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Biography[]
Early life[]
Vyacheslav Efimovich Demichev was born in 1950 in Saratov. His father Efim, a brigadier of reserve conductors on the railroad, was aggressive towards his mother and openly cheated on her, leading to her developing mental issues in the early 1960s and eventually being interned at a psychiatric hospital.[1] This did not affect his father's behavior, who continued to have multiple sex partners, some of whom he brought back to his apartment. Demichev witnessed this, and would later claim that this behavior greatly influenced him.[1]
During his school years, Demichev constantly engaged in sports, thanks to which he developed physically faster than his peers. By 1970, he was approximately 2 meters tall and weighed about 100 kilograms, and preferred to lead a healthy lifestyle, avoiding smoking and drinking. After graduating high school, Demichev was drafted into the Soviet Army and served in the Far East. He claimed to have killed a wolf that attacked him only using his fist, but this claim was never corroborated.[1]
Upon completion of his service, Demichev returned to Saratov and got a job as an employee at fire station No. 2, located at 37B Universitetskaya Street. His co-workers regarded him positively, but a number of friends and acquaintances outside of his workplace varied in their opinions of him.[1] After becoming a firefighter, Demichev left is parents' home and settled in a house where a store called "Petushok" was located. At around this time, he began to exhibit an increased libido just like his father. Spending most of his free time with his close friend Volkov, a law student, at a café called "Sadko", which was located on the second floor of the building where the local Pioneer Movie Theater was located. With his tall stature, pleasant appearance and athletic figure, Demichev enjoyed great success with women, whom he often brought back to his apartment to have sex. Subsequently, a number of his casual sex partners told law enforcement officials that Demichev played out disturbing sexual fantasies, most notably acting out rapes. Despite his numerous affairs, Demichev still had a fiancée - the secretary of the Kirov District Court - who lived on the opposite street of where Demichev's apartment was. The woman was well aware of his behavior, but still continued to see him.[1]
Murders[]
On April 26, 1974, Demichev was crossing the intersection of Moskovskaya and Universitetskaya Streets when he noticed 11-year-old Daria Zavadnikova, who was returning home from art school. Demichev approached her on the pretext of wanting someone to hold a jump rope for him while he was practicing for an upcoming sports competition.[1] As he was dressed in a military uniform, he did not arouse suspicion in the young girl, who willingly accompanied him to the Old Believer Cemetery, located behind a bus stop. There, Demichev raped her and then threw off from a height into a crypt and promptly left. Upon reaching the bus station, he realized that he had dropped a handkerchief and returned to retrieve it. When he did so, he was surprised to see that Zavadnikova was still alive - in order to finish her off, he went into the crypt and bashed her head against the brick wall, after which he wrapped her body up in barbed wire and left again.[1] Despite the severity of her injuries, Zavadnikova managed to survive for two days in this state until she was discovered by a couple who were passing through the cemetery on their way to visit some acquaintances. She spent a month in intensive care in a coma, but managed to make a recovery and provided a detailed description of her assailant, from which an identikit was made.[1]
On June 20, Demichev attacked a young girl late at night near the Petushok store, at the intersection of Slonova and Stepan Razin Streets, whom he raped and killed. Despite the fact that this attack occurred in a relatively crowded area, there were no apparent witnesses.[1] Since Demichev had stripped the girl of all her clothing, investigators resorted to a controversial method of identification - showing a photo of the murdered girl on television. Soon afterwards, they were contacted by a teenage girl who said that she recognized the victim as her friend, 16-year-old Elena Vasilieva. The authorities soon contacted her parents, but they were unable to provide much useful information, as both were alcoholics and initially had not even noticed that she had disappearead.[1]
In early July, Demichev attacked 17-year-old Galina Ulybina in a similar manner, whom he also raped and killed. Little information is available on this particular murder.[1]
Sometime afterwards, Demichev was hanging around the Petushok store when he noticed 11-year-old Ella Tomich walking the street, bringing fish to her grandfather, who lived in a nearby building.[1] Tomich's family had come to Saratov from Kazakhstan on vacation, as her father was doing his military service in the city. Demichev approached her on the pretext of catching a bird for her, which excited Tomich, who liked birds a lot. She was then lured to a television tower on the outskirts of Saratov, where she was assaulted, raped and strangled to death by Demichev. About a week later, her body was discovered by mushroom hunters in the forest near the tower.[1]
Arrest[]
While the killings were going on, local authorities focused on examining anybody who was serving in the army, based on Zavadnikova's testimony that her assailant was wearing a military uniform. The case was soon handed over to the regional prosecutor's office, and all the cases were merged into one. While the prosecutor's office initially also struggled, everything changed after one investigator, Nikolai Vykhorev, suggested that they start checking firefighters as well, since the uniforms used by people in both professions were virtually identical and all victims disappeared in the vicinity of the local fire station.[1]
