Vladimir Mirgorod is serving two life sentences in Russia for murders committed in Moscow and the surrounding region in the early 2000s. In January 2012 the Moscow City Court convicted him of killing 15 women and a teenage boy between 2002 and 2004. Thirteen years later, after DNA testing linked him to older cases, a Moscow district court convicted him of the murders of 15 more women and a man, and of an attempted murder, and imposed a second life term. The Moscow City Court upheld that verdict in December 2025.
For most of the years in which the murders went unsolved, he was in prison for another crime. He had been sentenced in January 2005 for robbery, with other charges, and was released in 2010. When he registered with the police as a newly released prisoner, his fingerprints were entered into a computer database, and they matched prints from the scenes of several murders of 2003.
Little was reported about his background before his arrest. Moskvich Mag, which published a long account of the case in June 2024, said that his father was a builder and his mother an accountant, and that he described his upbringing as an ordinary one. He was an average pupil with no particular interests, the magazine wrote. After failing university entrance exams once, he did his military service and then enrolled at МИСиС, the Moscow steel and alloys institute, where he dropped out in his second year.
He worked for a computer firm run by a school friend and then at a series of jobs, mostly as a freight forwarder, and he drove a private taxi. He had a partner and a child, Moskvich Mag reported, but did not marry.
Moskovsky Komsomolets reported in October 2010 that his father had served a 15-year sentence for murder and had died a couple of months before his son's release in 2010. On leaving prison, the paper said, he had no family or job of his own and moved into his late father's apartment in the north of Moscow.
The 2012 verdict covered crimes committed in Moscow and the Moscow region between April 2002 and May 2004, according to the Prosecutor General's Office as reported by Pravo.ru. The victims were 15 women and a teenager. All were killed by compression of the neck. The court found that the murders were committed to conceal other crimes.
The Moscow Times reported the sentence in February 2012 on the basis of the local paper Moi Raion.
Moskovsky Komsomolets listed the cases that had been tied to him by fingerprints at the time of his arrest. All were in 2003. In January a woman of 28 from Minsk was killed in Moscow and robbed. Two days later a 19-year-old student of a tourism academy was killed. In late March a 20-year-old law student was killed, and in April a woman of 38. In July a woman of 40 and her teenage son were killed. In August a 28-year-old Muscovite was killed, and three days later a 28-year-old employee of the Moscow city legislature.
The ages and dates in later reports do not always match these. Moskvich Mag, in its 2024 account, placed the first case of the 2003 series in December 2002 and gave the woman's age as 25; it listed further women aged from 18 to 43 killed in the spring and summer of 2003, and a woman of 32 killed in April 2004, whom it described as the last known victim. That account was written before the second trial, and the magazine itself said the true number of victims was not known.
The killing that drew most attention in the press was of a woman and her son in Moscow in the summer of 2003. The Moscow Times reported both deaths in 2012. The boy's age is given as 13 by Moskvich Mag and NEWS.ru and as 15 by Moskovsky Komsomolets in 2010. NEWS.ru gave the woman's age as 40.
The 2012 verdict described this victim as a teenager. Moskvich Mag said he was killed to leave no witness.
By the summer of 2003 there were rumors of a serial strangler in the north and north-east of Moscow, according to Moskovsky Komsomolets. At a press conference after the July double killing, representatives of the prosecutor's office said the murders had been committed by different people.
Moskvich Mag wrote that the authorities at first denied any series. It quoted the interior minister, Борис Грызлов, as saying the murders of women showed no sign of a single offender, and the head of the Moscow police, Владимир Пронин, as calling them a coincidence. In July 2003 a joint task force was set up under the police directorate of the North-Eastern administrative district, with the district prosecutor and the city's criminal investigation directorate. Of about 11 recent cases it examined, several were solved or separated out as unrelated, the magazine said, and one later case was attributed to a gang of robbers.
Moskvich Mag reported that the attacks became less frequent after August 2003. He later told the journalist Ева Меркачева that it had come to him that he needed to change something.
Several women survived attacks in 2003, according to Moskvich Mag, and gave investigators descriptions of the attacker. The magazine noted that two of the descriptions did not match, which left open whether he had changed his appearance or whether a different man was responsible for one of the attacks. In the second case, investigators said in 2025, one woman survived an attack by him and years later identified him and gave evidence, 360.ru reported.
