The Dnepropetrovsk maniacs are Ukrainian serial killers responsible for a string of murders in Dnepropetrovsk in June and July 2007. The case gained worldwide notoriety after the killers made video recordings of some of the murders, with one of the videos leaking to the Internet. Two 19‑year-olds, Viktor Sayenko (born 6 May 1988), and Igor Suprunyuk (born 20 April 1988), were arrested and charged with 21 murders.
A third conspirator, Alexander Hanzha (born February 1988), was charged with two armed robberies that took place before the murder spree. On 11 February 2009, all three defendants were found guilty. Sayenko and Suprunyuk were sentenced to life imprisonment, while Hanzha received nine years in prison. The lawyers for Sayenko and Suprunyuk launched an appeal, which was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Ukraine in November 2009.
Murders The first two murders occurred late on 25 June 2007. The first victim was a 33-year-old woman, Yekaterina Ilchenko, who was walking home after having tea at her friend's apartment. According to Sayenko's confession, he and Suprunyuk were "out for a walk". Suprunyuk had a hammer. As Ilchenko walked past, Suprunyuk "spun around" and hit her in the side of the head. Ilchenko's body was found by her mother at 5:00a.m. Within an hour of the first murder, the two men attacked and killed Roman Tatarevich, as he slept on a bench near the first murder scene. Tatarevich's head was smashed with blunt objects numerous times, rendering him unrecognizable. The bench was located across the street from the local public prosecutor's office.
On 1 July, two more victims, Yevgenia Grischenko and Nikolai Serchuk, were found murdered in the nearby town of Novomoskovsk. On the night of 6 July, three more people were murdered in Dnipro. The first was Egor Nechvoloda, a recently discharged army recruit, who was bludgeoned while walking home from a nightclub. His mother found the body in the morning by their apartment building on Bohdan-Khmelnytsky Street. Yelena Shram, a 28‑year-old night guard, was then murdered around the corner on Kosiora Street. According to Sayenko's taped confession, as Shram walked toward them, Suprunyuk struck her with the hammer he had been hiding under his shirt and hit her several more times after she fell. She had been carrying a bag filled with clothes. The men picked up the bag, used the clothes to clean the hammer, and threw the bag out. Later the same night, the men murdered a woman named Valentina Hanzha (no apparent relation to co-defendant Alexander Hanzha), a mother of three with a disabled husband.
The next day, 7 July, two 14‑year-old boys from Pidhorodne, a nearby town, were attacked as they went fishing. One of the two friends, Andrei Sidyuk, was killed, but the other, Vadim Lyakhov, managed to escape after hiding in the woods. Later, on 12 July, 48‑year-old Sergei Yatzenko, disabled by a recent bout with cancer, went missing while riding his Dnepr motorcycle. His battered body was found four days later, with signs of a savage attack visible even after four days in the summer heat. Just days later, on 14 July 45‑year-old Natalia Mamarchuk was riding her scooter in the nearby village of Diyovka. As she was passing through a wooded area, two men approached her and knocked her down. They then bludgeoned her to death with a hammer or pipe and drove off on her scooter. Local witnesses gave chase but lost sight of the attackers.
Thirteen more murders followed, often with multiple bodies found on the same day. In addition to the earlier sprees, two victims were found each day from 14 July to 16. Victims were seemingly selected at random. Many were vulnerable to attack, including children, the elderly, vagrants, or people under the influence of alcohol. Most victims were killed using blunt objects, including hammers and steel construction bars. Blows were often directed at their faces, leaving them unrecognizable. Many victims were also mutilated and tortured; some victims had their eyes gouged out while they were still alive. One pregnant woman had her fetus cut from her womb. No sexual assault on any victim was reported. Some victims were also robbed of their cellphones and other valuables, with their possessions pawned to second-hand shops in the area. However, most victims had their belongings left intact. The murders covered a large geographical area. Aside from Dnipro, many occurred in outlying areas of the Dnipropetrovsk Oblast.
Investigation No official link between the murders was made until the 7 July attack on two boys in Pidhorodne. Vadim Lyakhov, the survivor, was initially placed under arrest, suspected of murdering his friend. He was reportedly denied access to counsel and beaten by police during questioning. However, it quickly became clear that he was not responsible for his friend's death, given that the murder was connected with the developing murder spree. Lyakhov cooperated with the investigators to create sketches of the attackers. Two local children who had also witnessed the 14 July Mamarchuk attack, hidden in a tent just a few feet away, also provided a detailed description corroborating the one given by Lyakhov.
A task force was quickly sent from Kyiv, headed by lead criminal investigator Vasily Paskalov. The manhunt soon grew to encompass most local law enforcement, and reportedly over 2,000 investigators worked on the case. The investigation was initially kept secret. No official information about the murders was released, and local people were not warned about possible attacks or provided with descriptions of the suspects. However, rumors of the attacks kept most of the local population home at night. Eventually, investigators selectively distributed sketches and lists of stolen property to local pawn shops, and soon, the stolen property began to be identified in the pawn shops of the city's Novokodatskyi District.
