A Moscow college student stabbed his health instructor to death and then killed himself with a buzzsaw

On November 1, Andrey Emelyannikov, a college student in Moscow, murdered his health instructor, Sergey Danilov, and then killed himself. Emelyannikov’s friends say the teacher had recently threatened him with expulsion. Police have opened a criminal investigation, but have yet to name a motive in the case.

On the afternoon of November 1, eighteen-year-old Andrey Emelyannikov, a student at Moscow’s West Complex Continuing Education College, murdered his health teacher, Sergey Danilov, and then took his own life. Before killing himself, Emelyannikov posted several photographs of Danilov’s body on his Vkontakte account (which the website later froze), including a selfie where he’s posing the the corpse. The murder occurred between classes, and police recovered a hunting knife near Danilov’s body and a buzzsaw, which Emelyannikov used to kill himself.

The leading theory is that Emelyannikov killed Danilov because he threatened him with expulsion. Other students told the newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets that Emelyannikov didn’t get along with Danilov, who became his class advisor in September, at the start of the school year. “The teacher was always coming down on him in front of everyone, and the guy couldn’t say anything. He was scared. It seems he overcame that fear,” one student reportedly told Moskovsky Komsomolets.

Emelyannikov’s friends say he told them at the beginning of the semester that he was tired of school. In class, he would watch video-game walkthroughs on his phone. He apparently liked first-person shooters best of all.

After the murder, Russia’s Investigative Committee opened a criminal case, and psychologists have been meeting with students at the college. Officially, police have yet to name a motive in the case. Several students told Meduza that college administrators brought everyone in the school together on the evening of November 1 for a conversation with psychologists. “We discussed [the incident] with them, and our opinions, our feelings, and our ideas. After classes ended, we sat there talking for almost two hours,” one student said, adding that he can’t explain why the hypothetical threat of expulsion drove Emelyannikov to kill.

People who knew him describe Sergey Danilov as a strict but fair instructor. “He was a good man who never failed you and was always there for you,” a student named Vladislav told Meduza. “He gave you a chance to make up work, correct your mistakes, and never cursed, well unless the class wouldn’t settle down. But apparently Emelyannikov disagreed with all that.

Kirill, who graduated from West Complex Continuing Education College and also had Danilov as a class advisor, says the teacher was kind and sympathetic, despite being a strict and demanding instructor. “In any situation, he always remained human, and he was always ready to help. He didn’t try to sabotage anyone. The talk about him harassing students is all lies. It’s just ridiculous. He was a decent man. There wasn’t anything off about him, and he wasn’t at all angry or cruel,” Kirill told Meduza.

People who knew Emelyannikov told Meduza that he was “quiet, kind, and withdrawn.” Meduza spoke to one of his former classmates, who knew him until the ninth grade. Irina (whose name has been changed at her request) says that Emelyannikov was a quiet boy who never got into fights and rarely ever raised his voice. She says he always got along well with their teachers, and did well in school, but was homeschooled after fourth grade. “Some people said it was because of a psychological issue, and others said it was because his family moved,” Irina explains. She says she remembers that he always said hello to the other students, when he came in for assignments, but he never really said much about himself. “Because the boys at our school could sometimes catch him, he started getting careful, and he often carried a knife on him. But he never used it, and he never threatened anybody,” Irina recalls. She says Emelyannikov was from a “pretty good family,” pointing out that he was always well dressed and well-groomed.

A friend of Emelyannikov’s brother told Meduza that Emelyannikov was a “decent, calm person.” “He loved science fiction, but it wasn’t the violence that attracted him — he didn’t really like violence,” he says.

“Andrey often played computer games, but he wasn’t the fanatic that everyone is now making him out to be,” one of Emelyannikov’s friends told Meduza. The friend says he was a Sports Candidate Master in archery, and he loved to listen to music and ready science fiction. “We used to talk about the realism and irrealism of different sci-fi theories in books and movies,” she remembers, adding that Emelyannikov spent the past five years unrequitedly in love with a girl they knew. But if this bothered him, he didn’t show it, she says. “He kept everything bottled up, and never unloaded his problems on anyone else.”

Russian text by Sasha Sulim, translation by Kevin Rothrock