In the autumn of 1939 the police of Sverdlovsk, the Urals industrial city now called Yekaterinburg, were looking for the person responsible for the deaths of small children over more than a year. When they arrested him, he was a schoolboy of about sixteen from a household that was not poor, who had repeated a year at school and was described as withdrawn. Vladimir Vinnichevsky was tried by the Sverdlovsk Regional Court in January 1940 on a case concerning eighteen children aged roughly two to four, of whom eight had died, and was sentenced to death. He was executed on November 11, 1940, at an age that Moskovsky Komsomolets put at under seventeen and a half.
The case is among the best-known juvenile cases in Soviet history. A decree of April 7, 1935, had extended the full range of criminal penalties, including the death penalty, to offenders from the age of twelve, and Vinnichevsky was sentenced under it. Accounts of the case disagree on several points: his birthplace, how many children died, and what happened on appeal.
Lenta.ru gives his birth date as June 8, 1923, and his birthplace as Sverdlovsk. The outlet 360.ru places his birth in the summer of 1923 in the town of Verkhnyaya Salda, so the birthplace is open. His full name, with the patronymic Georgievich, appears in the court's order and in his own clemency petition.
His father, according to Lenta.ru, was a former Chekist who worked at the printing house of the newspaper Uralsky Rabochy. His mother was a cashier. Other accounts describe the father as a master at a municipal housing office and the mother as a bookkeeper or accountant; Moskovsky Komsomolets calls the family comfortably off.
Lenta.ru writes that as a child he had a speech impediment and was bullied for it. He did well in school until the fifth grade, then fell behind and repeated a year, and he moved between schools after disciplinary trouble. Moskovsky Komsomolets also records the stammer, which the family attributed to a childhood accident, and describes him as withdrawn. At the time of his arrest a Sverdlovsk local-history site describes him as a seventh-grade pupil with poor marks, and the 2013 Novy Region series calls him a weak student who had repeated a grade.
One of his schoolmates was Ernst Neizvestny, who became a well-known sculptor; Lenta.ru says the two knew each other as children.
The first death attributed to Vinnichevsky occurred in Sverdlovsk in the summer of 1938. The victim was a girl of three or four; Lenta.ru and the Gateway to Russia site give her age as three, 360.ru and News.ru as four. News.ru dates the death to July 12, 1938, and Moskovsky Komsomolets to the middle of July.
In August 1938, according to Lenta.ru and Absatz, a four-year-old girl was the target of another attack in Sverdlovsk. She survived.
The accounts agree on the totals and disagree on the details of the sequence. Lenta.ru, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Gateway to Russia and News.ru all say that the case covered attacks on eighteen children, eight of whom died and ten of whom survived. The 2013 Novy Region series, which draws on the press service and museum of the Sverdlovsk Oblast police administration, speaks instead of seventeen children, eight killed and nine seriously injured.
Lenta.ru gives these further dates, all in Sverdlovsk Oblast. In February 1939 a boy of two was the target of an attack and was rescued; Moskovsky Komsomolets also records an attack on a boy in February, without a year. On May 1, 1939, a girl of four survived another. In mid-June 1939, in the Pionersky settlement, a girl of two and a half survived. The deaths that Lenta.ru names without dates include children in Sverdlovsk itself, a girl of about two and a half in Nizhny Tagil and a girl of three in Kushva; 360.ru likewise places two of the killings in Nizhny Tagil and Kushva, the towns neighboring Sverdlovsk.
The ages are consistent across accounts: the children were between about one and a half and four and a half years old, and both girls and boys were among them. Little else about them is on record.
Moskovsky Komsomolets adds that in later questioning Vinnichevsky confessed to two earlier killings whose victims were never identified. Those two deaths were never the subject of a verdict.
For more than a year the cases were treated as separate events. The local-history site on Quarter No. 89 says investigators took about a year and a half to identify the person responsible.
The regional newspaper Uralsky Rabochy covered the arrest on October 25, 1939, according to Moskovsky Komsomolets, and in November 1939 it printed a letter from the boy's parents.
The series ended on October 24, 1939. A three-year-old boy in the Uralmash district of Sverdlovsk, the industrial district around the Uralmash machine-building plant, survived, and Vinnichevsky was arrested the same day by cadets of the Sverdlovsk workers' and peasants' militia school.
He was about sixteen. News.ru gives his age as 15 when the first offenses were committed and 16 at arrest and at the time of his appeal; the Novy Region series says he was 15 when he was arrested.
According to Moskovsky Komsomolets he confessed in questioning.
The case was opened as murder, with other charges. Lenta.ru and Absatz say the original charge was intentional murder under Article 136 of the RSFSR Criminal Code, a charge for which, Lenta.ru writes, the maximum penalty at the time was ten years in a labor camp. Both accounts say the case was then reclassified as banditry so that a death sentence could be passed. News.ru tells it differently, saying the judge changed the charge to banditry at sentencing.
