When at the end of the 19th century they talked about serial killers, they immediately remembered the mysterious Briton, nicknamed Jack the Ripper. But Russia had its own ripper - Nikolai Radkevich, nicknamed Vadim Krovyanik.
Depraved widow
Radkevich is often referred to as the first known serial killer in Russia. But this is not the case. Serial killers were known before him. You can recall at least Konstantin Sazonov, nicknamed the Tsarskoye Selo murderer, who hunted in 1814-1816. Yes, and among the inmates of the Sakhalin penal servitude there were characters, on whose account there were more than a dozen ruined souls. But Radkevich was for Russia a murderer of a new, incomprehensible type, which shortly before that for Great Britain became Jack the Ripper.
Both of them mocked their victims with particular cruelty, having no apparent motive for committing atrocities in the form of lust or greed. Only in 1980, FBI officer and specialist in the field of criminal psychology Robert Hazelwood will classify serial killers and find a term suitable for the Ripper and Gore - "missionary killers." Both the one and the other believed that they were fulfilling a noble mission, cleansing society from dirt, and therefore they hunted prostitutes. True, the Bloodman was also driven by a thirst for revenge.
Nikolai Radkevich was born in 1888 in the family of a member of the district court Vladimir Radkevich. He was a strange boy. I ran away from home more than once. For example, once he went to the steppe to the Bashkirs, but was caught and returned to his parents. Mother said that since early childhood, Kolenka suffered from hallucinations and read a lot of fashionable "criminal literature", from which he probably learned about Jack the Ripper.
14-year-old Radkevich, a student of the Arakcheevsky cadet corps in Nizhny Novgorod, was seduced by the widow of a non-commissioned officer, who was twice Nikolai's age. After having fun with the boy, she left him, and at the same time she infected him with syphilis.
Nikolai was not the only teenager who had a chance to go through this. But he took what happened especially acutely and painfully. Burning with jealousy and shame, Radkevich decided to take revenge on the lady. He lay in wait for her in the park and attacked with a knife. But the lady was accompanied by a cavalier - a naval officer. He twisted the youngster, taught him a little wits and took him to the police station. Nikolai again experienced humiliation, in addition, he was kicked out of the cadet corps with a bang.
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Hating the entire female family, Radkevich decided to become a sailor - women have no place on ships. He entered the Odessa Navigation School, but after a while was expelled for "bad behavior". I had to enlist in the merchant fleet as a simple sailor.
Entering any port, the first thing the sailors did was go to the brothel. Presumably, Radkevich went there with them. And he was imbued with even greater hatred for dissolute women.
A maniac appeared in the capital
On July 1, 1909, a brutally murdered prostitute, 20-year-old Anna Blumentrost, was discovered in St. Petersburg. When her body was fished out of the Neva, they counted 12 knife wounds on it. And two weeks later, an unknown person stabbed the prostitute Ekaterina Gerus in the Danube Hotel on Ligovsky Prospekt.
Panic rumors spread throughout the capital: the English Jack the Ripper had a follower in Russia. The capital's prostitutes were seriously scared. But the next victim was the respectable maid Zinaida Levina. She was returning home from the market when a young man attacked her and shouted "Death to beauties!" struck two blows with a knife - in the shoulder and in the stomach. He would certainly have killed Zinaida, but passers-by interfered. However, the attacker managed to escape.
The very next day he tried to kill a prostitute named Clotilde in a brothel on Kolomenskaya Street. The wounded Clotilde managed to escape from the hands of the killer and called for help. The attacker jumped out the window and disappeared.
The investigation was undertaken by the head of the detective police of St. Petersburg, Vladimir Filippov.
He personally interrogated witnesses and found out that women, and only brunettes, were hunted by a tall man in a black coat and a wide-brimmed black hat. No one could describe his face, but everyone remembered the "skipper's" beard. And the doorman of the Danube Hotel drew attention to the suspect's unusually long - "like a monkey's" - hands. Because of this omen, the investigation first went down the wrong path. The long-armed pimp of the murdered Catherine Gerus - Osokin, turned out to be, and the doorman identified him.
