Poisoners are relatively rare among ordinary criminals. The intricate sophistication of their actions and the complex motivation for actions are available to only a few moral monsters. It was these creatures that turned out to be four members of one Soviet family, whose deeds became known in 1987.
The poisoners themselves considered the chosen ones, who had the right to secretly dispose of human destinies, "restoring justice" or removing obstacles on the way to the goals they set for themselves. They looked like ordinary people. But little human remains in them.
Mass defeat
In mid-March 1987, three sixth-graders and four teachers of school No. 16 in the Minsk region, a speech therapist, a nurse, a head of a school cafeteria, a refrigeration equipment repairman and a driver were in one of the Kiev hospitals. They all vomited. They suffered from headaches and aching joints. Their feet were numb and their hair was falling out. Two days later, one of the students died, then a refrigerator specialist. The rest of the patients were in critical condition.
A survey of the victims revealed that all of them, before falling ill, had lunch in the school cafeteria later than others. Inspection of the catering unit, food samples taken from the dishes and flushing equipment gave nothing. When they began to find out who controls the quality of food, it was established that the school dietitian Natalya Kukarenko had died just a couple of weeks before the injury, allegedly from heart failure.
Having doubted the accuracy of this diagnosis, the investigator ordered the exhumation of Kukarenko's corpse, in whose tissues the experts revealed the presence of thallium, a soft, extremely toxic metal. The symptoms of poisoning by him completely coincided with those observed in those who were poisoned in the school cafeteria. But how could metal get into food?
It was found that in geology, a thallium solution called the Clerici fluid is used to determine the density of minerals. There were few places in Kiev where it was possible to get this solution, and soon the detectives found a laboratory assistant of one of the geological expeditions, who admitted that she had passed Clerici's liquid several times to her friends, a certain Maslenko, who poisoned rats with her.
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In fairness ?
A search in the rooms of the communal apartment where Maslenko lived did not bring any results. But, collecting information about this family, the detectives found that their daughter, Tamara Ivanyutina, worked as a dishwasher in the cafeteria of school # 16! By that time, they had already paid attention to it, having found a fake in a work book. Ivanyutina, convicted of speculation, did not have the right to work in a children's institution, but for some reason she took the risk of forging a document in order to take up a not at all prestigious and low-paid position.
The suspect's apartment was searched, during which a bottle of sewing machine lubricant, which seemed too heavy, was seized. When the examination showed that there was a solution of thallium in the bottle, Tamara Ivanyutina was taken into custody.
She surprised the investigator with her frankness. The story with what dexterity she hounded these stupid, worthless people and how no one could understand anything, clearly gave her pleasure. The woman was not stopped, letting her talk. Firmly convinced that this time she would also come out dry from the water, Tamara offered the investigator “a bunch of gold” if he “did it right”. And she was immensely surprised when they refused to accept the bribe.
Two days after Tamara's arrest, her parents were also in prison, caught red-handed during an attempt at poisoning. They treated their neighbor to pancakes, but the woman, frightened by the search and rumors, fed them to the cat, and when she died, she took the remains to the police. During the interrogation, the Maslenko spouses testified that the pancakes were seasoned with poison that was stored in a cache that was not found during the first search. The couple wanted to poison their neighbor, who received more pension than they did, "to restore justice."
Some time later, Maslenko's eldest daughter, Nina Matsiboru, was arrested, suspected of poisoning her husband in order to take possession of his apartment.
In total, the investigation revealed more than 40 (!) Episodes of poisoning and attempted murder committed by members of the Maslenko family in different parts of the country. Traces of their crimes were found in the Kherson region, in Tyumen and Tula, where Maslenko lived before settling in Kiev.
Pigsty victims
Anton and Maria Maslenko had three sons and three daughters, but only Tamara and Nina became accomplices in their parents' crimes. The psychiatric examination recognized them all sane, but the features of a special kind of pathology are clearly visible in the personalities of the poisoning sisters. Both of them are strong, beautiful, easily attracted the attention of men, from whom they needed only material benefits.
The older sister, having seduced the same age as her father, drove him into the grave two weeks after the wedding. The purpose of the murder was an apartment and a Kiev registration. Tamara went the same way, little by little poisoning her husband in order to get rid of his harassment. After marrying her, the big truck driver fell ill and died in agony, and the Kiev apartment was given to the widow.
Tamara's aversion to sexual intercourse, motivated by "unwillingness to breed poverty", predetermined the reprisals against the parents of her second husband. They had a house and a plot where Tamara was going to raise pigs. However, the mother-in-law, sensing a certain flaw in her purely as a woman, set a condition for Tamara: if you give birth to a grandson, then we will register it. And so she signed a death warrant for herself and her husband. In a short time, they died one after another, and Tamara entered their house as a mistress and started pigs, hoping to get rich on the meat trade.
To provide her pigs with food, Tamara got a job in the school cafeteria. When the school party organizer Shcherban forbade her to carry waste, Tamara poisoned her. Stadnik, the chemistry teacher who replaced the deceased Shcherban, was also poisoned, but survived. The brother and sister, schoolchildren of elementary grades, whom Ivanyutina poisoned only because they asked for food waste for the dog, barely survived. In this, once again, Tamara's aversion to children and motherhood was especially clearly manifested.
Diet nurse Kukarenko pestered the boorish dishwasher with her reprimands, for which she paid. Apparently, the head of the dining room, who had suspected something, did not allow Ivanyutin to approach the storerooms and called the canteens trust, asking him to send her a replacement. Tamara tried to remove him by treating him with an orange, into which she injected poison with a syringe, but the manager did not accept the treat from her hands.
Tamara, persistent in her plans, decided to bring the matter to the end. Knowing that the manager eats later than everyone else, she poisoned the remains of the dinner and miscalculated again.
That day the school trade union committee met. Moreover, the furniture for the dining room was brought, which the sixth graders remained to unload, and in the kitchen the master was repairing the refrigerator. By coincidence of all these circumstances, 11 more people sat down for a late lunch, in addition to the head of the dining room. However, this did not stop Ivanyutina, who watched with a smile as people ate food poisoned by her.
There was not the slightest sign of remorse or at least regret for what Tamara Ivanyutina had done, who was convicted of killing nine and attempting to poison another two dozen people, including children. She was sentenced to death and carried out.
Old Maslenko, sentenced to 13 and 10 years, died in custody, but Nina Matsibor, having served only part of the 15 years that the Soviet court measured her, after the collapse of the USSR, was released. Her traces were lost, and it is possible that they led to the very "heap of gold" that Tamara promised the investigator. After all, no valuables were found in these pathological moneymakers during the searches.
Boris VOSTER