Kaspars PETROVS
Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Robberies
Number of victims: 13 - 38
Date of murders: 2000 - 2003
Date of arrest: February 3, 2003
Date of birth: 1978
Victims profile: Elderly women
Method of murder: Strangulation
Location: Riga, Latvia
Status: Sentenced to life in prison on May 12, 2005
Kaspars Petrovs (born 1978) is a Latvian national who is a convicted serial killer of the murder of thirteen elderly women by the Riga Regional Court on May 12, 2005 and sentenced to life in prison.
Petrovs, the son of a prominent medical doctor, had been homeless for several years. He was initially held in connection with the murders of five women in February 2003 and would confess to killing upwards of thirty women while being held in custody.
He would later be charged with the strangulation murder and robberies of thirty-eight mostly elderly women residents of Riga, Latvia between 2000 and 2003. However, authorities would eventually only pursue charges in the deaths of thirteen of the victims due to a lack of forensic evidence.
Petrovs, who had a previous conviction for theft in 1998, maintained after his arrest and during his 2005 trial that he had not intended to kill his victims, but only to rob them. Petrovs strangled the women after following them home and forcibly entering their apartments or posing as a gas company employee and later claimed that he had only intended to render them unconscious so that he may rob them.
After his conviction, Petrovs apologized to his victims' families in court and asked for their forgiveness.
Kaspars Petrows (* 1975) is a lettischer assistant, who was arrested as of Riga 2003 in Riga.
Initially one suspected it in 5 murder cases, which were committed in Riga in the years 2002 and 2003. During the later investigation the police found out that Petrows killed more than 20 older women. All its victims were unmarried, older annuitants.
Its proceeding was the following: He observed older women on the post office or on the market, made he its acquaintance following and won their confidence, about by helping to carry their shopping bags home.
Another variant, in order to receive entrance into the dwelling, was, to spend itself than Gasmann who would have to read off the gas meter. Petrows used then the inadvertence of its victims and it with a bring along towel. Afterwards it put its victims to bed and prepared it in such a way, as if they would sleep.
Its booty was mostly little cash, canned goods and sometimes also decoration. The police numbered the value of the stolen things on approximately 35,000 US dollar.
The crimes of Petrows were only by accident discovered: When the police finger marks in one of the dwellings of a victim found, these were compared with the central file. Petrows had been already seized there because of some smaller Eigentumsdelikte. On 3 February 2003 Kaspars Petrows was arrested.
During the process following on it it became to 13. May of 2005 because of 13 these murders to a lifelong detention condemns.
Serial killer receives life sentence
The Baltic Times
May 19-25, 2005
The Riga District Court sentenced one of the most prolific serial killer in Latvian history, Kaspars Petrovs, to life in prison on May 12. Petrovs was convicted for the murder of 13 people, eight attempted murders, as well as theft and robbery.
Petrovs was originally charged with the murder of over 30 women between 2000 and 2003, but due to a lack of forensic evidence he was only convicted of 13 murders.
The assailant said he regretted the murders, and asked for the families of those killed to forgive him. Petrovs had previously blamed his upbringing and family for his killing spree, which involved the murder of mostly elderly women.
"I understood that I would not be able to earn as much as my family demanded from me. Therefore I turned to crime,¡" he reportedly said at the trial.
Petrovs added that he regretted murdering the women.
"I can not return the victims to life by words, but I wish they were still alive, that nothing had happened and that I wasn't here. I would rather be sitting on the street, subsisting on bread and water," he said. "I wanted only to rob them, not to kill them.¡"
Petrovs would strangle his victims, who were often older women that he followed home. The murderer would con his way into their houses disguised as a gas company employee. Petrovs emphasized, however, that when he left the women's apartments, they were often breathing.
Petrovs had spent the last three years living on the streets of Riga. By robbing his victims, he was able to collect an estimated 18,000 lats (26,000 euros) in goods and money. The conviction was not his first run in with the law. Petrovs was previously convicted for theft in 1998.
Serial killer begins life sentence for murdering 13 women
May 13, 2005
The most prolific serial killer in modern Latvian history was sentenced to life in prison yesterday after being convicted of murdering 13 elderly women.
Kaspars Petrovs, 27, was also convicted of robbery and inflicting serious bodily injury. Petrovs had been charged with robbing and strangling 38 women between 2000 and 2003. However, the Riga Regional Court said murder could only be proved in 13 of the cases.