His defense raised the question of mental illness. Moskovsky Komsomolets reports that he was sent to the Serbsky Institute in Moscow for a further examination and that the specialists found no grounds to reduce his responsibility and judged him sane. News.ru likewise reports a forensic psychiatric examination in Sverdlovsk and a second one at the Serbsky Institute, both of which found him fit to stand trial. Lenta.ru and Absatz add that after the sentence he tried to present himself as insane, without effect.
In November 1939 his father and mother wrote a joint statement to Uralsky Rabochy. Its opening words, quoted by the Quarter No. 89 site, were: "We, his parents, renounce such a son." They asked for the harshest penalty.
His mother later changed course. Lenta.ru, Moskovsky Komsomolets and Absatz record that she appealed to officials to spare her son. News.ru adds that she maintained he was ill and that an adult had been involved, a claim the investigation rejected.
The Sverdlovsk Regional Court heard the case. According to Lenta.ru the trial began on January 15, 1940, in Sverdlovsk, and the verdict was announced the next day, January 16.
The sentence was death. Lenta.ru quotes the operative line: Vladimir Georgievich Vinnichevsky was to be executed. The Novy Region series says the court cited the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of April 7, 1935, on measures against juvenile crime. 360.ru and Moskovsky Komsomolets note that Soviet law at the time allowed the death penalty from age twelve.
The exact counts on which he was convicted, whether for all eight deaths or for a smaller number, are not on record. The press accounts describe the case as one concerning eighteen children.
The accounts of the appeal diverge. Moskovsky Komsomolets reports that on August 5, 1940, the court upheld the death sentence, and that on August 28, 1940, Vinnichevsky wrote a clemency petition to the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the RSFSR, which considered it for some time and rejected it.
News.ru says that the first verdict was annulled by the Supreme Court and that in August 1940 he was again sentenced to the highest measure of punishment. Lenta.ru and Absatz mention neither a retrial nor a Supreme Court ruling and say only that he sent many complaints to the authorities and begged for a pardon, all unsuccessfully. The sentence stood.
Vinnichevsky was executed on November 11, 1940. Moskovsky Komsomolets states that he was under seventeen and a half. Lenta.ru puts the interval at about ten months after the verdict.
Ernst Neizvestny, the schoolmate, became one of the best-known Soviet sculptors. Lenta.ru notes the connection and says that he knew Vinnichevsky as a childhood friend.
Proven by the verdict: Vladimir Georgievich Vinnichevsky was sentenced to death by the Sverdlovsk Regional Court on January 16, 1940, on a case concerning the deaths and injuries of small children in Sverdlovsk Oblast in 1938 and 1939. The counts on which he was convicted are not on record.
Confessed only: two earlier killings, victims never identified (Moskovsky Komsomolets). These were not tried.
Accounts that differ:
Birthplace: Sverdlovsk (Lenta.ru, Absatz) or Verkhnyaya Salda (360.ru).
Age: 15 at the first offenses and 16 at arrest (News.ru); 15 at arrest (Novy Region); 17 at execution (Gateway to Russia); under seventeen and a half (Moskovsky Komsomolets).
The first victim's age: three (Lenta.ru; Gateway to Russia) or four (360.ru; News.ru), and her date, July 12 (News.ru) or mid-July (Moskovsky Komsomolets).
The number of children: eighteen attacked, eight dead, ten surviving (Lenta.ru, Moskovsky Komsomolets, Gateway to Russia, News.ru); seventeen, eight killed and nine injured (Novy Region). Lenta.ru names nine dead children while stating a total of eight.
What happened on appeal: sentence upheld on August 5, 1940 (Moskovsky Komsomolets); first verdict annulled, second sentence in August 1940 (News.ru); no retrial mentioned (Lenta.ru, Absatz).
When the charge became banditry: before trial (Lenta.ru, Absatz) or at sentencing (News.ru).
June 8, 1923: Vladimir Georgievich Vinnichevsky is born (Sverdlovsk, per Lenta.ru; Verkhnyaya Salda, per 360.ru).
Summer 1938 (July in two accounts): the first death attributed to him, a young girl in Sverdlovsk.
August 1938: a girl of four survives an attack in Sverdlovsk.
February 1939: a boy of two survives an attack.
May 1, 1939: a girl of four survives an attack in Sverdlovsk.
Mid-June 1939: a girl of two and a half survives an attack in the Pionersky settlement.
1938 to 1939: eight children in all die, in Sverdlovsk, Nizhny Tagil and Kushva, according to the press accounts.
October 24, 1939: a boy of three survives; Vinnichevsky is arrested in Sverdlovsk by militia school cadets.
October 25, 1939: Uralsky Rabochy reports the arrest.
November 1939: his parents publish a statement in Uralsky Rabochy disowning him.
January 15 and 16, 1940: trial and verdict at the Sverdlovsk Regional Court; sentenced to death.
August 5, 1940: sentence upheld, per Moskovsky Komsomolets (News.ru reports a second sentence in August).
August 28, 1940: clemency petition to the Presidium of the RSFSR Supreme Court; rejected.
November 11, 1940: executed.