Alexander Labutkin was born about 1910 and lived in Leningrad, in the Porokhovye area on the eastern edge of the city, now part of the Krasnogvardeysky district of St. Petersburg. His name is also transliterated Aleksandr Labutkin. Between August 1933 and March 1935 fifteen people died in seven separate events in the district around Rzhevka and Porokhovye. He was identified in the spring of 1935, sentenced to death that summer and executed within a day of the verdict.
The case is among the earliest Soviet serial murder cases with a dated record. It has been called the first case of its kind in Leningrad.
The first event was on August 30, 1933, when five people, three women and two men, were killed (one of the women died a few days later). On December 2, 1933, two people were killed. A further single death followed on April 11, 1934, and another on November 13, 1934; one of the two was an elderly person.
On January 11, 1935, two couples were killed in two separate events. A man died on February 17, 1935. The seventh and last event was on March 18, 1935, when a man died and the woman with him survived. The dead number fifteen, also given as at least twelve; the true number is not known.
Only the events in the Porokhovye factory area were charged; similar deaths in other districts were not investigated against him.
Labutkin, who was 25, was arrested in the spring of 1935, soon after the last event. The exact date of his arrest is not on record.
In summer 1935 Labutkin and his accomplices were heard by a special panel of NKVD, prosecution and party representatives. The exact date of the verdict is not on record. The investigation found that the deaths were committed for gain.
Labutkin was sentenced to death and was executed in 1935, the day after the verdict was announced; the exact date is not on record.
His wife was sentenced to ten years in camps and lost her parental rights. His mother-in-law and two other accomplices received long sentences, and a neighbor received five years for failing to report what he knew; the terms for accomplices and those who knew ranged from five to twenty years in labor camps. The later fates of the accomplices are not on record.
About 1910: Alexander Labutkin is born in the Leningrad region.
August 30, 1933: five people killed.
December 2, 1933: two people killed.
April 11, 1934: one person killed.
November 13, 1934: one elderly person killed.
January 11, 1935: four people killed in two separate events.
February 17, 1935: one man killed.
March 18, 1935: one man killed; the woman with him survives.
Spring 1935: Labutkin is identified and arrested in Leningrad.
Summer 1935: sentenced to death by a special panel, with accomplices; executed the next day.