Vasili Komaroff

Case record: Vasili Komaroff

Background

Vasili Komaroff was a horse-trader who maintained a stable at his home in Moscow’s Shabolovki district. He was known among his neighbors as a friendly, smiling family man. He dealt in horses and was described as highly unlikely to be suspected.

Police hunted a killer who murdered men and dumped their bodies enclosed in sacks in one of the cities poorer neighborhoods in Moscow. The bodies were found enclosed in sacks, and authorities noted that the corpses often appeared the day after horses went to market in the same neighborhood. Investigators observed that victims were nearly always found on Thursday or on Saturday. The market timing seemed to be connected to Wednesday afternoons and Fridays when horses went to market in the neighborhood.

The offence

From the latter part of 1921 through early 1923, Moscow police pursued a brutal executioner of twenty-one male victims. The bodies were described as “trussed like chickens for roasting,” tightly bound in sacks and dumped on waste ground in the Shabolovki neighborhood.

Vasili Komaroff lured men away from the nearby horse market with promises of bargain prices and then killed them. He told reporters that he killed a man who tried to beat him in a horse trade, and that he strangled them or “knocked them on their heads with a hammer.”

Some victims were thrown into a river and were never found. Investigators and Komaroff found additional bodies that were still enclosed in sacks.

Investigation

Investigators heard about Vasili Komaroff from other traders in the district. Traders said it was curious that while Vasili seldom brought a horse to market, he was often seen to leave with customers.

Detectives questioned neighbors of the Komaroffs and learned that family man Vasili had a violent streak behind the ever-present smile. Neighbors said that on one occasion he tried to hang his eldest son, an eight-year-old, but was prevented by his wife, who cut the struggling victim down.

A raiding party visited Vasili’s stable on the pretext of a search for bootleg liquor and found his latest victim trussed and bagged beneath a pile of hay.

Arrest

When authorities paid Komaroff’s stable a visit, they discovered his latest victim under a pile of hay bagged and waiting for dumping. After the police came to his home to question him, Vasili jumped out the window and escaped. Several days later he was picked up and confessed to the killings.

In custody, Vasili Komaroff confessed to being “The Wolf Of Moscow.” He reckoned he had murdered thirty-three men, claiming he lured them away from the nearby horse market. He led investigators to five additional bodies that were still enclosed in the trademark sacks and uncovered by authorities.

Komaroff was said to have killed twenty-one male victims that were part of the police investigation, and he also claimed additional killings. He disposed of half a dozen others in the Moskva River and their remains were never recovered.

Komaroff tried suicide three times, without success. He thereafter trusted in the court to grant him speedy trial and execution.

He told reporters from his cell: “I am fifty-two. I have had a good time and don't want to live any longer.”

When questioned on the nature of his crimes, he said murder was “an awfully easy job.” He also told the press: “I killed a man who tried to beat me in a horse trade. He was the only one who ever resisted. It was very easy. I just knocked them on their heads with a hammer or strangled them to death.”

Trial

Vasili’s murder trial convened on June 7, 1923. His wife was also charged with murder on the theory that she scarcely could have overlooked her husband’s actions.

The trial proceedings were held in Moscow’s huge Polytechnic Museum to accommodate gawkers. In predawn hours of June 8, the court condemned Vasili to be shot within the next three days.

Before the execution, Vasili quipped on departing for his cell: “Well it's my turn to be put in the sack now.”

Sentencing

Both defendants were found guilty of murders. The defendants were sentenced to death and were shot to death by a firing squad on June 18, 1923.

An eleventh-hour change of heart resulted in appeals that delayed the execution, but the fate of the defendants had been sealed.

Outcome

Vasili Komaroff and his wife were executed by a Moscow firing squad on June 18, 1923.

Aftermath

It was stated that Komaroff had implicated his wife Sofia as an accomplice. Authorities had linked the killings to the horse-trading market, which occurred every Wednesday and Friday.