Irina Gaidamachuk was convicted in June 2012 of killing 17 elderly women in Russia's Sverdlovsk Oblast over eight years. The Sverdlovsk Regional Court found that between 2002 and 2010 she had gone to the homes of women who lived alone, presented herself as a social worker, and killed them with a hammer once inside, then searched the rooms for money. According to the Investigative Committee of Russia, the women were aged 60 to 90 and lived in Krasnoufimsk, Serov, Yekaterinburg and the settlement of Achit.
For most of those years the police did not suspect a woman at all, and when they did look for one, they had nothing on file to find. She had no passport, no registered address and no official job. In 2008 police officers in Nizhny Tagil forced another woman to confess to the killings, and three of them were later imprisoned for it. Gaidamachuk was identified only in May 2010, after an elderly woman she had once done repair work for was found dead in Krasnoufimsk. She confessed, then withdrew her confession at the start of her trial. She was sentenced to 20 years, which under Russian law was close to the heaviest punishment available, because a woman cannot be sentenced to life.
Gaidamachuk was born in 1972 in Karpinsk, in Sverdlovsk Oblast. Lenta.ru, in a long feature published in 2020, gives her date of birth as September 26, 1972. The online outlet 360, in a 2025 feature, says she was born in the spring of that year and that her maiden name was Mashkina. Both say the family moved to Nyagan, in the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug, where she spent her childhood.
After school she enrolled at a university. Lenta.ru says she studied law, or psychology by other accounts; 360 says she took a correspondence course. She became pregnant, married, and had a daughter, and she left her studies. According to 360, her first husband was a driver 23 years older than she was, and she took his surname.
Both features describe heavy drinking in those years. Lenta.ru says she went on binges and that her husband eventually put her out of the house with the child. 360 says she went back to her parents, that her mother asked for her to be stripped of her parental rights and for the girl to go to an orphanage, and that she did not change her ways. Lenta.ru says she placed the six-year-old in an orphanage herself.
In the late 1990s she moved to Krasnoufimsk, in Sverdlovsk Oblast, with a new partner, a railway worker. Lenta.ru describes him as a driver at a bank. They had a daughter. Lenta.ru says she moved without finalizing her divorce, and 360 says the partner was told that the girl in the orphanage was the child of a friend.
At first, by the accounts of neighbors and acquaintances, she seemed a settled wife and mother. Lenta.ru and 360 both say she sat on the parents' committee of her younger daughter's school class. Both also say that when the girl was in about the fourth grade, she spent money the parents had collected for a class celebration on drink. After a serious quarrel, her partner stopped giving her money. Lenta.ru says she borrowed money from neighbors under false pretexts to pay for drink, until they stopped lending to her. Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported in 2010 that she often left home for days and traveled to Karpinsk and Serov.
Her papers were a further problem. According to 360, she had left her passport with a pawnbroker in Nyagan as security for a loan, and so she lived in Krasnoufimsk without a residence registration, a pension certificate or any official employment. She earned money off the books as a house painter and plasterer, charging prices pensioners could afford, according to 360 and Lenta.ru. The Investigative Committee later said that this absence of documents, registration and work was the main reason she stayed outside the investigation's view for about eight years.
According to Vesti.ru and E1.ru, which reported the investigators' findings on the day of the verdict, the first attack was in the summer of 2002 in Krasnoufimsk. Both 360 and Lenta.ru describe it as unplanned. She had been hired to paint a pensioner's flat, and when the owner came in and found her searching for money, she attacked and killed her.
After that, investigators said, she went looking for her victims. The Investigative Committee said she chose elderly women who lived alone and learned about them from their neighbors. At the door she presented herself as a worker from the social services; Lenta.ru and 360 add that she sometimes said she was from the housing office or the fire inspectorate. Once inside, she offered to help with the housework, according to IANS.
When a woman she had chosen was not at home, she left a note with the neighbors asking her to be in at a particular time. The Investigative Committee said handwriting examinations of those notes helped to prove her guilt.
