Almost everyone is already at large: the case of the Yaroslavl Satanists ten years after the verdict

Four dismembered and mutilated corpses, the remains of a cat, an inverted crucifix - these terrible finds were discovered by police in the Krasnoperekopsky district of Yaroslavl in 2008. Prosecutors called the case "unprecedented in its cruelty and inhumanity." RT found out what happened to the persons involved in this high-profile case.

The beginning of the sect

In 2006, a resident of Yaroslavl, Konstantin Baranov, who at that time was 15 years old, decided to organize his own sect, where he invited his friend Alexei Chistyakov. The teenagers found the corresponding "spells" on the Internet, and as a dedication they decided to kill a cat or a dog and wash the neophytes with the blood of an animal. The association, which was positioned as satanic, was first called "Antichrist", but later renamed "Word Bearers".

In mid-2007, 17-year-old Nikolai Ogolobiak, also from Yaroslavl, joined Baranov (he took the pseudonym Fang and was the head of the sect) and Chistyakov (he called himself Dead and became his deputy). At the initiation, he chose the pseudonym Graf.

Before getting into that company, Nikolai Ogolobiak was actively involved in skiing and speed skating, he did not attribute himself to any subcultures, his mother Natalya told RT. Moreover, the teenager served in the Peter and Paul Church, she says: "He repaired something, did something, and volunteered himself."

However, after his initiation, it was Ogolobyak who found a place for further rituals - a clearing in the forest in the Krasnoperekopsky district, not far from his home. The teenagers installed an inverted cross there. In addition, according to the materials of the case, Ogolobiak knocked down and damaged at least a dozen gravestones and crosses at the Leontief cemetery, "believing that thereby expresses a positive attitude towards the devil."

During the year, three more of their peers - residents of neighboring Rybinsk - joined the sect: Anton Makovkin, who called himself Doctor Goth, Sergei Karpenko, who took the pseudonym Distris, and then Alexander Voronov, who received the nickname Hitler. He became the last member of the community to be "dedicated" with animal blood.

Four murders

In the summer of 2008, Yaroslavl Satanists decided to accept new members. On the evening of June 28, all the members of the new sect gathered at home near Ogolobyak on the Tekstili Settlement Street. A friend, Ksenia Kovaleva, came to them and wanted to join the sect. On the same evening, 15-year-old Olya Pukhova and 16-year-old Anya Mikhailova came to Ogolobiak. The owner of the house and the head of the "organization" convinced the others that the girls would be ideal victims for the ceremony. Those who hesitated were threatened with expulsion from the fraternity.

The girls were drunk and taken to a clearing with a cross. At a sign from Baranov, the Count stabbed Anya Gorokhova with a knife, and then decapitated the body with a machete knife given by Chistyakov. Doctor Goth, with the help of Alexander Voronov, stabbed and beheaded Olya Pukhova. Later, the examination counted more than fifty stab and chopped wounds on Anya's remains, and about a hundred on Olya's body.

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The teenagers didn't stop there. They cut out some parts of the body, fried them at the stake and ate them, dismembered the bodies, burned the clothes and shoes of the murdered sectarians, and took the girls' money and equipment for themselves. Before burying the remains in the same clearing, the teenagers were photographed with the heads of their victims, and with the blood of one of the girls, Ksenia Kovaleva, who watched the massacre together with Sergei Karpenko, was “dedicated” to the brotherhood.

The guys told about the incident to another potential member of the sect - Andrei Solovyov, who arrived from Rybinsk the next day, June 29. For a new "dedication" they again chose Ogolobiak's acquaintances - a young couple, 16-year-old Andrei Sorokin and Varya Kuzmina.

This time one of the victims, Varvara, got worried and hurried home, away from the unfamiliar company. Kuzmina even managed to call her friend to share her fears, but Ksenia Kovaleva, who already knew what was waiting for the lovers, persuaded her to stay.

To lure the victims, Kovaleva gave Varya a drink. Her boyfriend until the very end did not suspect anything and voluntarily went with everyone to the clearing. Andrei Sorokin was the only one who managed to offer at least some resistance. The wounded guy knocked the knife out of Ogolobiak's hand, but he called for help Solovyov, Chistyakov, Voronov and Baranov. The five of them beat Andrey with knives and metal knitting needles, leaving more than 300 wounds on the body, and beheaded the body. 

Makovkin dealt with Varya with the help of Kovaleva. More than a hundred wounds were found on her body, and Doctor Goth also cut off the girl's head. Like the day before, the teenagers dismembered both corpses, buried the remains in a clearing, burned their clothes and shoes, and took the phones and money for themselves.

"Provincial Satanism"

The dead were not immediately missed - the police received statements about the disappearance of three girls and one guy only in early July. A criminal case was opened at the end of the month. The criminals were quickly identified, however, as the local media wrote, at first they denied that they knew each other at all.

As the investigation established, the organizer of the three murders was Baranov, he “united and disciplined the members of the clan, chose the time and place for rituals, planned and directed the commission of crimes - approved the proposed candidates for the victims and perpetrators of murders, distributed the roles of other members of the clan, discussed the moment of the attack and seated victims near the performers. " The initiative that came from Ogolobyak to sacrifice not animals, but people only directed Baranov's intent to commit crimes, the case file notes.

The teenagers were accused of committing four murders with special cruelty by prior conspiracy, desecration of the bodies of the dead, vandalism in cemeteries and a number of other, less serious articles like theft of mobile phones. The relatives of the killed for more than six months could not get the bodies for burial - it was generally difficult to determine the ownership of some parts, recalls the state prosecutor in the case, Elena Smirnova.

