Serhiy Tkach was actually a Ukrainian police criminal investigator turned serial killer. Originally from Russia, he confessed to killing over 100 people. Suffocation and strangulation were his favorite ways to complete his evil deeds. He was also known to perform necrophilia upon these victims. The victims were females from 8 to 18 years of age.
One of the worst serial killer may have been caught in Ukraine, according to local police. Prosecutors claim a former forensic expert Sergey Tkach has confessed to killing 40 people, but 60 other deaths are unsolved. It’s alleged that Tkach went on a murder spree for the past 25 years, mainly targeting girls and young women. He is said to have looked for his victims near the roads and railways to make detectives think that the killer came from another city. He reportedly left no clues and used the tracks to escape. Tkach was arrested two years ago at home after allegedly strangling his friend’s daughter. He says he was finally caught when other children from the village recognised him at the funeral as the man who’d been seen with the girl before she died.
When police arrived at his door, he surrendered and said that he had been waiting for them all these years. ”He told us that he was a military officer and that he was in Afghanistan, he even showed us his wounds. Other neighbours say that he was a very smart man, very quiet. No one could have thought that he was the man police were looking for,” said Viktoria Kozachukhno, Sergey Tkach’s neighbour. Tkach married three times and has four children. His co-workers and friends say he never treated or spoke about women badly.
Meanwhile, detectives believe there was a sexual motive behind the attacks. ”Twenty or 25 years on he still remembers how tall the girls were, and where he hunted them down. I think that he’s even proud of it. Usually such people shut down but he is savouring every part of the story in front of a camera,” commented Viktor Olkhovsky, police colonel, but the accused man says he only did it to mock the incompetence of his former police colleagues. Police say Tkach has pleaded guilty to numerous crimes but refused to apologise for any of them. Psychologists have found him fit to stand trial, and it is not only the families of the victims who are anxiously waiting for a verdict. Up to ten men have been previously convicted for crimes, that Tkach now claims to have committed. The court hearings are held in private because most victims were underage girls.
Gennady Mikhasevich does not fit the profile of the typical serial killer. He lived a relatively normal life, even after he began killing. Born in 1947, he spent time serving in the Soviet army, married and had two children, and was an active participant in the Communist Party and other volunteer organizations. The turning point, if Mikhasevich is to be believed, was after he left the army and returned home to find his girlfriend at the time had left him and remarried. He was planning on killing himself in May of 1971, even to the point of having a noose with him, when by chance he met a woman. His suicidal impulses instead turned murderous and he vented his anger by strangling the girl to death. His next victim came later that year, in October, with two more the following year. In the meantime, he was attending technical school and acting the model citizen. Those who knew him had no suspicion that he was capable of such crimes. As the killing continued, Mikhasevich volunteered with the local police department, helping to track down the person responsible for the killing. He even conducted some of the interviews of those suspected of being involved. His victims were all women, killed by strangulation. Some of these were accompanied by rape. He would generally lure them into his car by offering them a ride and then take them to an isolated place to kill them. He sometimes used his scarf to strangle them, but is also known to have improvised with whatever happened to be at hand. Sometimes he would rob his victims as well, giving the more expensive items as gifts to his wife.
The police had been hunting down the person responsible for the killings since 1973, though it took them quite a while to finally catch up with Mikhasevich. The corruption of the Soviet police department meant that many shortcuts were taken so that investigators could promote their own careers. Several others were arrested for the murders and some of them even executed. This left Mikhasevich free to continue his spree. In 1984, he stepped up his killing, claiming 14 victims. Another 12 women were killed the following year. In order to throw the police off his trail, Mikhasevich left a note claiming that the murders were politically motivated. This proved to be his undoing, as the police managed to match his handwriting to that of the note. He was eventually arrested on December 9th, 1985. He resisted at first, but later admitted to the killings and led the police to where he had hidden his victims’ belongings. Gennady Mikhasevich was convicted and executed by firing squad.
Hadj Mohammed Mesfewi was a Moroccan serial killer who was found to have killed at least 36 women. He was a cobbler and public letter writer. The bodies of 26 women were found under his shop and an additional ten were found buried on property owned by Mesfewi. He was aided by a 70-year-old female accomplice named Rahali, also reported as Annah, during the course of the murders. They would lure young women to dinner, administer a narcotic, and then murder them in their sleep. The victims were then robbed of any valuables they possessed and subsequently buried. They were also mutilated with a dagger.
Ali Asghar Borujerdi is the first Iranian serial killer and rapist reported in the 20th century. Moving to Iraq as a child with his family, he started assaulting, raping and latermurdering adolescent boys in Baghdad since he was fourteen years old. Escaped back to Iran in 1933, he continued his murders in Tehran where he was eventually arrested and executed. Asghar Qatel was convicted for raping and killing 33 young adults eight in Tehran and the rest in Baghdad.
