpants. He then returned to the homestead and divvied up the bounty with his family, giving the brother the VCR and the cosmetics to the women, with an equal share of cash for everyone. When the brother asked where he got the stuff, Artomonov replied, "Oh, I killed somebody." No one in the family seemed to care. Wages everywhere in the city had been held up for six months, and 12 million was a lot of money.
A few months later Artomonov put on the blue suit again and went out hunting. Along a street in a better part of Izhievsk he met an old man and asked his help in finding his relatives. The old man, whose house was well-stocked with Japanese hi-fi and expensive rugs, brought him home to talk. Artomonov was just about to ice the old man and burgle his place when suddenly, the victim's granddaughter and her friend came in. Fuming, Artomonov convinced the old man to "go out looking" for his relatives immediately. As soon as both were out the door and out of sight of the two girls, he hit the old geezer three times in the back of the skull with the axe. But he was locked out of the house, meaning no booty for that murder. So he went out in search of money, deciding to drop in on an old army who lived by. Arriving, he found the buddy gone, but the buddy's cousin was in. When the cousin didn't invite Artomonov to sit down or have a drink, Artomonov took offense and attacked him with an axe. He missed, however, only landing one non-fatal blow before the cousin could scoot away and lock himself in another room. This was to become a pattern. Too lazy to finish the job, Artomonov left after taking a few hacks at the victim's door, rounding out a day of violence that was both pointless and unsatisfying by leaving three witnesses-the two girls and the cousin, to whom he'd identified himself by first and last name- linking him to random axe attacks in a very small area of Izhievsk. You could put police hats on a pair of iceberg lettuce heads and they'd have a pretty good chance of catching a serial killer after a set of moves like that. But not only did police not question area residents following the discovery of the old man's body, the cousin never went to the police to report being attacked with an axe. So Yuri got off.
Moving on. March 27, 1996. Artomonov went into Land Shark mode again and entered the apartment of a 67 year-old babushka with the foolproof provincial line, "Santekhnik!" (Are people so bored in the provinces that they're willing to roll the dice every time anyone rings the doorbell? Do people not remember when they have and haven't ordered a plumber?) A couple of axe blows and he was rolling in it again, making off with: 100,000 rubles in small denomination notes, a worn leather jacket, a beat-up work shirt, a pair of smudged women's tennis sneakers, and a three-channel "Sirius" brand AM kitchen radio. Two weeks later he hacked up another old woman a few blocks away. The haul: three million rubles, two "Adidas" jackets, three t-shirts, a pair of shorts and an economy-sized bottle of perfume. After this productive spring he retired for the summer to his mother's dacha, where he settled into a gentleman's existence as a petty thief, swiping microwave ovens and radios from neighbors' homes. When one neighbor finally got fed up and came over to announce that he was going to turn Artomonov in to the police, Artomonov instantly attacked him with an axe. You'd think it would be easy to kill someone with an axe, but this guy makes it look like Acapulco cliff-diving. The neighbor deflected a blow and fled back to his dacha, with Artomonov, axe in hand, in pursuit. When the neighbor locked himself in, Artomonov first hacked at the door with the axe, then broke all the windows, all in plain view of a whole crowd of people in the village who had gathered to look on. Finally Artomonov gave up and returned home. All forgotten. No headlines about axe rampages in quiet villages. No police reports. Even the neighbor forgot about it the next day. No links to any axe killings.
In the fall Artomonov settled down to prepare for the inspirational birth of his first child, a daughter, and then, at the end of the year, bought himself a pistol. A month later, on February 7, 1997, he attacked a woman using the standard "Santekhnik" line, but fucked up badly: for the third time in seven attempts, he failed to totally disable unarmed victims in an enclosed space with an axe. This time, the woman even managed to knock Artomonov down and call a neighbor for help. Fortunately, however, the killer was armed with his new pistol, and was able to escape by threatening to shoot both on his way out. Neither victim reported the incident to police.
Artomonov had by now left more than a dozen eyewitnesses to his axe attacks, over half of whom knew his name or address. Nonetheless, police still had no leads in the axe murders, and in fact still had no idea the 4 killings to date were related. And since the economy wasn't improving any faster, Artomonov had no reason not to go on the warpath again. A week after the failed attack on the young woman, he axed an elderly lady nearby. He was in the big time again: wife, mom, and brother got to split 100,000 rubles, a surge protector, and a kitchen knife. "She lived so poorly, I couldn't find a thing worth taking," Artomonov said in his statement.
