Igor Suprunyuck

Case identification

• Name: Igor Suprunyuck
• Also known as (Ukr): Ігор Супрунюк
• Also known as (Rus): Игорь Супрунюк

Status

• Igor Suprunyuck was sentenced to life in prison on February 11, 2009.
• The Supreme Court of Ukraine upheld the life sentences on November 24, 2009.

Timeline

• June 25, 2007 (late at night) — Ekaterina Ilchenko was killed.
• Around June 25, 2007 (within an hour of the first murder) — Roman Tatarevich was attacked and killed.
• July 1, 2007 — Evgeniya Grischenko and Nikolai Serchuk were found murdered in Novomoskovsk.
• Night of July 6, 2007 — Egor Nechvoloda, Elena Shram, and Valentina Hanzha were murdered in Dnepropetrovsk.
• July 7, 2007 — Two 14-year-old boys from Podgorodnoye were attacked while fishing; Andrei Sidyuck was killed and Vadim Lyakhov escaped.
• July 12, 2007 — Sergei Yatzenko went missing while riding his Dnepr motorcycle.
• July 14, 2007 — Natalia Mamarchuk was killed near Diyovka; the attack was witnessed and matched the description given by Vadim Lyakhov.
• July 16, 2007 — Sergei Yatzenko’s body was found.
• July 14–16, 2007 — Victims were found every day from July 14 through 16.
• July 23, 2007 — The three suspects were arrested.
• June 2008 — The trial began.
• October 29, 2008 — Video and photographic evidence was shown in court as part of a larger presentation.
• January 2009 — Caitlin Moran wrote about the video in her column in The Times.
• February 11, 2009 — The court in Dnepropetrovsk found the defendants guilty and sentenced them.
• August 18, 2009 — The Supreme Court of Ukraine referred the case back to the Dnepropetrovsk regional court of appeal.
• October 5, 2009 — The appeal was scheduled.
• November 24, 2009 — The Supreme Court of Ukraine upheld the life sentences passed in February 2009.
• December 4, 2008 — The murder video of Sergei Yatzenko was leaked to a shock site based in the United States and dated December 4, 2008.

Background

• The case gained additional notoriety because the killers made video recordings of some of the murders, with one of the videos leaking to the Internet.
• Vladimir Suprunyuck, Igor Suprunyuck’s father, stated in an interview to Segodnya that he had been employed at Yuzhmash as a test pilot, often flying with Leonid Kuchma, the future president of Ukraine, and continuing to serve as his personal pilot on domestic flights after Kuchma’s rise to power.
• Local media reported that the suspects had wealthy influential parents with ties to local law enforcement.
• Local authorities, including deputy interior minister Nikolay Kupyanskiy, initially referred to the supposed influence of the suspects’ families, but later denied the assessment, claiming that all three suspects came from poor families.

The offence

Number of incidents and charges

• The three men were charged with involvement in 29 separate incidents, including 21 murders and 8 more attacks where the victims survived.
• Igor Suprunyuck was charged with 27 of the cases, including:
  • 21 counts of capital murder
  • 8 armed robberies
  • 1 count of animal cruelty
• Viktor Sayenko was charged with 25 instances, including:
  • 18 murders
  • 5 robberies
  • 1 count of animal cruelty
• Alexander Hanzha was charged with two counts of armed robbery, stemming from a March 1, 2007 incident in Dniprodzerzhynsk.

Murders and methods described

• Victims were seemingly selected at random.
• Many victims were vulnerable to attack, including women, children, elderly, vagrants, or people under the influence of alcohol.
• Most victims were killed using blunt objects, including hammers and steel construction bars.
• Blows were often directed at the victims' faces, leaving them unrecognizable.
• Many victims were also mutilated and tortured, and some had their eyes gouged out while they were still alive.
• One victim was a pregnant woman, whose fetus was cut out of her womb.
• No sexual assaults on any victims were reported.
• Some victims were robbed of their cell phones and other valuables; their possessions were pawned to a large network of second-hand shops in the area, though most victims had their possessions intact.
• The murders spanned a large geographical area, including the city of Dnepropetrovsk and outlying areas of the Dnepropetrovsk Oblast.
• In addition to the earlier sprees, two victims were found every day from July 14 through 16.

Victims listed in the narrative

1. Ekaterina Ilchenko (33-year-old local woman)

   • She was walking home after having tea at her female friend’s apartment.
   • According to Sayenko’s confession, he and Suprunyuck were “out for a walk”.
   • Suprunyuck had a hammer.
   • As Ilchenko walked past, Suprunyuck “spun around” and struck her in the side of the head.
   • Ilchenko’s body was found by her mother at 5 AM.

2. Roman Tatarevich

   • Attacked within an hour of the first murder while sleeping on a bench a short walk away from the first murder scene.
   • Tatarevich’s head was smashed with blunt objects numerous times, rendering him unrecognizable.
   • The bench was located across the street from the local Public Prosecutor’s office.