The sums she took were small. Vesti.ru reported that over eight years her total gain came to about 40,000 rubles; Lenta.ru puts it at about 50,000. EANews, citing the investigators in 2011 and 2012, gave single takings from 1,000 to 16,000 rubles; 360 gives 500 to 16,000. When a victim had no money, Vesti.ru reported, she took food. Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that some killings brought her only 2,000 or 3,000 rubles.
After a killing, according to Vesti.ru, she locked the door of the flat behind her so that neighbors would not find the victim quickly. In three cases, EANews reported, she tried to start a fire to cover what she had done, by leaving an iron switched on or opening the gas, but neighbors stepped in and no fire broke out. She changed her appearance between attacks, according to 360, and she moved her attacks to other towns once the police in Krasnoufimsk began looking for a woman.
The victims were women of pension age who lived alone. Investigators gave different age ranges at different times: 60 to 89 (Pravo.ru), 61 to 89 (EANews and IANS) and 60 to 90 (the Investigative Committee). They lived in Krasnoufimsk, where most of the killings took place, and in Serov, Yekaterinburg and Achit. 360 adds the village of Druzhinino. Lenta.ru also names Shirokaya Rechka and Nizhny Tagil.
The reports on her case give few of the women's names. Lenta.ru describes the last of them as 81 years old; Rossiyskaya Gazeta described her as an 80-year-old woman of Krasnoufimsk. Lenta.ru reports that one of the women killed, in Nizhny Tagil in February 2008, was the mother of a deputy head of the local police department.
Lenta.ru reports that 21 relatives of the dead women were recognized as victims in the case; EANews, citing the investigators, said 21 victims were questioned.
In February 2003, according to EANews, she attacked an elderly woman in Krasnoufimsk but took nothing, because a neighbor heard the woman's cries and came, and she ran. Lenta.ru says the police circulated a composite sketch based on her description, and Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that the sketch was posted throughout Krasnoufimsk. Lenta.ru says the woman described a blonde in a fur coat, and that this was the only attack that failed.
The sketch gave the police a description of a woman, but little else. Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that neighbors later remarked on how closely Gaidamachuk resembled the sketch, with a broad face, high cheekbones and straight light brown hair to her shoulders. It also reported that the police had detained her at least once because of the resemblance, taken her fingerprints and let her go for lack of direct evidence.
In the spring of 2008, police officers in Nizhny Tagil took up a different suspect: a woman from the town of Verkhnyaya Tura. According to the Investigative Committee, she wrote a confession to the killings, but checks did not confirm that she was involved. Vesti.ru reported that she could not describe the crimes accurately and later said the Nizhny Tagil police had forced her to confess. According to the Investigative Committee, as reported by Vesti.ru, the officers had beaten and threatened her and kept her without food for four days. Lenta.ru says that after another killing in Serov she withdrew her confession.
In the summer of 2011 three officers were sentenced for abuse of office and official forgery, Vesti.ru reported: a deputy head of a criminal investigation unit, a head of a unit at the city police directorate, and a head of a department at the regional directorate. The terms ranged from three years to four and a half, with one suspended. The Investigative Committee and Pravo.ru, in their verdict-day reports, gave the officers' terms as three to four and a half years.
The investigation was one of the largest in the region. According to the Investigative Committee, investigators questioned more than 3,000 witnesses and ordered more than 2,000 forensic examinations. Vesti.ru reported that they took fingerprints and handwriting samples from several thousand women. Rossiyskaya Gazeta said the killings followed a pattern that could be recognized, but that survivors could not describe the attacker well enough, and the sketch did not help.
Vesti.ru later reported that investigators had called the unknown attacker the "Krasnoufimsk maniac". Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that the press nicknamed her the "Ural Raskolnikova", after the student who kills an old pawnbroker in Dostoevsky's novel Crime and Punishment; 360 uses the variant "Raskolnikov in a skirt".
The last killing was in Krasnoufimsk in May 2010. The victim, according to 360, was a woman Gaidamachuk had helped with repairs about ten years earlier, a break from her habit of avoiding people who knew her. A friend of the dead woman recalled that she had once hired a woman named Irina to whitewash her flat.
