Vladimir Mirgorod

Case summary

Vladimir Mirgorod was sentenced to life in prison for killing at least sixteen people in Moscow between 2002 and 2004.

The offence

The Moscow City Court established that Mirgorod killed 16 people, including 15 women and a 13-year-old teenager. Prosecutors said he raped several of his victims before suffocating them. The victims died from asphyxia at the scenes of the crimes, strangled with a cord. Another account said the victims were strangled with a trouser belt, and some victims were raped before killing.

A trial account described killings and sexual assaults linked to Mirgorod during 2002 and 2003, when he was 24. The defendant pleaded partial guilt. The court’s spokesman said he was not married, and could not say anything about the murderer’s motive.

Investigation

The Prosecutor General’s Office said the crimes had not been cleared up for a time because Mirgorod was serving a sentence for rape and robbery between 2005 and 2010. Investigators later checked his fingerprints after his release in 2010, and found they were identical to fingerprints left at four crime scenes. Further scientific analysis gave investigators enough evidence to charge him with the killings.

The trial account said police began to suspect Vladimir Mirgorod in 2010 while digitizing archives. Officers used an electronic program and found that fingerprints of recently freed Mirgorod fit prints allegedly belonging to the strangler. Mirgorod was arrested again, initially charged with 7 murders, and later found guilty of 16.

Arrest

Mirgorod was released in 2010 after serving his sentence for robbery and rape. After investigators checked his fingerprints and identified matches to crime scenes, he was arrested again.

Trial

The Moscow City Court sentenced Mirgorod to life in prison on January 29, 2012. The court imposed life in a special regime prison.

The trial was closed to the public.

Sentencing

The Moscow City Court handed down a life sentence to 32-year-old Vladimir Mirgorod.

Outcome

Mirgorod was sentenced to life in prison for the killings.

Aftermath

Mirgorod would spend the rest of his life in special regime prison.

Other details

Mirgorod evaded arrest for several years because he was serving a separate jail sentence. The trial account said he was arrested in 2004 for robbery and was in prison for 5.5 years.

A trial account described public rumours in Summer 2003 about hideous murders in the north and north-east of Moscow, with girls’ bodies tied up and strangled and some showing signs of rape. It said there were at least 10 victims at that time, though several other women were able to escape. One escaping woman said she struggled for 20 minutes and that karate lessons had helped. She said the rapist fled when a passersby approached. She also said: “I offered him money, he said he had enough, he wouldn’t rest until he strangled her.” She added: “The girls also said the man had mad glassified eyes.” Another account said Mirgorod was not interested in money and had enough.

A trial account said the Ministry of the Interior denied any connection between the murders, and that minister Boris Gryzlov told journalists that Moscow militia did not believe that a serial killer was likely.

The trial account described a modus operandi in which Mirgorod chat up his victims and they invited him to their homes, after which he began to assault the women in parks and in the streets.

The trial account described specific incidents:

• One of the first crimes was committed in January 2003. The body of a 25-year-old girl was found in the flat she was renting on Leningradskoye highway. The victim was tied up with a slipknot around her neck. The girl’s relatives told investigators some valuables were missing from the flat.
• In March 2003, the criminal raped a student and then strangled her with her own scarf. A few days later, another 20-year-old girl was killed in the same way.
• Another victim was a 34-year-old woman from Novosibirsk found dead in her rented flat on Matros Zheleznyak street.
• At the end of June 2003, a 43-year-old woman and her 16-year-old son were killed: first the mother, then the son, who came home and caught the murderer red-handed. The trial account said Mirgorod hanged the boy on a belt.
• In July, the next victim, a 28-year-old woman from Moscow, was found in the Botanical gardens. The clothes on the deceased were torn, she was tied up, gagged and strangled.
• The trial account said his last victim was found on Yablochkova street and identified Irina Gero as 28 years old, who worked in the Moscow City Duma. It said she was strangled with a trouser belt.