During the trial, Petrovs admitted robbing the women but said he strangled them only so they would lose consciousness. Investigators said Petrovs, who had been homeless in Riga for three years, followed his victims home and entered their apartments by force or by posing as a worker with the country's state-owned natural gas company. Once inside, they said, Petrovs would kill his victims and rob them.
Petrovs apologised to victims' families in court yesterday and asked for their forgiveness. "I can not return the victims to life by words, but I wish they were still alive, that nothing had happened and I wasn't here," he was quoted as saying.
Serial killer suspect blames childhood for attacks on 30 women
May 3, 2005
A latvian man accused of murdering 30 elderly women has said his upbringing was partly to blame for the four-year killing spree.
Kaspars Petrovs, 27, is on trial in Riga Regional Court for robbing and strangling the women and attempting to murder eight others between 2000 and 2003.
He has admitted robbing the women but said he strangled them only so they would lose consciousness.
"All my life I have felt that I am different," Petrovs told the court. "I missed attention and tried to compensate for it with my pranks and mischief.
"However, (my) family considered my problems to be minor, so I sought consolation in books and created my own world of fantasy, until I could no longer discern fantasy from reality," he said.
If convicted, Petrovs would become the most prolific serial killer in Latvia's history. A verdict is expected on May 10.
Investigators said Petrovs, who had been homeless in Riga for three years, followed his victims home and entered their apartments by force or by posing as a gas worker.
Petrovs was held in February 2003 on suspicion of killing five women. He later confessed to another 25 killings.
"I understood that I would not be able to earn as much as my family demanded from me. Therefore I turned to crime," he said. "Of course, I did not enjoy doing all this – it was disgusting – but I got carried away and could not stop. I wanted only to rob them, not to kill them."
He said his victims were still alive, talking and breathing, when he left their apartments. He is also alleged to have stolen £18,000 worth of goods.
Serial killer tells all
February 25, 2005
A court in Riga continued hearing evidence Friday from suspected Latvian murderer Kaspars Petrovs, whose trial on charges of killing 38 elderly women resumed this week.
Petrovs, the 28-year-old son of a respected medical doctor, described in graphic detail how he had killed one of his victims, and told the court that, on some days, he was able to assault two elderly women in a couple of hours.
"I came in to the stairway and walked up to the third floor, where I knocked on the middle door," he told the court. He explained he had learned in his four-month killing spree, which lasted from October 2002 to January 2003, that single, elderly women often lived in the smaller, middle apartment in Latvian housing blocks.
"An old woman opened it. I presented myself as a gas company official and went into the kitchen.
"I washed my hands, took the towel and went into the other room, where the woman was, and strangled the woman with the towel. Then I put her on the sofa, checked the closet and found the money: approximately 60 lats," Petrovs said, recalling his crime in minute detail.
"I looked at the woman and saw the blood running from her nose. I went back to the kitchen, took the other two towels and cleaned the blood. I put those towels in the bag, closed the room and threw away the bag with the towels and a key.
"Afterwards I felt terrible and started to vomit," he said.
"But then I went to the next stairway and knocked again on the middle door."
That door, too, was opened by an elderly woman, but she was one of eight who survived Petrovs's frenzied attack.
Petrovs said his second intended victim of the day began to scream when he tried to strangle her, so he "chickened out and ran away".
Petrovs, 28, was arrested on February 3, 2003 and initially charged with the murders of five women in Riga, all pensioners and all strangled to death in the space of four months.
His case went before Riga regional court last year, with an original indictment listing 30 killings, increased to 38 in November.
Court psychiatrists have deemed him sane and able to stand trial.
Petrovs has confessed to all the killings, and fully cooperated with the court investigators, his lawyer Antons Drebnieks said.
His trial began on February 9, but had to start over this week after a court assessor fell ill.
Next week, the court will hear evidence from some of the women who survived Petrovs's attacks, apparently carried out with a view to robbing the victims.
Serial killer Kaspars Petrovs on trial in Latvia
February 9, 2005
Kaspars Petrovs - a most odious serial killer ever known in Latvia, has been put on trial at the Riga district court on Wednesday.
The 29- year-old killer has confessed to the murder of 38 women of retirement age. Criminal charges against the killer were brought on 30 cases investigated, while the actual number of his victims is unknown.
All the women were killed for purposes of gain. The killer got acquainted with his future victims, pretending it was a casual encounter, and shadowed his victims home to find out where they lived if the women he met looked well-to-do.