Investigators then traced her address. Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that she was detained in late May 2010 and that this time investigators had physical evidence and witness testimony. Vesti.ru and IANS gave the month of her detention as June 2010. Lenta.ru says the police brought her in on the pretext of taking fingerprints and that her prints matched those on the hammer, and that DNA evidence also linked her to a victim. 360 says the hammer was found during a search of her home. According to 360, fingerprints, DNA and handwriting samples all confirmed her identity.
At the time of her arrest she was no longer living with her partner and daughter. Lenta.ru says that in February 2010 she had left home, saying she was going to repay a debt, and moved in with another man. 360 says the new partner knew nothing of her crimes.
According to Rossiyskaya Gazeta, she confessed within a couple of days of her arrest. 360, quoting a book on the Investigative Committee's cases, says that at her first interrogation she admitted only part of what she had done, and that after a polygraph test she could no longer deny any of the 18 attacks under investigation. She then described the killings in detail, including facts only the killer could have known. Vesti.ru broadcast operational footage of her at one of the crime scenes and reported that she remembered even the arrangement of the furniture in the kitchen. Lenta.ru says she took part in reconstructions at the scenes. Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that during one reconstruction in Krasnoufimsk the whole local police force stood guard around her.
Her explanation was money. Lenta.ru says she told investigators she killed because her husband would not give her money for vodka. According to the Investigative Committee, she said money was her only motive, and that she chose pensioners because she believed they kept savings at home for their funerals. Lenta.ru also reports a theory that she hated old people, which it links to a conflict with her mother-in-law.
The Investigative Committee said that during the preliminary investigation she admitted her guilt in full and expressed remorse. 360 reports that investigators were struck by what they saw as her complete lack of empathy and her concern only for herself.
Two reports about her pregnancy differ. Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported in November 2010 that she had committed the last killing while pregnant. Lenta.ru says that she later claimed to be pregnant but that a medical examination did not confirm it.
In November 2010 Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported that she was to be sent to Moscow for examination at the Serbsky State Scientific Center for Social and Forensic Psychiatry and quoted Alexander Shulga of the regional Investigative Committee. Lenta.ru and 360 say the experts found some psychiatric abnormalities but judged her legally sane. IANS reported that psychiatric experts found her sane.
Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported on November 3, 2010, that she had been charged with the murders of 17 elderly women and had confessed to all the crimes committed from 2002 to 2010, according to the regional Investigative Committee's press service. At that time she was held in a pretrial detention center.
On January 17, 2012, EANews reported that the investigation by the department for especially important cases of the Investigative Committee in Sverdlovsk Oblast was complete and that the case had gone to the regional prosecutor's office for approval of the indictment. The charges were 17 counts of murder combined with robbery; one count of robbery causing harm of medium severity, for the attack in February 2003; and an attempt to destroy another person's property by arson. The file ran to 436 volumes, not counting the indictment. Later reports gave 443 volumes (Vesti.ru, E1.ru and Lenta.ru); 360 gives more than 500. The investigation had taken five years, according to EANews.
The case was heard by the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in Yekaterinburg. According to Vesti.ru, at the very first hearing she withdrew the statements she had made to investigators, despite her earlier cooperation. Lenta.ru reports that she behaved arrogantly in court and refused to give journalists her address, saying they had harassed her family. Her relatives said she had often been away from home and gave her no alibi.
Before the verdict, E1.ru reported that she faced up to 25 years in prison and that the Criminal Code does not provide for life imprisonment for women. The prosecutor asked for 20 years, citing her admission of guilt and other circumstances of the case, according to the Parliamentary Gazette. Lenta.ru says her lawyer argued for leniency and called 20 years excessive, which the victims' relatives strongly opposed. 360 says her active help to the investigation and her full admission of guilt were taken into account as mitigating factors.
