A Russian serial killer is considered one of the worst ever after confessing to the murders of 81 women.
Mikhail Popkov, a former Siberian policeman, was already serving a life sentence for the murders of 22 women between 1992 and 2010. While in prison, he has confessed to 59 further murders, of which 47 have reportedly produced charges.
“That means, if we add them to the earlier 22, it will be 81 murders in total. We are quite sure about the 12 other cases,” rkutsk police spokeswoman Karina Golovacheva told The Siberian Times. “In the nearest future we can bring charges.”
It is believed that he confessed gradually to his crimes as a strategy to avoid his inevitable transfer from his current prison facility to a penal colony.
According to earlier reports of the case, Popkov started his murder spree while he was a police officer, offering women rides before taking them to remote locations, sexually assaulting and killing them. When he was first detained in 2012, he expressed a desire to “cleanse” the streets of sex workers.
If the figure of 81 victims is confirmed, it will make Popkov the third most prolific serial killer in history, behind Colombian killer Luis Garavito, who murdered at least 138 people, and Pedro Lopez, who had 110 proven victims.
Source: The Age.
Photo: Siberian Times.