The murders stopped in 2004. Pravo.ru, reporting the 2012 verdict on the basis of the Investigative Committee's statement, gave the reason the crimes went unsolved for so long: from January 2005 to July 2010 he was in prison for robbery, with other charges. Moskovsky Komsomolets reported that he had been detained in 2004 and that the case had not been connected with the strangulations at the time. Moskvich Mag said a Moscow district court sentenced him in January 2005 to six years, of which he served five. The Moscow Times also gave his time in prison as five years.
He was released in the summer of 2010. According to Moskovsky Komsomolets, when he registered at his local police station as a released prisoner convicted of a serious crime, his fingerprints were taken and entered into the "Дельта" fingerprint database, which matched them to prints from the scenes of murders in 2003. The Investigative Committee said, as reported by Pravo.ru, that the prints matched evidence from four murders. The Moscow Times wrote that his prints had been found near the scenes of the killings of four women.
Moskvich Mag noted other versions that circulated: that he had boasted of the killings to acquaintances, or had talked while drinking with a police officer. The magazine judged the fingerprint match the most likely account. He was arrested in October 2010.
He first admitted three murders and then seven, Moskvich Mag reported. He was initially charged with six murders, with other charges. DNA testing then linked him to all 16 crimes in the case, according to the Investigative Committee.
A psychiatric examination at the Serbsky institute (Институт Сербского) found him sane, and compulsory treatment was ruled out, Moskvich Mag wrote.
The case file ran to 26 volumes. Investigators questioned more than 100 witnesses and victims and ordered more than 150 expert examinations, Pravo.ru reported. The Moscow Times said the trial included testimony from 100 witnesses and victims and DNA evidence. Moskvich Mag wrote that the hearings were closed to the victims' relatives and to the press, even for the verdict.
On January 30, 2012, the Moscow City Court convicted him of 16 murders, of 15 women and a teenager, with other charges, and sentenced him to life imprisonment, to be served in a special-regime colony. Pravo.ru gave his age at the time as 32. The Moscow Times reported that he had confessed to the killings.
He appealed. On June 21, 2012, the Supreme Court of Russia rejected the appeals, found the conviction lawful and well founded, and the verdict took legal effect, the Prosecutor General's Office said, as reported by Pravo.ru.
In an interview with Ева Меркачева, a journalist and human rights advocate who visits Russian prisons, he offered little explanation of why he killed. His words were later quoted by Moskvich Mag and NEWS.ru. He said there had been no aggression. Asked about his state of mind, he said it was not a blackout but something like a fog, and that he never lost consciousness. Afterward, he said, he calmly went home, went to bed, woke up, and that was all.
He told her he felt no remorse at the time. He said that, to be honest, he had not then understood that killing was abnormal. He also said that there was no point looking for the reason a person wants to kill; one simply has to not kill.
Moskvich Mag wrote that he denied some of the killings put to him, claiming that investigators were trying to pin other people's crimes on him, while acknowledging others with indifference. The magazine found no clear trauma or history in his life to account for the crimes, and said his victims had no common profile.
In 2024 investigators in Moscow went back to unsolved cases from the early 2000s. A prosecutor reviewing one old case received DNA results that matched him, NEWS.ru reported. On August 22, 2024, the Moscow directorate of the Investigative Committee confirmed five new episodes, NEWS.ru reported, after molecular genetic testing using modern methods had established his involvement. The committee said they might not be the last, and work to identify further episodes continued. He was questioned and admitted guilt, the committee said.
The new episodes reported that month included the killing of a woman in Moscow in June 2000, which would place the start of his crimes two years earlier than the 2012 verdict, and the killing of a woman in Moscow on December 3, 2002.
On March 1, 2025, Moskvich Mag, citing TASS, reported that the Moscow directorate of the Federal Penitentiary Service had helped solve 13 murders committed more than 20 years earlier, of 12 women and one man, in Moscow and the Moscow region between 2000 and 2004. He had confessed to them, the magazine said.
