Yevgeny Chuplinsky, a former Novosibirsk police and guard-service employee, was convicted in 2018 of the murder of 19 women aged 18 to 31. The killings were committed between the autumn of 1998 and July 2005 in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk and its surroundings. The Novosibirsk Regional Court sentenced him to life imprisonment, and the Supreme Court of Russia left the verdict in force in 2019 after sending the question of sentence back once for a new hearing.
The investigation lasted nearly eighteen years. A man who was arrested and released in 2006 for lack of evidence was arrested again in April 2016, after a genetic match. He admitted guilt at first, then withdrew the admissions and said he had been pressured. The jury, sitting in closed hearings, did not accept that. Chuplinsky has maintained since 2017 that he is innocent, and some of his family and friends believe the same.
Chuplinsky was 51 when he was arrested in April 2016 and 58 in November 2023, which places his birth in the mid-1960s; a birth date and birthplace were not published. Meduza reported that he served in the KGB border troops and then worked in the militia and in the Interior Ministry's non-departmental guard service in the 1990s. In an interview with Lenta.ru in December 2017 he said he served in the guard service in the Kirovsky district of Novosibirsk and that by 2004 he was a retired Interior Ministry employee. He later drove a taxi, worked as a builder, campaigned for the United Russia party, and in recent years ran a business selling metal products.
He was married and had two daughters, born in 2003 and 2008. Neighbors described him in positive terms when his arrest became known, Meduza reported. Prosecutors said the first of the killings was committed while he was still serving in the police.
The Investigative Committee, the body that investigated the case, gave the period of the killings as the autumn of 1998 to July 2005. The victims were 19 women aged 18 to 31. Their names are not on record. Family members of the victims said after the sentencing on March 6, 2018 that they had expected a life sentence, TASS reported. The court later ordered compensation of 1 million rubles to each of four injured parties at the first sentencing and to each of five at the second.
Investigators' analysis showed that all 19 killings were the work of one person, and that the series stopped abruptly in 2005, Lenta.ru reported in November 2017. The court that sentenced Chuplinsky in March 2018 held that he had killed women from 1998 onward, with the last killing named in the verdict dated to 2005.
Investigators said that Chuplinsky knew some of the women beforehand, and that he had gathered information about them in the course of his duties. Chuplinsky acknowledged knowing some of them, but said he had spoken to them only in the course of his service, Mediazona reported.
By his own later account to Lenta.ru, Chuplinsky first learned in 1999 of the killings and that his possible involvement was being checked, because some of the victims might have known him from his patrols. In 2006 he was arrested in connection with the killings and held in a remand prison for about two months, he said, before being released, with an apology for the unlawful detention. Mediazona and Meduza both reported that he was released because investigators lacked other evidence.
The inquiry went on for another decade. According to the Investigative Committee, detectives checked more than 5,000 men, questioned more than 8,000 witnesses, and ordered more than 300 expert examinations; the case file ran to more than 70 volumes. The breakthrough came from advances in genetic analysis. Investigators said they obtained a genetic profile from evidence in the cases and compared it with samples held by the regional authorities, and that in 2016 it matched Chuplinsky.
Chuplinsky was detained on April 23, 2016, about ten and a half years after the last killing in the verdict.
After his arrest Chuplinsky admitted guilt and entered a pretrial cooperation agreement with investigators. He told Lenta.ru that he signed the agreement on June 2, 2016. TASS reported that he also confessed to two further crimes that were unknown to police; he later withdrew the confession, and neither crime was charged or formed part of the verdict.
A psychological and psychiatric examination at the Serbsky Institute in Moscow found him fully sane; Meduza dated the finding to January 2017. The Investigative Committee reported that the examinations found no chronic or temporary mental disorder and that he was fully responsible for his actions.
In April 2017, Current Time reported, Chuplinsky said he was innocent and that he had incriminated himself falsely. His explanation was that he had been promised protection for his wife and children if he cooperated. In his Lenta.ru interview he said he had been threatened with harm and harassment to his family, that he had gone on a hunger strike and complained to the prosecutor's office, and that an official from Moscow had told him his family would get no protection unless he agreed to the deal. His lawyer, Mikhail Zhukov, said the admissions were made under physical and psychological pressure in custody. Investigators called the retraction an attempt to delay the sentence, and the Investigative Committee maintained that the confession was fully confirmed by the evidence.