On the morning of June 4, 2012, the Sverdlovsk Regional Court found her guilty of all 17 murders, Vesti.ru reported. The Investigative Committee said the court had found her guilty of a series of robberies and of the murders of 17 elderly women. She was 41, according to Vesti.ru; IANS gave her age as 40 and described her as a mother of two.
She was sentenced to 20 years in a general regime colony and two years of restricted freedom (Vesti.ru). IANS and Lenta.ru reported that she was also ordered to pay 30,000 rubles in court costs. Lenta.ru says she did not appeal.
Russian criminal law does not allow a life sentence for a woman. Article 57 of the Criminal Code, as summarized in a 2008 ruling of the Constitutional Court, excludes women, people who committed their crimes before the age of 18, and men aged 65 or over at sentencing. 360 described 20 years as the maximum available in her case.
The sentence caused public anger. Valery Ryazansky, chairman of the Federation Council's committee on social policy, told the Parliamentary Gazette the day after the verdict that the punishment was out of proportion to the crime and that the news had caused outrage among older people. He said the court's sentence had to be accepted as lawful, reluctantly, and that legislators might have to come back to the question of how the law treats especially grave crimes committed by women. He also said her years of drinking and of living without documents pointed to failures in the social services and in law enforcement.
Lenta.ru reports that the district police officer responsible for her area of Krasnoufimsk was dismissed soon after the verdict.
In 2025, 360 published an account of the case drawing on a book titled Secrets of the Investigative Committee with Vladimir Markin. Lenta.ru included her in a 2020 series on Soviet and Russian serial killers.
Reports differ on several points.
The dates of the series: the Investigative Committee and Vesti.ru date the first attack to 2002; IANS gives 2003.
The places: the Investigative Committee, Pravo.ru and EANews list Krasnoufimsk, Serov, Yekaterinburg and Achit. Rossiyskaya Gazeta (2010) listed Krasnoufimsk, Serov, Karpinsk and Achit. 360 adds Druzhinino, and Lenta.ru adds a killing in Nizhny Tagil in 2008.
The number of attacks: she was convicted of 17 murders. 360, quoting a book on the case, counts 18 attacks under investigation.
Her age and date of birth: Lenta.ru gives September 26, 1972; 360 gives the spring of 1972. Rossiyskaya Gazeta gave her age as 39 in November 2010, IANS as 40 at sentencing, and Vesti.ru as 41 at the verdict.
The last victim's age: 81 (Lenta.ru) or 80 (Rossiyskaya Gazeta).
The money: about 40,000 rubles in all (Vesti.ru) or about 50,000 (Lenta.ru).
The regime: the Parliamentary Gazette's headline spoke of a strict regime colony, but the senator it quoted, the Investigative Committee, Pravo.ru and Vesti.ru all give a general regime colony.
1972: Born in Karpinsk, Sverdlovsk Oblast; grows up in Nyagan.
Late 1990s: Moves to Krasnoufimsk with a new partner; a second daughter is born there.
Summer 2002: First attack, on a pensioner in Krasnoufimsk, according to investigators.
February 2003: An elderly woman in Krasnoufimsk survives an attack; a composite sketch is made.
February 2008: A woman is killed in Nizhny Tagil, according to Lenta.ru.
Spring 2008: Police in Nizhny Tagil force a woman from Verkhnyaya Tura to confess to the killings.
February 2010: She leaves her family home, according to Lenta.ru.
May 2010: Last killing, in Krasnoufimsk; investigators identify her through the victim's acquaintances.
Late May or June 2010: Detained in Krasnoufimsk; confesses.
November 3, 2010: Rossiyskaya Gazeta reports she has been charged with 17 murders; a psychiatric examination at the Serbsky Center is planned.
Summer 2011: Three Nizhny Tagil police officers are sentenced over the forced confession.
January 17, 2012: The investigation is complete and the case goes to the regional prosecutor's office.
2012: At the first court hearing she withdraws her confession.
June 4, 2012: The Sverdlovsk Regional Court convicts her of 17 murders and a series of robberies; 20 years in a general regime colony.
June 5, 2012: Senator Valery Ryazansky calls the sentence out of proportion to the crime.