On March 31, 2025, the Investigative Committee announced that its investigation was complete. He was accused of murdering two or more people, with other charges, 360.ru reported. The committee said it had studied a large volume of case files, including murders from past years, and had found a similar method. According to investigators, the killings took place between 2000 and 2004, most of them of young women; in September 2003 a man was also killed. The crimes took place in the Northern, North-Western and North-Eastern administrative districts of Moscow and in the Moscow region. The case covered 15 victims aged 15 to 48, the committee said. During questioning and when his statements were checked at the scenes, he confirmed his involvement. The committee said the investigation had gathered indisputable evidence.
In June 2025 the Головинский районный суд, a Moscow district court, convicted him of the murders of 15 women and one man and of the attempted murder of a woman, with other charges, and sentenced him to a second term of life imprisonment, Profile.ru and NEWS.ru reported. NEWS.ru gave the victims' ages in the second case as 13 to 48.
NEWS.ru wrote that, before him, only Михаил Попков had been given two life sentences in Russia. The lawyer Евгений Харламов, a former head of the criminal police in Moscow's Eastern district, told NEWS.ru that a prisoner serving life must serve at least 25 years before applying for parole, and that a second life term reflected the court's assessment of the crimes. He said he knew of no case in which a prisoner serving life had been released to fight in Ukraine. If further crimes were established, he said, a third trial was possible, and a fixed term could be added to the life sentences.
The verdict was appealed. On December 9, 2025, the criminal division of the Moscow City Court left the sentence unchanged and rejected the appeals, the court's press service said, as reported by Profile.ru. Who filed them was not reported.
In December 2025, after the Moscow City Court upheld the second verdict, he was serving life sentences, Profile.ru reported. In Russia people sentenced to life serve their terms in special-regime colonies; NEWS.ru reported that 1,093 people were serving life sentences in the country as of 2024. The colony where he is held has not been reported.
Proven by final judgment: 16 murders, of 15 women and a teenager, between April 2002 and May 2004 (Moscow City Court, 2012, upheld by the Supreme Court); and the murders of 15 women and a man and the attempted murder of a woman, between 2000 and 2004 (Moscow district court, June 2025, upheld December 2025).
Confessed or attributed by investigators: the 13 murders announced by the penitentiary service in March 2025 and the five episodes announced in August 2024 were reported before the second trial. It has not been reported which of them were among the 16 murders of the 2025 verdict. Moskvich Mag listed one 2003 killing in Moscow as uncertain, since the circumstances did not fit his usual pattern, and he refused to admit it.
Figures that differ between sources: the age of the son of the woman killed in 2003 (13 or 15); the age range of the victims in the second case (13 to 48, or 15 to 48); whether the first known killing of the 2003 series was in December 2002 or January 2003, and the woman's age (25 or 28); the length of his prison term from 2005 (six years, of which he served five, or "five years"); and how many killings he first admitted after his arrest in 2010 (three and then seven, according to Moskvich Mag). The Moscow Times wrote in 2012 that the victims of the first case were "women and children"; the court described them as 15 women and one teenager.
2000: the earliest killing later linked to him, of a woman in Moscow in June, according to reports of the 2024 investigation.
April 2002 to May 2004: the period of the 16 murders in the 2012 verdict.
December 3, 2002: a woman is killed in Moscow; the case is linked to him in August 2024.
2003: a series of killings of women in the north of Moscow; the police and prosecutors say publicly that they are not connected; in July a joint task force is formed.
Summer 2003: a woman and her teenage son are killed in Moscow.
September 2003: a man is killed, according to investigators in 2025.
May 2004: the last killing in the 2012 verdict.
2004: detained for another crime.
January 2005: sentenced for robbery, with other charges.
Summer 2010: released; his fingerprints, taken when he registers with the police, match prints from murders of 2003.
October 2010: arrested in Moscow.
January 30, 2012: the Moscow City Court convicts him of 16 murders, with other charges, and sentences him to life imprisonment.
June 21, 2012: the Supreme Court of Russia upholds the verdict.
August 22, 2024: the Investigative Committee in Moscow confirms five new episodes after DNA testing.
March 1, 2025: the penitentiary service is reported to have helped solve 13 more murders from 2000 to 2004.
March 31, 2025: the new investigation is completed.
June 2025: a Moscow district court convicts him of 16 more murders and an attempted murder, with other charges, and imposes a second life sentence.
December 9, 2025: the Moscow City Court rejects the appeals and upholds the second sentence.