A Deadly Obsession Left 4 Dead…
Did unrequited love start a 28-hour killing spree?
Maksim Gelman had every opportunity to make something of his life.
He arrived in the United States from the Ukraine when he was a young child.
His hard-working parents made a home for him in Brooklyn, New York, and he went to a good local high school.
But Gelman was always an outsider and was known for having a nasty streak, even as a child.
Neighbours and school friends recalled how he used to enjoy being mean to them.
‘When I was little, he kind of did bully me. He used to take my water guns and put in hot sauce and soap,’ a 14-yearold neighbour said.
As a teenager, Gelman loved skateboarding and started getting into graffiti.
His habit of scrawling on public buildings began to land him in trouble with the police, and he was arrested a few times for it.
But that was just the start.
A few years later, he got involved in drugs.
People who knew him said he wasn’t just taking drugs, he was dealing them too.
In January 2011, Gelman, then 23, was arrested for possessing crack cocaine.
Around the same time, he became obsessed with a beautiful young woman who lived in his neighbourhood. Her name was Yelena Bulchenko and she was 20.
According to sources, he asked her out, but was rebuffed.
But that didn’t stop him falling for her. And he quickly became totally obsessed.
In fact, she became the main muse for his graffiti-writing.
He daubed her name in bright red paint on a wall near train tracks in their neighbourhood, close to an outline of a pink heart.
He began inundating Yelena with phone calls – and, when she didn’t answer them, he’d turn up at her flat unannounced.
One time, he was heard pounding on her door and screaming that if she didn’t let him in, he would kill her.
‘We told her not to have anything to do with him. She was scared of him,’ Yelena’s neighbour, Gabriell Kiernan, said.
Rampage begins
Then, one day in February 2011, Gelman asked to borrow the family car, a Lexus.
When he was refused, he got into an argument with his mum Svetlana’s partner, Aleksandr Kuznetsov. It escalated quickly and, in a fit of rage, Gelman grabbed a large knife from the kitchen and stabbed Aleksandr at least 11 times.
He then seized the keys for the car and fled the family home, leaving his horrified mother with her boyfriend’s dead body.
Gelman had only one destination in mind - Yelena Bulchenko’s apartment.
When he arrived, Yelena wasn’t in. But her mother, Anna Bulchenko, 56, was.
They got into a heated argument – and he stabbed her to death, too.
Gelman then hid in the Bulchenkos’ apartment for the next six hours, until Yelena arrived back at 4pm.
Then he wasted no time in slashing her 12 times until she too lay dead.
It was the ultimate revenge for her refusing a date.
Again, Gelman sped away in his family’s car. But another car was blocking the road as he raced around the streets of New York.
He rammed it before dragging the driver, Arthur Dicrescento, out of his seat and knifing him in the chest.
Dicrescento was taken to a nearby hospital and, miraculously, survived his vicious attack.
But Gelman’s stabbing spree wasn’t over yet.
After stealing the car of his last victim, he ran over Stephen Tannenbaum, a 62-year-old man who unfortunately happened to be crossing the road and got in Gelman’s way.
Tannenbaum was taken to hospital, but then died.
Meanwhile, Gelman fled the scene and attacked another motorist, Sheldon Pottinger. Thankfully, he lived.
‘I was just waiting for my wife and this guy ran up, pulled out a knife and said “I’m gonna kill you, get out of the car” and
In a rage, Gelman grabbed a large knife from the kitchen
started stabbing,’ Sheldon said.
He was cut across the hand before Gelman drove off in Sheldon’s black Nissan.
He then got on a subway train and confronted another passenger, Joseph Lozito, telling him he was ‘going to die’ before stabbing him in the head. Fortunately, he too survived. Gelman then attempted to gain entry to the driver’s compartment of the train. Luckily, two police officers were already on board, hunting for him having received a tip-off.
They managed to restrain and handcuff Gelman in the nick of time, before anyone else was hurt.
Mentally fragile
It was the climax of a 28-hour crime spree that left four people dead and several more seriously injured. The community in which Gelman had grown up was left reeling, and local media dubbed him ‘Mad Maks’.
Gelman was clearly a very troubled man, but what was it that drove him to suddenly go on a violent rampage?
Investigators alleged that it was the row with his mum’s boyfriend, along with his unhealthy obsession with Yelena, that was the trigger.
In court, Maksim Gelman pleaded guilty, but remained adamant that he wasn’t to blame for the deaths of his victims.
‘I’m not the bad guy here,’ he insisted.
His lawyer described his mental state as fragile, although a psychiatrist told the court he couldn’t argue he was not guilty by reason of insanity.
Gelman was ordered to serve the maximum sentence for the four murders and other convictions, amounting to a 200-year jail term.
Judge Vincent Del Giudice took the opportunity to sum up the ultimate reason why Gelman acted the way he did.
‘You are a violent predator and sociopath,’ he said.
Justice served, the community of Brooklyn started to heal from the
28 hours of terror.
Gelman: ‘I’m not the bad guy here...’