The Werewolf
Perfect husband and dad, respected cop... and one of the world’s worst serial killers with 82 victims
WHEN former police officer Mikhail Popkov was asked in court how many women he had raped and murdered, he is reported to have shrugged.
“I can’t say exactly,” he said nonchalantly. “I did not keep a record.”
The answer, it was revealed this week, is probably 82. And possibly many more.
The 53-year-old serial killer was jailed for life in 2015 after being found guilty of slaying 22 women around Angarsk, a quiet city in Siberian Russia. Now, however, prosecutors have charged him with another 60 murders – all carried out while Popkov lived a seemingly model life as a dedicated lawman, loving husband and doting father.
If found guilty, it would make him one of the worst serial killers in history. Yet the numbers alone do not tell the horror or savagery of his 18-year reign of terror.
Several victims were beheaded. Others had their hearts cut out. Almost all were raped, both before and after death. Many were so mutilated, one detective nicknamed Popkov “The Werewolf ”. In one macabre case, the brute killed a teacher at his own daughter’s school – and then donated to the funeral collection. In another, he slaughtered two students after picking them up in his police car following a concert.
Victims included Maria Lyzhina, 35, and Marina Chetverikova, 20, also shop assistants, civil servants, factory workers, clerical staff and fulltime mums, as well as prostitutes. All were aged between 17 and 40. “In one life, I was an ordinary person,” Popkov told police when asked about his double identity. “In my other life, I committed murders.”
To those who knew him, Popkov was something of a charmer.
“He knew lots of jokes and stories,” noted one former friend. “He could be the soul of the party.”
When Popkov confessed to the initial 22 killings, his daughter Ekaterina refused to believe his guilt. The teacher, aged 30 and pregnant with her own child, described him as the “best” dad.
“We walked, rode bikes, went to the shops and he met me from school,” she
He beheaded some victims, cut out others’ hearts and raped almost all of them POLICE STATEMENT ON MIKHAIL POPKOV
told reporters. “We both collect model cars, so we have the same hobby.”
Professionally, too, the sergeant received glowing praise throughout his police career. He passed all mental assessments and was recognised for his fitness. His only black mark was barely even considered as such in his part of Russia – he once shot and killed a rapist while on duty. “There was an investigation and he was not punished,” a colleague recalled.
Even Popkov himself was apparently convinced by his own normality. “I never thought of myself as mentally unhealthy,” he told investigators in testimony leaked to a Russian newspaper.
Exactly why he started killing remains unclear. He has claimed the discovery
his wife was having an affair with a colleague tipped him over the edge.
In 1992, having apparently never committed a crime in his life, Popkov murdered for the first time. “I just felt I wanted to kill a woman I was giving a lift to,” he told detectives with haunting simplicity.
From there, he established a routine. He would dress in uniform, park his car outside nightclubs and restaurants, and wait for lone women to emerge. He then lured them into the vehicle with the promise of help. Once trapped, he would take his victims to isolated woodland where he would attack.
“The choice of weapons for killing was always casual,” he said. “I never prepared beforehand to commit a murder. I would use any object that was in the car – a knife, an axe, a bat.” He dumped naked bodies in woods, on roadsides and in cemeteries. Most were so barbarically mutilated, the Russian tradition of leaving coffins open at funerals could not be followed.
On one occasion, the victim’s severed head was found in a rubbish chute – in a separate city district to where he left the body.
He justified his bloodlust by calling himself “The Cleaner”, claiming it was his mission to cleanse the streets of undesirable elements.
Yet his victims came from all walks of life and their deaths brought untold misery to hundreds of loved ones.
Viktoria Chagaeva was one such relative. Her sister Tanya Martynov, a 20-year-old married mother-of-one, had been to a concert with friend Yulia Kuprikova, 19, when Popkov picked them up in 1998. He killed them both. “Only the fact that this bastard was in a police uniform explains why Tanya got into his car,” Chagaeva said. “My elder brother Oleg went to the morgue to identify Tanya. He felt sick when he saw the body, she was so mutilated. He was almost green when he came out. He just could not say a word. I did not dare to go in and look.”
On several occasions, Popkov could have been caught. In one particular incident in 1998, a 15-year-old victim, known only as Svetlana M, escaped and reported what she believed had been an attempted rape to police.
She identified both Popkov and his car. But fellow officers refused to believe her
My choice of weapons was casual... I’d use anything in the car, a knife, axe, bat MIKHAIL POPKOV SERIAL KILLER
story – especially when Elena, the killer’s wife, gave him an alibi.
Yet, until this week, there was only enough evidence to convict Popkov of 22 murders. Detectives originally believed he was not responsible for any killings since 2000 because he told them he stopped slaying after becoming sexually impotent that year.
But the 60 new charges are all related to murders between then and 2010. It is understood Popkov has confessed to all but one.
After leaving the police, he worked for some time as a used-car salesman, regularly journeying between Angarsk and Vladivostok, an east coast Russian city some 2,400 miles away.
Detectives are yet to rule out that he may have killed on his travels. If he did, that figure of 82 may still have to be dramatically increased.