Ali Asghar Borujerdi was born in 1893 in Borujerd, Western Iran. His father, Ali Mirza, was a famous road thief attackingcaravans around Borujerd, Malayer and Persian Iraq - central parts of modern Iran including Qom, Saveh and Arak. His family, including Ali Aghar, his mother, and his siblings left Borujerd to the holy city of Karbala in Iraq when Asghar was eight years old. Six years later, when Ali Asghar was fourteen, he moved on to Baghdad, where he started to sexually abuse adolescent boys. He learned to kill them in order to get rid of police who were observing him for assaulting and raping young adults. According to his testimony, he killed 25 people in Iraq before escaping back to Iran. In 1933, Ali Asghar was about to be reported to police after he was watched by another boy while he was raping and killing the last Iraqi teenager. Soon he found out that it was unsafe to stay in Baghdad, and as a result he immediately escaped back to Iran. Asghar did not go back to his hometown of Borujerd. Instead he started his new life in the capital city of Tehran, where soon he found it easy to trace and hunt new victims.
During the early days of Stalin, Vasili Komaroff was a horse-trader known as "The Wolf of Moscow". Vasili mainly killed for money. His first victim was uncovered in 1921. Twenty-one victims in all were found either strangled, bound, doubled-over and dumped in vacant lots around the Shabolovki District. Authorities linked the killings to the horse-trading market in Moscow that happened every Wednesday and Friday. Authorities soon discovered, anyone whom left with Vasili to see his horses were never to be seen or heard from again. Police found his latest victim stuffed in a sack in the stable upon questioning him. Panicked, "The Wolf of Moscow" jumped out the window and escaped. Several days later he was picked up and confessed to thirty-three murders, eleven not under investigation. Within the next few days he uncovered five new corpses for the authorities. The other six victims he dumped in the river and their bodies were never recovered. Vasili named his wife Sofia as an accomplice in which they were both found guilty of multiple homicides and sentenced to death. On June 18, 1923, they were disposed of via firing squad.
Ramadan Abdel Rehim Mansouralso- Al-Tourbini ('Express Train'). Egyptian street gang leader and serial killer who raped and murdered at least 32 children in the course of seven years. All of his victims were 10 to 14 years old, most of them boys. The gang would lure street children onto the carriage roof of the trains, where they then raped and tortured the children, and tossed them onto the trackside, dead or barely alive. Some of the children were dumped into the Nile, or buried alive.
Not much of Karl Denke’s early life has been recorded aside from the fact that he was a terrible student and ran away from home at age 12. 25 years old when his father died, Karl used the inheritance to buy property in the small town of Münsterberg - today known as Ziębice - about 60km south of Wrocław. In Münsterberg, Karl was known as a generous, caring and devout local citizen, even referred to by some as ‘Vater Denke’ or Father Denke. He carried the cross at Evangelist funerals and played the organ during church services. Despite living a lower middle-class lifestyle, he helped beggars and travellers, giving them a place to stay if they were in need. He didn’t drink alcohol and he wasn’t known to have relationships with women.
Like many in Germany after WWI, however, he lost his savings due to rampant inflation and was forced to also sell his house, though he continued to rent an apartment in the building on the ground floor. Well-liked and respected around town, Denke regularly sold suspenders, belts, shoelaces and other leather goods in the local market and sometimes even door to door. He also frequently travelled to Breslau (now Wrocław), where he was licensed by the Butchers Guild to sell pork in the city’s markets - all of it boneless, pickled and in jars. It was a time of crisis and his goods were popular, allowing him to maintain a decent enough living. By now you can probably guess where this is going. Denke’s double life unraveled quickly when on December 21st, 1924 a vagrant appeared at the Münsterberg police station covered in blood, claiming he had barely escaped from Father Denke’s apartment with his life. Police were loath to believe the unknown beggar, but a brief medical examination revealed that he had sustained a serious head wound, corroborating his story that he had been attacked with an axe. Police went to question Denke, who explained that he had indeed attacked the vagrant as the man was attempting to rob him after receiving a handout. Denke was taken to the police station and put in a holding cell for the night, only to be found dead when an officer went to look in on him later that same night. He had hung himself with a small handkerchief.
It was not until the corpse had been turned over to relatives and the police went to Denke’s apartment to secure his belongings on Christmas Eve that the people of Münsterberg discovered exactly what kind of man had been living among them. What authorities discovered inside was essentially a meat processing shop that lab tests would later confirm was full of human remains, including hundreds of bones, stretched and dehydrated human skin, tubs of fat, jars of meat pickling in brine, and a closet full of blood-stained clothing, as well as the tools for the work, including equipment for making soap. Dozens of documents and identification papers were also found, including Denke’s own extensive ledgers detailing his work, from which authorities were able to positively identify the names of 20 victims – most of them recently released from prisons and hospitals. Based on all the evidence found in Denke’s apartment, it is believed that the formerly high-standing citizen was actually responsible for murdering, dismembering, pickling and processing more than 40 people in a rather short span of 3-4 years. Needless to say, despite the holiday, there was a dip in pork sales in Breslau that Christmas.
