Oleg Rylkov is a Russian prisoner convicted at three separate trials of killings committed in Tolyatti, a city on the Volga in the Samara Region, in the 1990s. A court sentenced him to death in 1998. Russia's moratorium on executions meant the sentence was never carried out, and it became life imprisonment. He has been held since then in the Black Dolphin special-regime colony in the Orenburg Region.
His case did not close with the first verdict. In 2019 he gave investigators written confessions to killings that police had suspected him of but had not been able to prove. A Tolyatti court convicted him of two more murders in 2020, and a further trial in 2022 added another term for the murders of five women and a girl. Each of the added terms was absorbed into the life sentence, so the later trials changed the record of what he was found to have done but not the length of his imprisonment.
Oleg Rylkov was born in December 1966, according to Lenta.ru. A profile in Moskovsky Komsomolets in December 2025 also gives 1966 as his birth year. E1.ru, in a 2023 article, says he was called up for army service at 19, then moved to Tolyatti, worked at the AvtoVAZ car plant, married and had a daughter.
The investigators quoted in the Moskovsky Komsomolets profile divide his offending into periods. From 1990 to 1991, they said, he committed a run of thefts from apartments that they later treated as a preparatory stage. The years from 1992 to 1995 were a period in which witness reports were scattered and the police did not connect them. The later killings, they said, took place between 1992 and 1997 in Tolyatti and in the village of Borskoye.
Lenta.ru reported in 2019 that the crimes of which he had been convicted at the first trial were committed in Tolyatti between 1992 and 1995, with victims who included children. News.ru, reporting the same year, gave the total as 64 crimes. Investigators were reported to have proven four murders at that trial, two of them of children.
The first killing the investigators attribute to him dates from August 1993. The Moskovsky Komsomolets profile places a second killing, of a woman, in January 1994, at first treated as a domestic matter and later added to the series. In August 1994 a minor girl was killed in Tolyatti; her case was one of those he confessed to years later and was convicted of in 2020. The profile says that in 1996 a girl from a neighboring family was killed.
The profile describes the police response in terms of missed chances. Soon after the events of early 1996 he was stopped for lacking documents and released once he had been identified. Later in 1996 a patrol detained him for trying to pass a counterfeit banknote. He gave another man's name and was released on a written undertaking not to leave the area; the false identity was discovered afterward. The profile attributes this to poor coordination between police units.
In 1997 the investigators drew the cases together. E1.ru reports that he was caught in 1997, after another murder. The Moskovsky Komsomolets profile says the arrest took place in Tolyatti but gives no exact date.
After his arrest he made first confessions, according to the Moskovsky Komsomolets profile. A forensic psychiatric examination was reported to have found him sane. At his first questioning he was said to have confessed to a small number of murders along with many other crimes, and the list of episodes grew as the inquiry went on. No single count for the stage before the trial is on record, and the figures vary.
The trial in 1998 lasted about two months, with witnesses, experts and relatives of the victims giving evidence, the Moskovsky Komsomolets profile says. It reports two moments when he lost his composure: when his daughter was mentioned, and during the evidence of his mother, who publicly disowned him.
News.ru and Lenta.ru both give the date of the sentence as July 15, 1998, and say that he was sentenced to death for 64 crimes. The court is not on record. Because of the moratorium on executions the death sentence was not carried out. The Moskovsky Komsomolets profile writes that the sentence was "death, replaced by life imprisonment," and E1.ru says the same. A short Life.ru item from 2026 says only that a court sentenced him to life imprisonment in 1998.
After the verdict he was moved to the Black Dolphin colony in the Orenburg Region. The Moskovsky Komsomolets profile says he began, about a year into his imprisonment, to talk about further crimes, and that in 2012 he gave new accounts of events in the 1990s, some of which were confirmed and some not.
In 2019 Lenta.ru reported that he had filed a petition for release because of a serious illness. A court received it in June 2019. Hearings were held, a new lawyer was assigned to him at the hearing on July 10, and the session was adjourned. The case file included a medical report confirming a diagnosis; the illness is not on record. Lenta.ru wrote that a medical diagnosis on the official list of illnesses that prevent a person from serving a sentence is a ground for release on humanitarian grounds. In a report on the 2020 verdict, Lenta.ru recorded that a court had rejected a release motion filed in late 2019. Life.ru wrote in 2026 that he had repeatedly sought release on health grounds and that courts had refused each request.
