Issue #14/95, July 20 - August 3, 2000   

low-yield murder	"control shot"	podyezd	really stupid criminal	children	cries for help ignored	murder-suicide
"investigation continuing"	carved up like a turkey	related to victim's job	cannibalism	riddled with bullets	old people	Hunger-related murder

GETTING A HEAD START

If you thought banks and other big businesses only had to worry about paying off gangsters, you were wrong. As some of the enterprises in the town of Arzamas can tell you, they also had to pay off a certain night-school student who was just beginning a successful career of his own in the extortion field.

"Oh shit! Where's the hockey puck? I thought that when the ref called for a ‘Face Off,' all I'd have to do is rip my face off and they'd hand me the hockey puck. Oh drats!"

According to Vnye Zakona, "Kommerchesky" Bank received a letter from the student demanding a large sum of money. If they refused, he threatened to bomb the bank. The bank agreed to the student's terms, but also informed the police. The seventeen-year-old was arrested at the bank, where police found several additional letters on him, addressed to various banks and firms with similar threats. Before that, the student had successfully extorted 25,000 rubles.

The case is currently in court and the aspiring young extortionist is awaiting the judge's verdict.

NOT DOWN WITH THAT

Here we have an example of the age-old case of young adult-versus-parent. It's not always easy when you and your dad don't agree on issues like taking drugs and illegal possession of firearms. 22-year-old Arseniy just couldn't put up with his father's contrary opinions any longer and decided to put an end to it once and for all.

Unfortunately for Arseniy, his decision was not one of the brightest. His father was actually a very well-known writer and historian, Dmitri Balashov, a person whose sudden disappearance would not easily go unnoticed.

"Hey, anyone can rip their face off, smart guy! Try popping your head off like this, while keeping your mouth open like Butt-head's. Now that takes REAL talent!"

According to Moskovsky Komsomolets, Balashov's body was found near his dacha outside of Novgorod, where the writer spent most of his time working. Doctors say that Balashov had apparently been struck on the head with an as-of-yet unknown object after attempts had been made to strangle and suffocate him.

Balashov had been alone at his dacha on the day of the murder. His wife and children were back at their apartment in Novgorod. Earlier that day, his car went missing, only to be found torn apart later that day.

Investigators have named Arseniy as the main suspect. Apparently, Arseniy has already done some time for illegal possession of a firearm. When he was let go, he continued to maintain his ties with the criminal world and began showing signs of drug addiction, which turned out to be a source of continual turmoil in his relationship with his father.

So far, police have been unable to discover Arseniy's hiding place and, as they say, the investigation is continuing.

MOSKOVSKIY MAUGLI

In its latest issue, Vnye Zakona tells the tale of yet another serial killer, known only as "Maugli." Born in 1963 in the Mesherskoy Chkhovskoy district of Moscow oblast, Maugli got right down to business in tru Talking Heads style after finishing school by burning down his neighbor's house. While in jail, he developed a penchant for attacking people, starting with his co-inmates.

Maugli was let out of jail in 1993 and returned to his 'hood only to discover that his wife had left him, his parents had taken up drinking full-time, and his home was now a hangout for drunkards and vagrants. Unfased, he decided he would simply live alone in the woods. After all—he wasn't particularly fond of other people. He built himself a little hut, which included space for a small fire and a hand-made bed—his only piece of furniture.

Turns out it was actually the local police that dubbed the hermit "Maugli." They knew about his past, but didn't bother with him until people began disappearing left and right. Seems Maugli didn't like it when anybody invaded his "territory," and found that reason enough to kill anyone who crossed the line that existed only in his own mind. It was only once Maugli had shot at a policeman and killed two women (raping one of them), that the police finally decided enough was enough. They found him hiding behind a car near the woods and arrested him.

After Maugli was arrested, he admitted immediately to the murder of the two women, as well as a certain Moldovan named Viktor, and told the police where to look for the bodies. The investigation carried on from there as Maugli began to tell all: he was a necrophiliac and a zoophile; he admitted to enjoying strangling cats when he was a child and that his first sexual experience, at the age of sixteen, was with a corpse. He admitted to killing over fifty people who had "crossed the boundary" into his territory in the woods, removing certain internal organs and the toes from some of them. Almost all of his victims had been alcoholics, beggars, and vagrants—which is apparently why no one had ever bothered to look for their bodies.

But after all that, Maugli suddenly began telling a different tale in the courtroom. He claimed that all of his previous confessions were lies and that the policemen had forced him to come up with something by beating him, then giving him vodka and drugs as a "reward" for his confession.

"My love handles! Oh no, I've ruined my love handles!"

Before the case was closed, Maugli was freed for a short time. He went back to his beloved woods only to find that someone had burnt down his hut. Dejected once more, he went to live with his aging, half-paralyzed, deaf mother. He decided not to look for work, feeling that his mother's monthly pension of 400 rubles a month was enough for two to live on. He impatiently waited for summer so he could return to the woods and build himself a new hut.

However, the police returned before summer. They took him back and locked him up again—this time for eighteen years. Maugli did not resist, remarking that he hadn't expected anything different.

HE FLIES THRU THE AIR WITH THE GREATEST OF EASE

No, it's not the man on the flying trapeze, but rather the "flying bandit" who recently escaped police in Kabardino-Balkarsky, as told in the most recent Kriminalnaya Khronika.

This is the typical story of a small-time gang who made its money by trading illegal weapons, busying itself with odd jobs on the side like theft and armed robbery. They weren't that careful, however, and forgot to take care of business with their krysha. So the police went after them and raided their hangout.

Eleven arrests were made in total. The raid would have been a complete success except for "the one that got away"—30-year-old Besyanin Tsikhvauri, who ran up to the eighth floor of a building and literally "flew" out of the window. Police were stunned when they saw that the bandit's leap of faith turned out not to be his last; Tsikhvauri somehow managed to get up and run away after slamming against the pavement from eighty feet up.

The "investigation is still continuing," and police have followed up by declaring they don't think he will be too hard to find. Look for his "wanted" poster at a precinct near you.