His wife and children had to leave Novosibirsk because of harassment, Current Time reported.
The indictment was approved and the case sent to court on November 15, 2017, the Investigative Committee announced. At Chuplinsky's request the Novosibirsk Regional Court agreed to a jury trial before Judge Lyudmila Bilyukova. The first hearing took place on December 14, 2017, and the court closed the proceedings, although neither side objected to an open trial. More than 200 witnesses were expected.
Chuplinsky told the court he did not commit the crimes, and said he expected an acquittal. He pointed to other suspects, among them a Novosibirsk taxi driver, Alexei Ivanov, who was sentenced to life imprisonment in November 2016 for the murder of four women. Investigators said Ivanov had no connection to the 19 killings.
On February 28, 2018, the jury unanimously found Chuplinsky guilty of 19 murders of women, under Article 105, Part 2, item "a" of the Criminal Code, which covers the murder of two or more persons, and of one count of theft under Article 158. The jurors found that he did not deserve leniency. The Investigative Committee, which published the verdict, gave his age as 52.
On March 5 a state prosecutor asked for life imprisonment. On March 6, 2018, Judge Bilyukova sentenced him to life in a special-regime colony and awarded 1 million rubles to each of four injured parties. According to Interfax she released him from the theft count because the limitation period for it had expired. Chuplinsky said he would appeal.
On September 11, 2018, the collegium of the Supreme Court of Russia quashed the sentence. It left the jury's guilty verdict in force. The reason, reported by Mediazona, Pravo.ru and Interfax, was that the trial court had not explained why the statute of limitations did not apply to some of the killings, which dated from the 1990s and the early 2000s. Prosecutors stressed that the sentence was not overturned for being too harsh. The case went back to the Novosibirsk Regional Court for a decision on sentence only, and a prosecutor said only evidence of character and papers for the civil claims would be considered.
On November 22, 2018, the Novosibirsk Regional Court again sentenced Chuplinsky to life imprisonment in a special-regime colony. It found no grounds to release him from criminal liability, and ordered him to pay 1 million rubles to each of five injured parties. Russia has not carried out an execution since 1996, RFE/RL noted in its report on the first sentence.
Chuplinsky appealed to the Supreme Court. Current Time reported on May 30, 2019 that the Supreme Court had rejected the appeal and that the life sentence was now in legal force.
Chuplinsky has been held in a special-regime colony for prisoners serving life sentences known as Snezhinka. On November 21, 2023, the regional newspaper Altapress, citing NGS, reported that he had been moved from that colony to a remand prison in Novosibirsk for unspecified investigative actions. No new charge is on record. It gave his age as 58.
Proven and final: 19 counts of murder under Article 105, Part 2, item "a", and the life sentence, upheld after the 2018 retrial and the 2019 appeal.
Not part of the verdict: the confession to two further crimes that police had not known about, which Chuplinsky withdrew; no charge followed.
Disputed by Chuplinsky: the confession. He says it was given under pressure and in exchange for protection for his family. His lawyer said the pressure was physical and psychological. Investigators and the jury did not accept this.
Details that vary between reports: the number of injured parties receiving compensation (four in March 2018, five in November 2018); the number of witnesses (more than 8,000 questioned, per the Investigative Committee and Interfax, against 200 witnesses mentioned in some other reports); the date of the Supreme Court's first ruling (September 11 in Current Time and TASS, September 12 in reports published a day later).
Mid-1960s: Chuplinsky is born (date not published).
Autumn 1998: first of the 19 killings in the verdict.
1999: by his own account, he first learns that the police are checking the guard-service patrols.
2003 and 2008: his daughters are born.
July 2005: last killing in the verdict.
2006: arrested in connection with the killings; released for lack of evidence.
April 23, 2016: arrested after a genetic match.
June 2, 2016: by his account, signs a pretrial cooperation agreement.
January 2017: found sane.
April 2017: says he is innocent and withdraws his admissions.
November 15, 2017: indictment approved; case sent to court.
December 14, 2017: closed jury trial begins in Novosibirsk.
February 28, 2018: jury finds him guilty of 19 murders.
March 6, 2018: sentenced to life imprisonment.
September 11, 2018: Supreme Court quashes the sentence and leaves the verdict in force.
November 22, 2018: sentenced again to life imprisonment.
May 2019: Supreme Court rejects his appeal.
November 2023: reported moved to a Novosibirsk remand prison for investigative actions.