For almost 20 years, from 1992 to 2010, serial killer Mikhail Popkov operated in the Irkutsk region. Over the years, the “Angara maniac” killed 85 people – the last three victims became known recently. Almost all of the dead were young women. Popkov managed to be detained by accident, several years after the last crime. The punishment was severe: two life sentences and almost 10 more years on the third sentence. How a former operative turned into a bloodthirsty killer, Izvestia figured it out.
Three new victims of the “Angara maniac”
On the confession of Mikhail Popkov in the murder of three more women became known in January 2023. He wrote a confession while already imprisoned in the Black Dolphin, the information was checked by employees of the Investigative Committee. On August 18, the prosecutor’s office approved the charge of murdering two or more persons (clause “a” part 2 of article 105 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), and now 59-year-old Mikhail Popkov is waiting for a new – fourth – sentence. According to investigators, women died at the hands of a maniac between 1997 and 2003.
But this, probably, may not be the end of the tragedy. According to operative Artyom Dubynin, who eventually detained Popkov in 2012, there may be at least 30 more women on the maniac’s account.
Delivery at the cost of a life
Popkov killed all his victims in the same way. He met women on the streets of the city at night or in the morning, looked out for them near restaurants or nightclubs. Then he offered to give a lift in his car or spend time with him, and after that he took the women to deserted places, where he dealt with them in various ways.
Often drunken women became his passengers, sometimes there were two victims at once. So that the ladies would not be afraid to get into a car with an unfamiliar man, he showed them his security officer’s ID. Only one woman managed to survive after meeting with the killer. In 1999, Evgenia Protasova was found in the forest by a mushroom picker, she was barely showing signs of life. Evgenia subsequently repeatedly spoke about the horror she experienced in an interview, but at that moment the girl’s testimony was not believed.
Mikhail Popkov confessed to the murder of 82 women. But there could be many more victims.
The murder weapon of the “Angara maniac” has always been household items: axes, crowbars, shovels or even screwdrivers. Popkov strangled some of his victims, and cut out the heart of one.
At the same time, not all the women who got into Popkov’s car were killed. The decision to take the passenger to her destination or deal with her, he each time left to chance.
Among Popkov’s victims there is also one police colleague. This murder became known in 2017. According to the investigation, Popkov volunteered to give a drunk colleague, police captain Yevgeny Shkurikhin, a ride home. On the way, the men quarreled, after which Popkov took Shkurikhin into the forest and killed him with several stabs.
“Angara maniac”: a smiling former operative
Popkov committed his first murder in 1992, when he was 28 years old: the burned corpse of Larisa Atayeva was found in the forest. Popkov’s desire to kill was associated with suspicions of his wife’s infidelities, and he himself spoke negatively about tipsy women. The maniac had the idea to punish women who returned home late and thus “betrayed” their husbands. All this time, the maniac continued to work as an on-duty detective in the Irkutsk region and often went out in the morning to investigate the crimes he had committed at night.
Neither colleagues nor Popkov’s family (wife, mother and daughter) suspected that the man was leading a double life. Colleagues considered him a smiling and friendly person, a diligent worker. The wife claimed that in all the years of her life together she had never found traces of blood on his clothes, and nothing in his behavior seemed suspicious to her. After accusing her husband, the woman moved to another city and changed her last name.
Punishment for a crime: how the “Angara maniac” was caught
It was possible to catch the maniac by accident and only in 2012, when he had not worked in the police for a long time. The traces of the Niva car, which were noticed at the scene of the murder, helped to find the criminal. The operatives identified all the owners of these cars in the region and, after conducting numerous DNA tests, began searching for the former policeman.
Having received the summons, Popkov himself came to the department, calmly and confidently testified. The operatives had no suspicions that they were talking to the same maniac that they had been trying to catch for the second decade. After interrogation, Popkov was asked to take a saliva test for a DNA test, the result of which came a month later and turned out to be shocking: the biomaterial matched 100% with what was found on the bodies of three victims. The killer was detained on a train en route to Vladivostok: after his dismissal from the authorities, Popkov seriously engaged in the distillation of cars from Primorye.
Years passed between the capture of the maniac and the last murder. Popkov admitted to investigators that he had given up the murders because of impotence, which arose against the background of a venereal disease.
Two life sentences for Mikhail Popkov
The investigation lasted more than three years. The “Angara maniac” received his first life sentence in 2015 for 22 murders and causing grievous bodily harm to two women.
In 2018, Popkov was sentenced to a second life sentence after he confessed to other crimes. The maniac confessed to crimes gradually, trying to delay the move to a special regime colony. In 2021, Popkov was sentenced to another nine years and eight months in prison for two murders, to which he confessed while already in custody.
According to the forensic psychiatric examination, the man was sane and fully understood what he was doing. Doctors later diagnosed him with homicidomania (an irresistible urge to kill, which is not considered a mental disorder). The verdict was left the same: the maniac was recognized as a sane cold-blooded killer.