At the beginning of 2017, it became known that the ex-police officer ( Note edit. that’s what the police were called until 2010) Mikhail Popkov, who was convicted in 2015 of 22 murders of women, confessed to another 59 crimes. The man is known in the press as the “Angara maniac.”
He could not be found for about 20 years, as the investigation repeatedly reached a dead end. When Popkov worked in the authorities, he could personally go to the scene of crimes that he committed himself, earlier than criminologists and the investigative team.
Popkov’s mother Antonina came to the studio of the “Live Broadcast” program. She said that her son grew up athletic and well-mannered. From an early age she instilled in him a love of cleanliness. The ex-policeman’s colleagues also noted that he was always neatly dressed and ironed. Despite the fact that the serial killer's mother was shown footage of Mikhail's confession, she refused to believe it. The woman believes that her son was not capable of such a thing.
“Maybe he was under pressure,” Antonina Popkova noted.
The elderly woman said that she had never noticed any strange things about her son. She has not seen Mikhail for four years, since his arrest.
“When he was arrested, they sent me a newspaper. I was lied to in any way possible. They didn't ask. That his mother was a “drunk”, she beat him, he had a head injury. The investigation immediately began with a lie. Someone gave information to local journalists,” my mother said.
In parallel with his work in the police, the man dug graves in the cemetery, since in the early 90s there was not enough money. “It was a hard time. Came from the army, got married. He graduated from police school,” recalls Antonina Popkova.
According to various sources, he committed his first crimes in 1992-1994. However, it was only in 1998 that an investigation into the brutal murders was launched. Popkov’s ex-boss Andrei Shestopalov noted that Mikhail came under suspicion.
“In one of the crimes, the woman remembered that he showed his police identification. And the name was “Misha,” noted the ex-law enforcement officer.
The studio guests could not understand why the rapist and murderer had not been caught for so many years. According to Shestopalov, investigators first identified his accomplice, who held the position of colonel. However, now the second suspect is no longer alive: he was killed in 2005.
Popkov himself called himself “a cleaner who killed fallen women.” As Shestopalov clarified, very often before this he tracked representatives of the fairer sex who were catching a car on the road and were drunk. Former colleagues said that two years before the first murder, Mikhail’s wife cheated on him. “He began to take revenge on women,” Andrey noted,
Popkov’s sister Elena said that for her, her brother’s family had always been exemplary, so she did not believe all the information that was disseminated about him. “The word is not a fact,” the relative noted.
“I don’t understand why he’s confessing to these murders. Soon there will be 100 of them,” said Antonina Popkova. Judging by one of Mikhail’s video interviews for the “Honest Detective” program, he is not at all tormented by remorse for the murders he committed.
Thanks to the popular TV show “Battle of Psychics,” it was possible to expose the maniac who killed three girls.
Thanks to the popular TV show “Battle of Psychics,” it was possible to expose the maniac who killed three girls.
The arrest occurred immediately after the scene of the brutal murder of a young nurse was visited by the heroes of the famous program. Clairvoyants described in detail what happened on that fateful day when Andrei S., a 30-year-old resident of Naro-Fominsk, came into the treatment room of a boarding house near Moscow, writes Life.ru.
Five years ago, the adopted son of the director of a meat processing plant, Andrei S., worked as a traffic inspector. “He doesn’t even take bribes,” his colleagues were surprised at the traffic cop’s correctness. Imagine their surprise when it turned out that the exemplary traffic policeman was involved in a whole series of murders of drivers and thefts of their cars. The gang was detained, but through the efforts of his influential businessman father, Andrei managed to avoid prison. He was declared insane and put in a psychiatric hospital, reports “donbass.ua”.
After leaving the hospital, Andrei continued his bloody adventures. He became interested in voodoo rituals and satanic literature. In addition, he was always attracted to edged weapons - he had a whole collection at home, including throwing knives. This is what the maniac armed himself with when he went on a bloody hunt again. His first victim, 16-year-old Muscovite Maria V., was found in the forest near a holiday village. The girl's body was mutilated by terrible stab wounds. In addition, the maniac strangled the unfortunate woman with wire. In the same way, the killer dealt with a 22-year-old resident of Naro-Fominsk, Marina K. While the operatives were puzzling over solving these terrible crimes, a month later the fanatic killed another girl. 20-year-old nurse Olga P. was found in a pool of blood in the treatment room of her native boarding house.