While examining personnel files, Vykhorev compared the facial composite of Zavadnikova's assailant with photos from the files, until he eventually noticed that one man - Vyacheslav Demichev - bore a striking resemblance to the portrait.[1] Vykhorev then went down to the fire station and located Demichev, but after noticing that the man was physically powerful and likely would overpower him if he attempted to arrest him, he decided to use trickery to lure him to the police station.[1] Vykhorev approached Demichev with the claim that he and his colleagues would be presented with an award for their participation in extinguishing fires in Engels, which he said would be handed over to him at the Fruzensky District Department of Internal Affairs. Demichev believed him, after which he changed to his civilian clothing and willingly accompanied the investigator to the police station.[1]
When they arrived there, Vykhorev brought in Zavadnikova, her parents, several witnesses, a doctor and a psychiatrist to the station. Upon seeing Demichev, Zavadnikova became hysterical and fled the room, but after calming down, she returned and positively identified him as her rapist. Shortly afterwards, investigators started interrogating Demichev - while he initially denied any and all responsibility, he soon cracked under pressure and confessed to the rapes and murders after his fingerprints were matched to the crime scenes.[1]
Confession to unsolved murder[]
Aside from the recent crimes, Demichev shocked investigators when he confessed to a cold case. He claimed that in 1970, whilst he was still in the army, he was given a leave of absence and decided to go fishing in his native Saratov. One evening, he was returning home with a good catch, and at the intersection of Chernyshevskogo and Valovaya Streets, he met three young men whom he did not know who asked him to buy them some alcohol.[1] For reasons unknown, Demichev agreed and had a drink with them, whereupon he claimed one of the youths got up and hit him on the head with a brick. However, while he staggered back in pain, Demichev did not lose consciousness and fought back, eventually killing one of them and seriously injuring the other two. After combing through unsolved cases for that year, investigators came upon the murder of a young boy that seemingly matched the description - the murder was witnessed by the victims' two friends, who claimed that the perpetrator was a young man named Vyacheslav, with a tall and athletic build. Not long after, he was charged with this murder as well.[1]
Investigation, trial and execution[]
During his interrogations, Demichev revealed that he had perfected his method of luring children by practicing his techniques on neighbors' children - this ranged from ruses such as offering to go on walks, looking at insects, going to the candy store and watching television. By the end of 1974, his case file amounted to more than 30 volumes, and he was eventually sent off to a pre-trial detention center in Saratov, where he was ordered to recreate how he carried out the murder of Tomich. At the end of this investigative experiment, authorities arrested Tomich's father, who was found to be carrying a gun he had acquired from his military unit back in Kazakhstan. When questioned, the man said that he planned to kill Demichev after learning about the experiment, and expressed regret at not being able to shoot him before being apprehended.[1]
At the subsequent trial, Demichev's attorneys petitioned for their client to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, which was granted. He was found to be sane and stood trial, and by early 1975, he was found guilty on all charges and sentenced to death. He exhausted all of his appeals, and was subsequently executed near the end of the year.[1]
Aftermath[]
Nikolai Vykhorev would later be interviewed for a documentary on the case in 2020, in which he expressed his opinion that Demichev suffered from some sort of mental defect that predisposed him to raping and killing children, and that the doctors possibly intentionally claimed to have not found any mental abnormalities in order to have him executed. However, he reiterated his personal belief that people like him deserved to be executed nonetheless.[1]
The case was covered on an episode of The Investigation was conducted... with Leonid Kanevsky, where Demichev had his surname changed to Volkov. Several people who took part in the original investigators later complained about inaccuracies in the production - for instance, the documentary claimed that the main piece of evidence was a button from his uniform, while in reality, this button was found at the second crime scene and was not considered an important piece of evidence, as by that point, they knew that the suspect wore a military uniform thanks to Zavadkina's testimony. Another point of contention was the documentary's claim that Demichev raped victims becaused he suffered from some sort of venereal disease, but according to investigators, this was false.
Victims[]
Murder victims[]
| Name | Age | Date of Death | Cause of Death |
|---|---|---|---|
| Unnamed teenage boy | "teenage" | 1970 | Strangulation |
| Elena Vasilieva | 16 | June 20, 1974 | Strangulation |
| Galina Ulybina | 17 | July 17, 1974 | Strangulation |
| Ella Tomich | 11 | autumn of 1974 | Strangulation |
Attacked victims[]
| Name | Age | Date of Attack |
|---|---|---|
| Daria Zavadnikova | 11 | April 26, 1974 |
Timeline[]
Bibliography[]
Literature[]
- Kapitanova, Irina; Antoine Casse (December 30). The phenomenon of Russian maniacs. The first large-scale study of maniacs and serial killers from the times of tsarism, the USSR and the Russian Federation, (Russian). ISBN 5046081180
Articles[]
Documentaries[]
Television[]
- [url=https://www.ntv.ru/peredacha/sledstvie/m102540/o570017/ "Little Red Riding Hood"], documentary episode on "The investigation was conducted... with Leonid Kanevsky" (in Russian)
YouTube Documentaries[]
Podcasts[]
In popular culture[]
Film adaptation[]
Related Articles[]
See also[]
Links[]
Notes[]
References[]