#7 | May 8 - 22, 1997  

A New Record?

While the United States is beginning to dominate the loony suicidal cult market, Russia is rapidly replacing America as the serial murder capital of the world. First Andrei Chikatilo set the modern record for serial murder victims by killing 53 people in a twelve-year span; then Soviet-born Andrei Onuprienko nearly broke the record with a three-month killing spree near Lvov, Ukraine that left 52 people dead. Now police in the city of Novokuznetsk suspect that one Alexander Spesivtsyev, 27, may have surpassed Chikatilo by killing more than eighty people. Formally charged with the murders of nineteen children, Spesivtsiyev's story is unusually gruesome even for a serial killer. Police say that while the young mental hospital outpatient generally lured his underage victims home himself, it was his mother, Ludmilla, who actually dismembered the bodies and surreptitiously dumped them in the Aba river. Mom would look on as Spesivtsyev, who as a boy alienated all his neighbors and friends with his odious antisocial habits (i.e. spitting on people from balconies, sticking matchsticks in locks, etc.), mutilated young girls and sometimes captured others and forced them to dismember and even eat his previous victims.

"Sure, other guys may be more lively, but I'll always be here for you."

Ludmilla, who worked in a local day-care center, apparently loved her son so much that she even helped him capture girls from her workplace. Police only managed to catch the mother-son pair when a plumber forced his way into the family apartment to fix a leak, only to discover a wounded little girl and several murder victims in the bedroom. Police discovered no less than 82 sets of children's clothing in the Spesivtsyev home, but the killer, who is being held in solitary confinement for his own protection, has so far only confessed to 19. Police have yet to file charges against Ludmilla, primarily because Russian law governing accessory responsibility in felony crime are vague. The investigation is continuing; by the end of the year there should be a verdict and possibly a final body count, which would determine whether or not Chikatilo's gruesome record has been broken.

Pointless in Gustyachi

The rural village of Gustyachi in the Lvov oblast of Ukraine was the site of what might have been the most shockingly pointless murder of the year. Miron Payuk, 46, has been charged with the murder of his nine month-old grandson Andrei.

"Well, doctor, it's really hard to say where it hurts-everywhere, basically."

Police say Grandpa was so annoyed by little Miron's crying one morning that he yanked him out of his crib and tossed him in the well. Grandma returned from milking her cows later on to find the baby missing; Miron said he had no idea where he was. After a search was organized, a neighbor finally found the boy dead in the well. Regional OVD chief Vladimir Maryusak commented after the arrest: "In all my years of police work, this is the most pointless murder I've ever encountered."