The sophisticated killer, as if wanting to “link” his crimes into a single chain, left an object belonging to the previous girl - a ballpoint pen, a watch - near the body of each subsequent victim. This is what played a cruel joke on the murderer - he left fingerprints on the glass of Marina’s watch, found near Olga’s body.
Just on the eve of the arrest, filming of the program “Battle of Psychics” took place in the ill-fated boarding house. Clairvoyants described in detail what happened on that terrible September evening. Surprisingly, later their data almost completely coincided with what the maniac himself said during interrogation.
When the scoundrel was detained, experts compared his fingerprints with those in the database and realized: in front of them was the same elusive maniac they had been chasing for more than a year.
Searching for a maniac
In one of the regions of Russia, young women began to disappear. All the girls were about the same age and they were attractive. The scenario was the same, the girls stood on the road and waited for the bus. All the relatives were sure that their daughters had fallen into sexual slavery. Relatives desperately wrote about the program and Leonid Konovalov and Zulia Radjabova went to Orsk to help them. People gathered, there were a lot of them, girls disappeared in dozens. The investigation did not expect miracles from the psychics, but employees came to observe the experiment. Psychics said that the girls were dead and that a maniac killed them. The detectives perked up. Psychics noted that the man is about 50 years old, he has eyebrows like Brezhnev, he is a truck driver, and he tortured his victims in a barn or garage. It turned out that the investigation already knew some details, the description of the psychics coincided with the detectives’ orientation, they knew the man, but could not catch him. The criminal with the last name Andreev was an exemplary father and husband. The last girl whom the killer raped and killed grew up before his eyes; she was not afraid of the criminal. The name of the criminal was known, but he escaped. Psychics went with the police to the man’s garage. They described exactly how everything happened. The criminal abused the girls in the garage. Thanks to psychics, the burial ground of a sadist was found. There were blood stains on the walls of the cellar; they had been hastily whitewashed. The maniac disappeared, he had to be caught with all his might. Psychics described to law enforcement officers places where corpses could be hidden. Psychics and their employees toured the reservoir. Psychics worked for 4 days, they found evidence and gave information about where the maniac was.
Missing student
The mysterious disappearance of a student thundered throughout Tver. Sergei was only 20 years old. In the evening, the guy called his mother and said that he would be home in 15-20 minutes. It happened on October 21, 2011. The boy’s mother did not sleep, the son went to a wedding, and then went to the club with friends. The club's security guards did not allow the company into the establishment. The guy separated from the company, but did not reach the house. The police said the boys would have some fun and show up. For the first three days, only the family looked for the guy. Then police and volunteers began searching the area. They couldn’t find the guy for a month; the guy fell through the ground. Only the mother hoped that her son would return. The woman turned to Anatoly Ledeneva, because he is known for his ability to find people. A photo of the guy was sent to Ledenev. The psychic saw that the boy was dead. He insisted that he was killed and saw it happen. The guy was bullied before his death. The psychic noted where the guy’s body might be, but they were already looking for his body in that river. The guy's body was found.
When exactly this story began, no one knows for certain except the criminal himself. Only proven episodes and confessions of the maniac that he gave during the investigation become known to the general public. Orsky maniac Valery Andreev confessed to seven rapes and murders, but presumably the count could go into hundreds.
Bloody Harvest
The first reports that a maniac was at work in the vicinity of Orenburg appeared in 2013 and quickly spread across all social networks. Frightened people shared information and simply rumors. Someone even stated that the criminal was seen here and there. In March of the same year, Orsk maniac Andreev was put on the wanted list and the governor of the Orenburg region announced that the reward for helping the investigation in catching the criminal would be half a million rubles.