But after the attack of the “Russian ripper” on Zinaida Levina, Filippov got evidence - a knife dropped by the criminal. The head of the detective police found out that such knives are sold in the Bazho shop on the Alexandrovsky market, and they are usually bought by sailors of the commercial fleet. This is how the version appeared that the killer was a sailor. Without a doubt, the metropolitan detectives under the leadership of Filippov would sooner or later figure out the killer, but he himself made their work easier by making a new attack.
The mission of my life is to kill brunettes
On September 17, 1909, Radkevich stabbed a prostitute Maria Budochnikova at the Kiao Hotel. And he left a note: “Money was taken for the labor of sending it to the next world and because the dead do not need it. The killer of this woman and E. Gerus in the Danube Hotel is Vadim Krovyanik. Osokin, arrested for the murder in the Danube, is not guilty.
In the morning, leaving the hotel, Radkevich told the bellhop that the lady in his room was sleeping and there was no need to disturb her. But the bellboy somehow sensed that things were unclean here and tried to stop the guest. The guest on the platoon attacked the bellboy, but the doorman and the maid arrived. The three of them twisted the guest and called the police. Vladimir Filippov also came to "Kiao". First of all, he examined the room in which Budochnikova was found with thirty-five stab wounds and a note.
Radkevich was arrested, and the mayor personally presented the vigilant corridor with a prize of 25 rubles.
For three years the leading psychiatrists of the Russian Empire studied the personality of Nikolai Radkevich in the hospital of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. Radkevich did not hide his hatred of women. He confessed: “The task of my life is to kill brunettes … Not only in St. Petersburg, but also in other cities, I tried to kill beautiful girls. What is the purpose of such a terrible crime? I experienced tremendous pleasure, unspeakable, reveling in and enjoying myself. And he said that even before the massacre of Anna Blumentrost made 27 attempts to kill women.
In the prison-type hospital ward, where he was placed, Radkevich scratched the inscriptions on the walls with his nails: "Death to beauties!" and “Revenge! Revenge! This is the meaning of my life."
Guilty but worthy of leniency
Psychiatrists were divided. The famous professor of psychopathology, Kovalevsky, noted: "The criminal's statement that he delights in killing suggests that he is a sadist." But the opinion of another well-known psychiatrist, Dr. Nizhegorodtsev, prevailed: “The criminal's past, his cruelty, running in parallel with religious mood, hallucinations and other symptoms can serve as evidence that we are facing a patient suffering from a form of deep epilepsy and perversions in the genital area. To me he seems to be a typical degenerate with a disorder of some mental spheres."
However, the doctors agreed that Radkevich was sane and capable of taking responsibility for his actions.
On March 10, 1912, the murderer was brought before a jury. He told a pitiful, but already known story about a widow who seduced him and ruined his whole life. After that Radkevich sailed as a sailor on the ship "Mstislav Udaloy", but caught an incurable disease from a prostitute. As a result, by the age of 25, he became a vagabond. He lived modestly, spent the night in shelters. Only the desire to take revenge on women kept him from committing suicide.
“The woman struck me off the lists of society, she put my name next to such renegades and demons in the form of people as the Marquis de Sade, Marshal Gilles de Retz, Jean Baptiste Girard and London's Jack the Ripper,” said Radkevich.
There were doubts whether to punish him or treat him. These doubts were resolved by the defendant himself, saying: “Keep me at least 10 years in the hospital, I will not change … I do not want half measures. I am asking for hard labor or freedom."
The jury found him guilty, but worthy of leniency. Therefore, he received a relatively light sentence - 8 years in hard labor. Radkevich failed to serve the entire term. In the fall of 1916, he was killed by criminals at a convict stage.
Oleg LOGINOV