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Moscow Serial Killer Gets Life for 16 Murders

RIA Novosti

January 30, 2012

The Moscow City Court has handed down a life sentence to 32-year-old Vladimir Mirgorod for killing at least sixteen people in Moscow between 2002 and 2004, the Prosecutor General’s Office said on Monday.

The court established that Mirgorod killed 16 people – of them 15 women and a 13-year-old teenager. He raped several of his victims before suffocating them, prosecutors said.

“The crimes had not been cleared up for a time long as the criminal was serving a sentence for rape and robbery between 2005 and 2010,” the Prosecutor General’s Office said.

Mirgorod will spend the rest of his life in special regime prison.

Russian serial strangler jailed for life

AFP

January 30, 2012

A Russian court sentenced a man to life imprisonment on Monday for sexually attacking and then strangling to death 15 women and a teenager, the prosecutor's office said.

Vladimir Mirgorod, 32, was found guilty of carrying out the series of murders after raping or sexually assaulting his victims between 2002 and 2004 in Moscow and deserted areas around the capital, the prosecutor's statement said.

"All the victims died from asphyxia at the scenes of the crimes, strangled with a cord," it said.

The killer evaded arrest for several years because he was serving a separate jail sentence.

"When Mirgorod was released in 2010, having served his sentence for robbery and rape, investigators checked his fingerprints and found that they were identical to those left at four crime scenes," the statement said.

Further scientific analysis then gave investigators enough evidence to charge him with the killings, it said.

Serial strangler sentenced to life

By Anastassia Berseneva - Gazeta.ru

January 30, 2012

On Monday, Moscow city court sentenced 32 year old serial killer, Vladimir Mirgorod, to life in prison. He was found guilty of killing 15 women and one teenage boy in 2002 and 2003, when the killer was 24.

He strangled his victims with a trouser belt, some of them he raped before killing.

The trial was closed to the public. The defendant pleaded partial guilt. The court's spokesman couldn't say anything about the murderer's motive but told Gazeta.ru he was not married.

In Summer 2003, there were frightening rumors of hideous murders in the north and north-east of Moscow. Girls' bodies, tied up and strangled, were found, some of them showing signs of rape. There were at least 10 victims, though several other women were able to escape the killer. One of them told the investigator that she struggled for 20 minutes and that karate lessons had helped. The rapist fled when a passersby who heard the shouts approached. He was not interested in money: "I offered him money, he said he had enough, he wouldn't rest until he strangled her," the girl said.

The girls also said the man had mad glassified eyes.

Millitia officers admitted that these murders were committed by the same person who they couldn't catch. Officially, the Ministry of the Interior denied any connection between the murders. Then, minister Boris Gryzlov told journalists that Moscow militia didn't believe that a serial killer was likely.

The murders stopped in 2004. Later, the investigation found out that the maniac was arrested in 2004 for robbery and was in prison for 5.5 years.

It was only by accident that investigators started to suspect Vladimir Mirgorod in 2010.

While the police department was digitizing their archives. Using the electronic program, officers found out that fingerprints of recently freed Mirgorod fit with the prints allegedly belonging to the strangler. Mirgorod was again arrested and initially he was charged with 7 murders but later found guilty of 16. He also raped 8 victims and committed sexual assault against 7 more. it is likely that the cases of sexual assault concerned those women who were able escape the serial killer, but the City court doesn't specify how many assaulted women are considered complainants.

As for the modus opperandi: the murderer chat up his victims and they invited him to their homes. Later he started to assault the women in parks and in the streets. One of the first crimes was committed in January 2003. The body of a 25 year old girl was found in the flat she was renting on Leningradskoye highway. A small firm employee, who came to Moscow from Minsk, was tied up with a slipknot around her neck. Girl's relatives told investigators some valuables were missing from the flat.

In March of that year, the criminal raped a student and then strangled her with her own scarf. A few days later, another 20 year old girl was killed in the same way. Then, A month later, a 34 year old woman from Novosibirsk was found dead in her rented flat on Matros Zheleznyak street. Another assault was committed at the end of June 2003. A 43 year old woman and her 16 year old son were killed: first the mother, then the son, who came home and caught the murderer red-handed. Mirgorod hanged the boy on a belt.

Then, in July, the killer came out into the streets. The next victim, a 28 year old woman from Moscow, was found in the Botanical gardens. The clothes on the deceased were torn, she was tied up, gagged and strangled. The first suspect was her friend, but these allegations were not confirmed.

His last victim was found on Yablochkova street. 28-year old Irina Gero worked in the Moscow City Duma. She was strangled with a trouser belt.