The killer was not a pedophile

— 15.06.10 13:18 —

TEXT: Dmitry Antonenkov (Ekaterinburg)

PHOTO: RIA «Novosti»

In Yekaterinburg, Sergei Kutnyuk, who had been wanted by police for six years for the murder and rape of children, was sentenced to life imprisonment. The court's decision came as a surprise to everyone: Kutnyuk was acquitted of charges of sexual assault.

41-year-old Sergei Kutnyuk became known under the name Davidenko. It was under this name that he was put on the federal wanted list in 2007, although, as the investigation established, he committed his first crime back in April 2003. Then he lived in the village of Tremino, Irkutsk region, on the banks of the Biryusa. He worked as a carpenter at a local school.

On April 8, while walking along the shore, he met seven-year-old Volodya Kotov and invited him to light a fire by the river. The boy agreed. The man hit the child in the stomach with the lid of a tin can that was lying right there on the shore. He demanded that I undress completely. Then Kutnyuk cut the guy’s throat with a tin lid, took him to the river, and began drowning him in the hole. The boy was slept by local residents who happened to be at the scene. They pulled the child out from under the ice and took him to the hospital. Doctors saved the child, but Kutnyuk fled.

“ We tried for a very long time to find out from the accused why he committed this and other crimes. But he either doesn’t want or can’t explain why he did it. At the same time, a psychiatric examination found him fully sane,” . Viktor Dubovskikh, senior prosecutor of the department of state prosecutors of the Sverdlovsk Region Prosecutor’s Office, told Gazeta.Ru

After the first murder, Kutnyuk abandoned his home and went on the run. In 2005, he showed up in the Tyumen region. Here he was caught stealing. He introduced himself to the police as a homeless man named Davidenko. Under this name he was sentenced to two years. And after his release, Davidenko was hired to work at a Tyumen fish farm. But he failed to start a new life.

On March 13, 2007, he attempted to murder 9-year-old Sasha Ulyanov, the son of his colleague.

I took him into the forest. He pulled out a knife and, threatening, forced the guy to undress. Having achieved his goal, the man covered the boy’s mouth and began stabbing him with a knife and then choking him. The maniac was startled by the sound of a police siren. Saying out loud “ you are killed,” he started to run. Fortunately, the boy was saved. He was able to reach people on his own, and doctors helped him.

The next victim of the criminal was 9-year-old Maxim Usoltsev from the village of Pyshma, located in the Sverdlovsk region, on the border with Tyumen. Kutnyuk invited Maxim and his brother Dima to the river, promising to show how he sets traps for beavers. Leaving Dima to watch the fire, the man took his brother into the forest. At some point, Maxim identified Kutnyuk as the same criminal who was shown on TV. The maniac went berserk and beat the unfortunate teenager to death with a stick that came into his hand, stabbing him with a knife for good measure. Maxim's body was found by relatives a week later.

In 2008, Kutnyuk fell into the hands of the police. He was detained in Kamensk-Uralsky, Sverdlovsk region, during the police operation “ Bum”. He introduced himself to the law enforcement officers by his last name, Belov.

Kutnyuk, who by this time had been on the federal wanted list for several years, was photographed, fingerprinted and released from the police station.

On May 19, 2008, a rape and attempted murder of a 4-year-old boy occurred in Kamensk-Uralsky. Investigators attributed the crime to the elusive Kutnyuk. Russian law enforcement officers failed to detain the maniac on their own. Investigators attributed this to the experience Kutnyuk gained while serving in a reconnaissance company during the Chechen war.

In May 2009, Sergei Kutnyuk himself turned himself in to the police department of the city of Taishet, Irkutsk region. He admitted to murder and two attempted murders. But he refused in every possible way to acknowledge the rape episode in Kamensk-Uralsky and generally denied the sexual nature of his crimes. Nevertheless, during the preliminary investigation, detectives forced him to admit his guilt in the rape and attempted murder of a four-year-old resident of Kamensk-Uralsky.

Judge of the Sverdlovsk Regional Court Nikolai Pavlov found Kutnyuk not guilty of committing a crime in Kamensk-Uralsky.

And he sent the criminal case on this episode for a new investigation. The judge further announced that the investigators’ arguments that by undressing his victims and striking them in the groin, Kutnyuk was satisfying his sexual needs were untenable. Therefore, the charges under the article “ violent acts of a sexual nature committed against a person known to be under the age of fourteen” were dropped against the child hunter. But the remaining charges - two attempted murders and one murder - were enough for the judge to sentence Sergei Kutnyuk to life imprisonment.

“ He realized his guilt. Therefore, he himself asked the court to sentence him to life imprisonment,” . the maniac’s lawyer Anatoly Lekhavitsky told Gazeta.Ru

For the entire two hours, while Nikolai Pavlov read out the verdict, the accused remained completely calm. He listened intently, nodding or shaking his head as the judge read out the details of the atrocities. And then he turned to the wall, ignoring questions from the press. They say that before the start of the meeting, Sergei Kutnyuk said: “ I will hurt my head if journalists appear.”