Vladimir Storozhenko was a driver at a Smolensk bus depot, a married man regarded by his colleagues as a model employee. Between 1978 and 1981 he was reported to have killed 13 women and girls in the city. He was sentenced to death by firing squad and executed. It was a long inquiry that went wrong in its early years: men were held who had nothing to do with the killings, and in the end a survivor's description of the attacker pointed to him, and he confessed.
Storozhenko was born in 1953 in Smolensk, according to news.ru and Life.ru. As a boy he was registered with the police. Life.ru reports petty theft and the killing of domestic animals in his childhood; news.ru says he left school after eight grades, was convicted twice, and was known for petty theft and cruelty to animals as a teenager.
Both outlets say he served a prison term before the killings. News.ru says he served time in the Kirov region for a violent assault. After his release he returned to Smolensk, worked as a driver at a bus depot, married, and was seen as a model family man. News.ru adds that he acted as a non-staff informant for the police and took part in the search for the killer, a position that, it says, kept him from suspicion.
The first known killing, in September 1978, was of a young woman in the old part of Smolensk, according to Life.ru. A schoolgirl from the city was killed soon afterward, and Life.ru says the police still did not act urgently. Over the next three years women and girls in the city continued to be attacked. News.ru reports that he preyed on women alone at night, and that he was linked to at least 20 attacks, 13 of which ended in death. Life.ru likewise puts the attacks at about 20, with 13 killed. Both say the victims were robbed as well.
The fear in the city had practical effects. Life.ru reports that women at the Smolensk Aviation Plant refused night shifts, which put the plant's state production plan at risk. The matter reached the Soviet leadership, and Life.ru says it came to the attention of Leonid Brezhnev. Issa Kostoev, an investigator from the prosecutor's office in Moscow, was sent to Smolensk to take over the case.
The early investigation was marked by mistakes. Life.ru reports that a local prosecutor, Nikolai Goncharov, was detained after a witness reported seeing a car with plates of the kind used by the prosecutor's office. News.ru names four men detained in the course of the inquiry, among them a traffic officer and the same prosecutor.
Life.ru says that after one of the killings a local watchman with an earlier conviction was arrested and, under pressure, confessed. He was sentenced to ten years in 1980, and the killings went on afterward. News.ru reports that another man, P., was given nine years in prison after a confession obtained under pressure, and was later rehabilitated. The two may be the same man.
In 1981 a woman who survived an attack described the tattoos on the man who had attacked her, which suggested someone who had served a prison term. According to Life.ru, Kostoev asked for an operational group from Moscow and for the local investigators to be removed from the case. The group went through the records of men with convictions and arrived at Storozhenko. News.ru says the survivor picked him out from photographs.
News.ru reports that his blood group matched traces found at a police ambush that had failed to catch the killer, and that the logs of his work as a driver fitted the places and times of the attacks. Gold taken from a victim was found at his home, and his wife had earrings that belonged to a victim. Life.ru says the gold had been melted into ingots by his mother and his younger brother, who was under 18 when Storozhenko was arrested.
Storozhenko at first denied the charges, news.ru says, and confessed to 13 murders after he was brought face to face with a survivor.
Life.ru describes an investigative experiment in 1983 that it calls decisive. Kostoev's team set out 30 mannequins, 13 of them dressed in the clothes of the victims and each with a note describing the crime. Storozhenko is reported to have identified all thirteen, and his account of each matched the note.
News.ru and Life.ru both report that Storozhenko was sentenced to death by firing squad, and both say he was executed. They disagree on when he was sentenced. News.ru gives 1982 and says the execution followed some months later. Life.ru gives 1984. Life.ru reports that he did not believe until the end that the sentence would be carried out, and that investigators saw no remorse in him.
Storozhenko's younger brother, Sergei, was dealt with separately. News.ru says he knew of the crimes, took part in planning a gang, and showed police where the victims' jewelry and other items connected with the case were hidden; it gives his sentence as 15 years, followed by an escape, recapture and a total of 18 years served. Life.ru gives the sentence as 18 years. Both say he was arrested again in 2012 in the Smolensk region, news.ru saying it followed a robbery of a rural shop with two accomplices, and Life.ru saying he was held over a series of armed robberies under another name.
Confessed and sentenced: the 13 murders. The figure of 13 rests on his confession as relayed by news.ru and on Life.ru's account of the killings; the counts of the verdict are not on the public record.
Reported by news.ru only: the figure of at least 20 attacks, his work as a police informant, the blood-group match, the earrings, and the details of his brother's role.
Reported by Life.ru only: the 1983 reconstruction, the 1980 sentence of the watchman, and the account of the aviation plant.
Conflicting: the sentencing year (1982 or 1984), and the brother's sentence (15 or 18 years). The court, the trial dates and the date of execution are not on the public record.
1953: Vladimir Storozhenko is born in Smolensk.
September 1978: first known killing.
1980: a watchman is sentenced to ten years in connection with the killings (Life.ru); the killings continue.
1981: a survivor describes the attacker's tattoos; Storozhenko is identified and arrested.
1982 (news.ru) or 1984 (Life.ru): sentenced to death by firing squad.
1983: investigative experiment with mannequins (Life.ru).
Date not reported: executed.
2012: his brother is arrested again.