The primary reason for the killings, according to the prosecutor, was "the desire of young people to show their own worth and make an impression, and not some inner convictions."

Law enforcement officials said the killings were ritualistic, but experts doubted that it was the sectarians who committed it. “For example, according to the convictions of Satanists, the body, as a vessel of the human soul, should be subjected to minimal physical stress when killed, while the bodies of those killed were dismembered,” Elena Smirnova told RT. - Perhaps, one should agree with the experts' assessments: it is rather an illiterate, home-grown, provincial Satanism.

The investigation lasted two years, and at the time of the beginning of the trials in the "case of Satanists" there were 36 volumes. During the investigation and consideration of the case, thousands of documents were examined, the most complex, unprecedented at that time expert examinations were carried out. Every day, 12 witnesses were interrogated, Elena Smirnova recalls.

The court hearings were held in a record time for a crime of this magnitude - in just a few months all the members of the Word Bearers were convicted. The accused were brought to the announcement of the verdict under guard, fearing lynching by the relatives of those killed.

Dr. Goth in the hospital

The verdict of the Yaroslavl Regional Court turned out to be too lenient, the parents of the victims and the prosecution are convinced. Many of the defendants were under 18 at the time of the crimes.

“The law says: if you are a minor, then the punishment, regardless of the number of crimes committed, the actual circumstances, from inhumanity, if you like, cannot exceed ten years,” another state prosecutor in the case, Tatyana Rachinskaya, commented on the verdict after the meeting. "But what they've done doesn't fit into normal human thinking."

None of the eight repented of anything - neither during the investigation, nor in court. The most incomprehensible thing during the hearings, according to Prosecutor Smirnova, was the attitude of the accused to what they had done: “The process was attended by grief-stricken parents. It is impossible to describe their faces when the materials of the case of hundreds of wounds inflicted on their children were read. And at the same time, in the dock, guys a little older than their murdered children are talking about some rituals, initiations. Each tried to whitewash himself, saying that it was the other who committed most of the criminal acts, and he himself seemed to have nothing to do with it. At the same time, the energy of a close-knit group was felt quite clearly then. "

Makovkin underwent a psychiatric examination, experts diagnosed him with schizophrenia. He was declared insane at the time of the crimes. At the trial, he behaved defiantly, unbuttoned his shirt, loudly declared that he did not repent of what he had done.

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However, State Prosecutor Smirnova remained firmly convinced that Dr. Goth was fully aware of his own actions: “He gave the impression of an absolutely adequate,“ thoughtful ”person who understands not only the meaning, but also the consequences of his actions. Perhaps Makovkin was the most enthusiastic member of the group, consistently recruiting his acquaintances to raise his status, tirelessly participating in causing bodily harm, even when others were tired. "

Dr. Goth underwent treatment at a psychiatric hospital in the Kostroma region, from where he left in 2011.

Nikolai Ogolobiak received 20 years in prison. Now 30-year-old Graf is serving a sentence in a strict regime colony near Syktyvkar. He will be able to apply for parole only in a few years - he has not yet passed the prescribed two-thirds of the term.

The Count left his parents and younger brother Pavel at large. Mom remarried, with a man who was sitting with Nikolai. She visits her son once a year: she says that it is not possible to travel more often. According to his mother, in the colony, Nikolai managed to read all the books from the local library, but because of the onset of vision problems, he cannot work in production, only in ancillary work.

“I still don't know if everything that happened is true or not. Kolya and I do not discuss this topic. Personally, I believe that he could not do anything of this, ”Natalya shared with RT.

Ksenia Kovaleva was found guilty of complicity in the murder of Varya Kuzmina. The court sent her to a colony for eight years, after an appeal, the term was reduced to six years. But she left the colony less than a year later: the girl was diagnosed with a cancer of the blood, and almost immediately after her release she died.

"My daughter cannot be returned"

The leader of the Yaroslavl Satanists Konstantin Baranov has already been released, since then his traces have been lost. His deputy, Alexei Chistyakov, who was sentenced to nine years in a general regime colony, told RT that he had "had enough of the public."

According to social networks, he still lives in Yaroslavl and keeps in touch with Alexey Solovyov, nicknamed Dark. Both continue to post pictures with gothic attributes.

Solovyov, the last of the "initiates" in the Yaroslavl sect, was found guilty of the murder of Andrei Sorokin and theft. He received nine years in prison, of which he served seven and was released on parole from Yaroslavl IK-1 in August 2017. According to his social media page, Dark moved to St. Petersburg.

Konstantin Voronov was found guilty of the murder of Olga Pukhova and Andrei Sorokin, as well as of abuse of the bodies of the dead. He received the maximum possible 10 years in prison for minors. Judging by social networks, Voronov left the colony and returned to normal life in his native Rybinsk.

Another person involved in the "case of the Yaroslavl Satanists" is Sergey Karpenko. The experts failed to prove the direct involvement of the young man in any of the murders, but he saw all the crimes and helped to get rid of the corpses and evidence. He was accused of stealing telephones from those killed, desecrating bodies and concealing crimes. Of all the participants, he received the mildest punishment - five years in a penal colony. After his release, Karpenko returned to his native Rybinsk, at one time he worked in a workshop for the restoration of antiques.

The parents of all the victims have appealed the verdict. "All of them, as well as the prosecution, believed that the court imposed too lenient punishment on the convicts and unreasonably released Makovkin from responsibility by applying compulsory medical measures to him," says Elena Smirnova.

The relatives of those killed know that almost all the murderers of their children have already served their sentences. “I see no reason to say something. My daughter cannot be returned, and these scum are already at large. And nothing can be fixed, "Elena Taratina, mother of the murdered Anya Gorokhova, told RT.