In spring 2019 he wrote confessions to two killings that investigators had long linked to him without being able to prove it. The Investigative Committee of Russia described them in its announcement that the inquiry was complete. In August 1994, in Tolyatti, a girl he did not know was killed; in 1997, in Borsky District of the Samara Region, a young girl was killed. Investigators questioned possible witnesses and representatives of the victims and obtained expert findings. Psychological and psychiatric examinations found that he had been sane when the crimes were committed.
News.ru reported that the later victim was eight years old, and placed the second killing in April 1997. Lenta.ru in June 2020 gave the month as June 1997 and the age of the first girl as 16. The two outlets differ on the month and on the girl's age. The Investigative Committee said the indictment was sent to court on November 26, 2019. The charge was murder of two persons, one of them a minor, under Article 105, Part 2 of the Criminal Code, with other charges.
An investigator, Evgeny Siksaev, was quoted by news.ru as saying that the prisoner told him he had repented before God and now wanted to tell people everything. Investigators said he spoke of the crimes readily. News.ru wrote that while serving his sentence he had confessed to seven more crimes, and Lenta.ru wrote in July 2019 that his most recent earlier confession was in September 2018.
In June 2020 the Avtozavodsky District Court in Tolyatti convicted him of the two killings and added 19 years. Lenta.ru reported on June 10, 2020, citing a spokeswoman for the Samara investigators, that the total sentence including the earlier verdicts remained life imprisonment, to be served in the Black Dolphin colony. The Moskovsky Komsomolets profile also says the 19 years were absorbed into the life term.
A third prosecution followed. On June 2, 2022, 360.ru reported that he was appearing in court in a new case, charged with the murders of five women and a 15-year-old girl in the Central district of Tolyatti between August 1993 and November 1994. The agency wrote that he was then serving life imprisonment in a penal colony in the Orenburg Region. Life.ru later reported that in 2022 another ten years were added for the murders of five women and one girl, and that the life term stayed in place. The court for that verdict is not on record.
With these verdicts the total of murders proven against him is reported as 12 by E1.ru, Moskovsky Komsomolets and news.ru. That count matches the sum of the four murders at the 1998 trial, two in 2020 and six in 2022. Life.ru and news.ru also write that he is linked to more than ten murders.
In 2026 he went to court twice from prison. News.ru reported on April 7, 2026 that he had sued the Ministry of Finance for 300,000 rubles in compensation for what he called unlawful criminal prosecution in one episode of his case. He took part in the hearing by video link from the colony. A Samara court rejected the claim in late March 2026 on the ground that there was no basis for compensation to a person convicted of especially grave crimes. Which episode he disputed is not on record.
A second claim concerned personal belongings taken from him during a transfer between detention facilities about six years earlier. Life.ru reported on June 4, 2026 that he had sought one million rubles and the return of the items, and that the court dismissed the claim because the filing deadline had passed. The prison service argued that the items had been taken lawfully and destroyed after he did not collect them.
The date of the 1998 sentence is given as July 15 by Lenta.ru and news.ru; other outlets give only the year. The court that tried him in 1998 and the court that tried him in 2022 are not on record. Counts vary: 64 crimes at the first trial in some reports, 12 murders in total in others, and more than 30 victims in a third, a figure Life.ru said could be too low. The death sentence is described as replaced by life imprisonment because of the moratorium; no separate court decision doing so is on record.
December 1966: Born, according to Lenta.ru.
1990 to 1991: Thefts from apartments, according to investigators.
1992 to 1995: Offenses in Tolyatti, later tried in 1998.
August 1993: First killing attributed to him by investigators.
August 1994: Killing of a girl in Tolyatti, later confessed and tried in 2020.
1996: Stopped twice by police and released; a girl from a neighboring family killed.
1997: Arrested in Tolyatti; a girl killed in Borsky District, later confessed.
1998: Tried; sentenced to death, replaced by life imprisonment under the moratorium. July 15 is given by two outlets.
Spring 2019: Writes confessions to two unsolved killings.
June 2019: Files a release petition on health grounds; later rejected.
November 26, 2019: Indictment for the two killings sent to court.
June 2020: Avtozavodsky District Court, Tolyatti, adds 19 years.
June 2022: Trial begins over five women and a girl; 10 years added in 2022.
Late March 2026: A Samara court rejects his claim for 300,000 rubles.
June 4, 2026: Reported held in the Black Dolphin colony, Orenburg Region.