At that time, the 55-year-old criminal was a truck driver and was hunting women throughout the area near Orenburg. The victims fell into his net themselves. Presumably, they voted on the side of roads near cities and villages in the Orenburg region in order to get to another settlement.
When Andreev’s car stopped, the women did not even suspect that there was a maniac in front of them. The Orsk criminal put another victim into the cabin, and no one ever saw her again. The criminal preferred women from 17 to 40 years of age with a thin build; it was they who made him want to rape and then kill.
Psychics against a maniac
In 2013, in mid-March, as part of the popular series “Psychics Are Investigating,” a program was released dedicated to the acts of a bloodthirsty criminal from Orsk. Before this, desperate relatives of the missing victims turned to participants in the “Battle of Psychics” for help with their last hope of finding their loved ones.
Well-known clairvoyants reported many details related to the girls, the accuracy of which amazed those who knew the missing people closely. Psychics confidently stated that the Orsk maniac Valery Andreev killed at least a hundred girls, whose disappearance the investigative authorities did not in any way connect with his bloody activities.
They voiced many small details known only to the investigative team, described the criminal’s cars and what he did to his victims. Investigators could not help but recognize the shocking accuracy of the matches and were convinced that their search was on the right track.
How do you become maniacs?
It is difficult to say at what point a seemingly normal person chooses a dangerous activity and what pushes him to do so. The reasons why the average person takes the criminal path are always individual. Experts say that the roots of this are in early childhood, problems of education. Genetics can also be the basis for a tendency to crime, and all you need is a trigger...
Neither neighbors nor Andreev’s work colleagues had any idea that a real maniac was living and working next to them. The Orsk rapist and murderer had a family and lived to see his gray hair; he did not at all give the impression of a dangerous criminal. Truck drivers he knew accidentally found women's hair clips and used condoms in his car, but they could not think that these were evidence of bloody crimes. Valery Andreev (the Orsky maniac) was extremely careful and carefully washed away traces of blood; he never went on a caravan with other trucks.
Operatives are on the trail
Investigators managed to get on the maniac's trail in the summer of 2012. Then the search began for the missing 18-year-old girl Olga Zhuravleva, who (according to witnesses) got into a white foreign car and disappeared without a trace. The search for a similar car led the investigators to Valery Andreev. The car was examined, and as a result, biological material from several missing girls was found. Among them was Olga herself.
According to the data that the investigative team was able to obtain, Andreev began his criminal activities back in 2006. After he was put on the wanted list, the man disappeared, and even his relatives did not know about his whereabouts. His wife and two sons could not believe that Valery was the maniac who terrified all the women of the Orenburg region. Already hiding, he called his wife from someone else’s number. The maniac never found the strength to confess his crimes to her. To all his wife’s questions, he only insisted that the investigation would sort it out.
Has the Orsk maniac been caught or is he walking free?
Despite a lot of evidence and various precisely established information, to date it has not been possible to catch the criminal. Apparently, his rich life experience, resourceful mind and devilish cunning allow him to be so careful as to continue to hide. It is quite possible that Valery Andreev (the Orsky maniac) is now far from his small homeland.
In the Orenburg region, his photos have been posted in large numbers, and everyone knows what a maniac looks like. The Orsk Investigative Committee continues to search for the rapist and murderer. Law enforcement agencies warn and say that the criminal is very dangerous. He looks quite harmless and it is difficult to suspect a bloodthirsty nature in him. Andreev easily finds a common language even with strangers and knows how to inspire confidence in himself and win him over.
How to avoid becoming a victim of a maniac?
In criminology there is such a thing as “victim behavior of the victim.” This term refers to provocative behavior that causes the offender to act illegally. Perhaps fear-mongering in the Orenburg region will do a good job and force girls and women to be less frivolous.
Everyone will now think, when getting into an unfamiliar car, about the likelihood that an Orsky maniac may well be behind the wheel. The bloodthirsty killer will most likely be caught. Sooner or later, even cunning and cautious criminals make a mistake. But it is always worth remembering that trusting strangers can lead to fatal consequences.