David Thabo Simelane was born in Swaziland in 1956 and grew up in Ngcoseni. He is a Swazi serial killer who caused havoc from the late 1990s until late 2001. His murder spree began in 1997, around the time he was released from prison for a prior conviction of rape. It was one of the many times, about 18, since 1976 that he had been convicted of robbery and rape. The last conviction was significant because he would later claim that he had robbed the woman but he had never raped her. For him, the 28 women and children he would later kill were revenge for the wrongful conviction. Simelane lured most of his victims to the woods of Malkerns with job prospects where he would then kill and bury them in shallow graves. He seemed to have had an accomplice called Vilakati on whose farm the first six bodies were uncovered in July 2000. Two Mozambicans he hired to dig the graves tipped off the police who then launched a manhunt for Vilakati. They found him eight months later and chased him through a maize field before they shot him dead. After his arrest, Simelane led the police to shallow graves in Manzini where 45 bodies were found, including several pregnant women. Many of them had been strangled but some had been stabbed with a knife. Simelane was found guilty of a total of 28 murders and acquitted of six. He was sentenced to death in 2011; seven years after his trial began. A total of 83 witnesses testified against him. He claimed that he had been tortured and coerced to confess to the murders.
Dean Corll was a 33-year-old electrician living in Houston, Texas, who with two teen accomplices was responsible for kidnapping, torturing, raping and murdering at least 27 young boys in Houston in the early 1970s. The Houston Mass Murders, as the case was later called, became one of the most horrific series of murders in U.S. history. He was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, to Mary Robinson and Arnold Corll. After his parents divorced, Dean and his brother Stanley moved with their mother to Houston, Texas. Dean seemed to adjust to the change, kept a good grade average and was described by teachers as being polite and well-behaved.
In 1964, Corll was drafted into the military, but was released on a hardship discharge a year later so he could return home to help his mother with her growing candy business. It was there that he earned the name, The Candy Man, because often he would treat children to free candy. After the business closed his mother moved to Colorado and Dean began training to become an electrician. There was nothing remarkable about Corll except for his odd choice of friends, who were mostly young male teens. Two, who were particularly close to Corll, was a 14-year-old boy named Elmer Wayne Henley and a 15-year-old boy named David Brooks. The three spent much time hanging around at Corll's house or driving with him in his van. That was until August 8, 1973, when Henley shot and killed Corll at his home. When police interviewed Henley about the shooting and searched Corll's home for evidence, a bizarre and brutal story of torture, rape and murder began to unfold.
While in police custody, Henley began to tell about his relationship with Corll. He said Corll paid him $200 or more "per head" to lure young boys to his house. Most of the boys were from low-income Houston neighborhoods and were easily persuaded to come to a party where there would be free alcohol and drugs. Many were also childhood friends of Henley and had no reason to distrust his intentions. But once inside Corll's home, they would soon become victims of his sadistic and murderous obsessions. Police skepticism towards Henley's story turned after searching Corll's house. Inside they discovered a bedroom that looked as if it was designed for torture and murder. There was a board with handcuffs attached, ropes, a large dildo and plastic covering the carpeted floor. There was also an odd wooden crate with what appeared to be airholes cut into it.
When Henley described what had happened before shooting Corll, the items in the room corroborated his story. According to Henley, he made Corll furious when he brought his young girlfriend over to the house with another friend, Tim Kerley. The group drank and did drugs and each fell asleep. When Henley awoke, his feet were bound and Corll was handcuffing him to his "torture" board. His girlfriend and Tim were also bound with electrical tape over their mouths. Henley was fully aware of what was to follow, having witnessed this same scenario before. He managed to convince Corll to free him by promising to participate in the torture and murder of his friends. Once free, he went along with some of Corll's instructions, including attempting to rape the young woman. Corll meanwhile, was trying to rape Tim, but the young boy fought so much Corll, frustrated, left the room. Henley immediately went for Corll's gun which he left behind. When Corll returned, Henley shot him six times, killing him.
Over the next few days, Henley readily talked about his part in the murderous activity in Corll's house. He led the police to where many of the victims were buried. The first location was a boatshed Corll rented in southwest Houston. There police uncovered the remains of 17 of the boys Corll had murdered. Ten more bodies were found at various other burial sites in or near Houston. Altogether there were 27 bodies recovered. An examination of the victims determined that some of the boys had been shot, others strangled to death. Signs of torture were visible, including castration, objects inserted into the victim's rectums and glass rods pushed into their urethras. All had been sodomized.
There was much criticism launched at the Houston police department for failing to investigate the many missing person's reports filed by the parents of the dead boys. The police viewed most reports as probable runaway cases although many of them came from the same area or neighborhood. The ages of the young victims ranged from ages nine to age 21, however most were in their teens. Two of the families suffered losing two sons to Corll's deadly rage. Henley confessed to knowing about Corll's brutal crimes and also to participating in murdering one of the boys. Brooks, although closer to Corll than Henley, told police that he had no knowledge of the crimes. After the investigation ended, Henley insisted there were three more boys who had been murdered, but their bodies were never found. In a highly publisized trial, Brooks was found guilty of one murder and sentenced to life in prison. Henley was convicted of six of the murders and sentenced to six 99-year-terms. He was not convicted of killing Corll because it was judged as an act of self-defense.
The series was planned for a nine episode run, but after a very mediocre response it has been cancelled after just 2 episodes and pulled from its schedule.
