02 December 2004, 17:13 Society

Berd maniac attacked denim brunettes

Denis Bulanichev (Novosibirsk) In Novosibirsk, the “Berd maniac” received a life sentence. Over six years, he raped 8 women and killed 5 of them. Most often, he attacked young brunettes in tight jeans. In total, the rapist has 27 different crimes.

The Novosibirsk Regional Court completed the trial of the “Berd maniac” who committed 8 rapes and 5 murders of young women. The court found 30-year-old Mikhail Yudin guilty and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Investigators from the Berdsk prosecutor's office managed to prove that the criminal had been operating in the region for six years.

As Berdsk prosecutor Yuri Eremenko told Gazeta.Ru, in July 1999, the body of a 16-year-old girl was found in one of the school yards. As experts found out, death was a result of asphyxia: the girl was strangled with her own tights. The killer violated the victim's body: after death, she was raped. It subsequently turned out that the criminal met the future victim on the street, volunteering to accompany the girl home “so that nothing would happen.” The path ran through the school yard, where the criminal attacked his victim.

To solve the crime in Berdsk, a task force was created from employees of the criminal investigation department and the prosecutor's office. Over the course of several months, investigators checked about a hundred residents of Berdsk and neighboring large cities - Novosibirsk and Iskitim. They analyzed data on all local residents who had previously been convicted of rape, were prosecuted for sexual assault and suffered from mental illness. But these efforts did not bring results.

A few months later, in November 1999, the body of a 23-year-old city resident was found in the Kalininsky district of Novosibirsk. Experts counted about 30 stab wounds on her body. But this murder also remained unsolved. Then, in 2000, several more murders and rapes of young women occurred in different areas of the Novosibirsk region, which also could not be solved.

The operatives did not suspect that all these crimes were connected until three residents of Novosibirsk, one after another, told the police that they had been attacked by an unknown criminal who tried to kill and rape them. After a sketch of the attacker was compiled, it became clear to investigators that the attacker was the same person. The following pattern also emerged: the maniac chose potential victims among slender, short brunettes in tight jeans. The victims' ages ranged between 16 and 23 years old.

Later, during interrogation by an investigator, Mikhail Yudin admitted: he preferred women of this type, since it seemed to him that “they could not resist.”

Meanwhile, panic began in Novosibirsk and Berdsk. Frightened city residents began to change their clothing style and hair color so as not to accidentally attract the attention of a maniac. And the killings suddenly stopped - investigators even assumed that the maniac had left the region. But, as it turned out later, Yudin was simply frightened by such a resonance and decided to temporarily stop his forays. As Maxim Leontyev, an investigator for particularly important cases at the regional prosecutor’s office, told Gazeta.Ru, Yudin had never been outside of Novosibirsk, so “it never occurred to him” that he could move to another city.

After two years of calm, in December 2002, a new murder occurred in Berdsk.

During his investigation, another alleged rapist, Alexei Gaskov, was detained. While Gaskov was in jail , they even managed to test him for involvement in the murder and rape of the 23-year-old daughter of a diplomat from Peru, Caroline Agnes Santi-Steban, in Khimki near Moscow: it happened in 2000, just when Gaskov came to the capital to enroll in a theater university. However, it was not possible to prove his involvement in this episode; the case has now been returned to Moscow law enforcement agencies.

While investigators were studying Gaskov, another rape happened in Berdsk with a similar style - it turned out that the real maniac was still at large. Fortunately, the victim of the attack remained alive and was able to give a fairly detailed description of the criminal, as well as indicate the area where he lives, and even name several of his acquaintances. In the fall of 2003, Mikhail Yudin, who turned out to be an acquaintance of Gaskov, was detained.

The investigation revealed details of the life of Mikhail Yudin. He worked in the city as a builder. Because of his “oddities” and penchant for alcohol, his wife left Yudin. Having a hard time going through the breakup, he began dabbling in marijuana and heroin. It also turned out that in 1999, when Yudin had already committed two murders and was being hunted by investigators throughout the region, he was caught in the street robbery of a young woman - it is quite possible that she would have suffered the same fate as Yudin’s other victims, but he was prevented. After serving five months, Yudin was released under an amnesty in honor of the 55th anniversary of the Victory. And soon he made two more attacks.

During searches in the maniac's apartment, the belongings of the five girls he killed and raped were found - underwear, handbags, tights, cosmetic bags and documents.

The surviving victims of the rapist identified him as their attacker. In addition, the examination established that traces of sperm on the corpses belonged to Yudin.

At first, Mikhail Yudin confessed everything to investigators. But after some time, he retracted his testimony and began to claim that a certain “inner voice” pushed him to commit crimes. In addition, he told investigators that the souls of murdered girls constantly appear to him in visions. Nevertheless, a psychiatric examination showed that Yudin is absolutely sane. Having learned that he could not avoid trial, citing Article 51 of the Constitution, he refused to testify.

In June 2004, the case of one episode isolated from the general case of the “Berd maniac” was brought to court. Yudin was found guilty of murder committed in 2002. Mikhail Yudin was involved in this case together with Gaskov. The prosecution was unable to prove Gaskov's involvement in this crime, and he was acquitted, and Yudin was sentenced to 18 years in prison. Then Yudin’s lawyers said that in fact Gaskov was “forgiven” for his active assistance in exposing Yudin.

The first sentence was handed down to Yudin on August 30. At the same time, in the Novosibirsk regional court, a trial began against him regarding the remaining episodes of his criminal activity. In total, Yudin was charged with 27 crimes - eight rapes, five murders, as well as attempted murder, theft of things, theft and destruction of documents (Yudin threw away or burned the documents of his victims to make the bodies of the murdered more difficult to identify).

During the debate between the parties, the prosecutor's office demanded that Yudin be sentenced to life imprisonment.

In addition, the victims and relatives of the murdered brought several civil suits against him in the amount of 1 to 5 million rubles as compensation for moral damage. The process took place behind closed doors - the victims and their relatives did not want the circumstances of the tragedy to become public knowledge. The press was only allowed in for the announcement of the verdict, which took no more than 15 minutes. Mikhail Yudin behaved with marked indifference at the meeting and did not look at the audience or the participants in the process. The maniac did not show his attitude to what was happening in the hall, even when the verdict was announced. In addition, Judge Mikhail Potapov partially satisfied the claims for compensation for moral damage - Yudin will have to pay 100 thousand rubles to the family of each of the five women he killed. Yudin refused the last word, and his lawyers said they would appeal to the Supreme Court.