Suspects The three suspects Viktor Sayenko, Igor Suprunyuk, and Alexander Hanzha were arrested on 23 July 2007. Suprunyuk attempted to sell a cellphone stolen from a victim in a local pawn shop, asking for ₴150 (around US$30 in 2007). After making a phone call from the shop, Sayenko and Suprunyuk were arrested at the cash register. Hanzha was arrested at home, reportedly managing to flush other stolen cellphones and jewelry down the toilet. The items were recovered, but all information on the phones was lost.
The three suspects had attended school together, and by age 14 found some common ground. "Me and Igor [Suprunyuk] were both afraid of heights, and we were afraid we'd be beaten up by bullies", Sayenko stated during questioning. Suprunyuk sought advice on getting rid of their fears, which led the boys to stand on a balcony of their 14th-floor apartment for hours, hanging over the railing. This reportedly had a positive effect on their fear of heights. Hanzha was reportedly the most squeamish of the three. He had a blood phobia, and even refused to bathe his kitten, afraid he might scald it. Suprunyuk suggested tackling the fears by torturing stray dogs. The boys captured dogs in a wooded area near their house, hanged them from trees, disemboweled them, and took pictures next to the corpses. Prosecution evidence included many of these photos taken by the suspects while underage. Some photos show the boys drawing swastikas and other symbols with animal blood, and giving the Nazi salute. In one photo, Suprunyuk poses sporting a toothbrush mustache, similar to Adolf Hitler's mustache. Suprunyuk was born on 20 April, the same day as Hitler, and referred to this fact. A long video showing the three torturing a white kitten was shown in court.
When the boys were 17, Suprunyuk beat up a local boy and stole his bike, which he then sold to Sayenko. Both were arrested, but did not go to jail due to their age. After high school, Hanzha drifted between odd jobs, which included a pastrychef and a construction worker. At his arrest he had been unemployed for some time. Sayenko went to a metallurgy institute part-time and worked as a security guard. Suprunyuk remained officially unemployed but made a living driving his green Daewoo Lanos as an unlicensed taxi. The car was reportedly a birthday gift from his parents.
Some months before the murder spree, Suprunyuk – with the help of Sayenko and Hanzha – began picking up passengers and robbing them. A green Daewoo with a taxicab's checkerboard marking was often described as the vehicle used in the murders. According to the suspects' confessions, some murder victims were picked up as passengers in the cab. Hanzha reportedly participated in one where two men were robbed and then declined to take part in any further attacks.
Local media reported the suspects had wealthy influential parents with ties to local law enforcement. Vladimir Suprunyuk, Suprunyuk's father, in his interview for Segodnya stated that he had been employed at Yuzhmash as a test pilot, often flying with Leonid Kuchma, the future president of Ukraine, and continuing to serve as his personal pilot on domestic flights after Kuchma's rise to power. Local authorities, including deputy interior minister Nikolay Kupyanskiy, initially referred to the supposed influence of the suspects' families, but later denied the assessment, claiming that all three suspects came from poor families. However, Sayenko was represented in court by his father, Igor Sayenko, a lawyer.
Trial The three men were charged with involvement in 29 separate incidents, including 21 murders and eight more attacks where victims survived. Suprunyuk was charged with 27 of the cases, including 21 counts of capital murder, eight armed robberies, and one count of animal cruelty. Sayenko was charged with 25 instances, including 18 murders, five robberies, and one count of animal cruelty. Hanzha was charged with two counts of armed robbery stemming from a 1 March 2007 incident in Kamianske.
All three confessed quickly, although Suprunyuk later withdrew his confession. Their trial began in June 2008. Suprunyuk pleaded not guilty, while the other two suspects pleaded guilty to all charges. Viktor Chevguz, Suprunyuk's original defense lawyer, left the case after reportedly being disappointed that his client's plea of insanity was not accepted. Lawyers for the victims' families argued that the level of care taken by the killers during their crime spree meant that they were fully aware of their actions.
Prosecution evidence included blood-stains on the suspects' clothing and video recordings of the murders. The defense denied that the people in the videos were the suspects, claiming serious problems with the investigation, including at least 10 more murders covered up by the prosecution, supposed cover-ups of additional arrests of people with powerful connections who were released without being charged, even naming some of the additional people supposedly involved with the murders. The case was heard by a panel of judges chaired by judge Ivan Senchenko. The prosecution asked for life imprisonment for Sayenko and Suprunyuk, and 15 years of hard labor for Hanzha. Ukraine has no capital punishment since February 2000 after the Constitutional Court ruled the death penalty unconstitutional in December 1999.
Motivation