3. Evgeniya Grischenko (found murdered)

4. Nikolai Serchuk (found murdered)

   • On July 1, the two were found murdered in the nearby town of Novomoskovsk.

5. Egor Nechvoloda

   • A recently discharged army recruit.
   • Bludgeoned while walking home from a night club.
   • His mother found the body in the morning by their apartment building on Bohdan Khmelnytsky Street.

6. Elena Shram (28-year-old night guard)

   • Murdered around the corner on Kosiora Street.
   • According to Sayenko’s taped confession, as Shram walked towards them, Suprunyuck struck her with the hammer he had been hiding under his shirt and struck her several more times after she fell down.
   • She was carrying a bag filled with clothes.
   • The men picked up the bag, used the clothes to clean the hammer, and threw the bag out.

7. Valentina Hanzha

   • Murdered later the same night.
   • She was described as a mother of three married to a disabled husband.
   • No apparent relation to co-defendant Alexander Hanzha.

8. Andrei Sidyuck (14-year-old boy)

   • Attacked in broad daylight as he and a friend went fishing.
   • Killed on July 7 in Podgorodnoye.

9. Vadim Lyakhov (14-year-old boy)

   • The other 14-year-old boy attacked on July 7 in Podgorodnoye.
   • He managed to escape.

10. Sergei Yatzenko (48-year-old man)

• Disabled by a recent bout with cancer.
• Went missing while riding his Dnepr motorcycle on July 12.
• His body was found four days later.
• The attack left signs of a savage attack visible even after four days in the summer heat.

11. Natalia Mamarchuk (45-year-old woman)

• Riding her scooter in the nearby village of Diyovka.

• As she passed through a wooded area, two men ran towards her and knocked her down.

• They then took out a hammer or a pipe and bludgeoned her to death as she lay on the ground.

• After she stopped moving, the men jumped on her scooter and drove off.

• The attack was witnessed from a distance by many locals; they gave chase but quickly lost sight of the attackers.

• Two local children also witnessed the attack from up close, hidden in a tent just a few feet away.

• They provided a detailed description that matched the one given by Lyakhov.

• The narrative also states that thirteen more murders followed, often with multiple bodies found in the same day, and that many victims were found in the same day after the first sprees.

Investigation

Link established and initial misdirection

• No official link between the murders was made until the July 7 attack on two boys in Podgorodnoye.
• Vadim Lyakhov, the survivor, was initially placed under arrest, suspected of murdering his friend.
• He was reportedly denied access to counsel and beaten by police during questioning.
• It quickly became clear that he was not responsible for his friend’s death, and that the murder was connected with the murder spree.

Cooperation and sketches

• Lyakhov cooperated with investigators to create sketches of the attackers.

Task force and scale

• A task force was quickly set up from Kiev, headed by Lead Criminal Investigator Vasily Paskalov.
• The manhunt grew to encompass most of the local law enforcement.
• Reportedly over 2,000 investigators were working on the case.
• The investigation was initially kept secret:
  • No official information about the murders was released.
  • Local people were not warned about possible attacks or provided with descriptions of the suspects.
  • Rumors kept most of the local population home at night.

Pawn shops and selective distribution

• Eventually, investigators selectively distributed sketches and lists of stolen property to local pawn shops.
• Stolen property began to appear in pawn shops in the city’s Leninskiy district.
• The combination of the sketches and located stolen property led quickly to the suspects.

Arrest and trial

Arrest details

• The three suspects were arrested on July 23, 2007.
• Suprunyuck attempted to sell a mobile phone stolen from one of the victims in a local pawn shop, asking for 150 hryvnia (about US $20).
• When the phone was turned on to show that it worked, its location was traced by law enforcement agents.
• Suprunyuck and Sayenko were arrested near the cash register of the shop.
• Hanzha was arrested at home, reportedly managing to flush other stolen mobile phones down the toilet.
• The phones were recovered, but all information on them was lost.

Confessions and trial posture

• All three men confessed quickly, although Suprunyuck later withdrew his confession.
• The trial began in June 2008.
• Suprunyuck pleaded not guilty; the other two suspects pleaded guilty to all charges.
• Viktor Chevguz, Suprunyuck’s original defense lawyer, dropped out after reportedly being disappointed at failing to have a plea of insanity for his client accepted.
• The case was heard by a panel of judges chaired by Judge Ivan Senchenko.

Prosecution and defense positions at trial

• Prosecution evidence included bloodstains on the suspects’ clothing and video recordings of the murders.
• The defense denied that the people in the videos were the suspects and claimed serious problems with the investigation, including:
  • At least 10 more murders covered up by the prosecution.
  • Supposed cover-ups of additional arrests of people with powerful connections who were released without being charged, including naming some additional people supposedly involved with the murders.

Sentencing

Sentences imposed

• On February 11, 2009, the court in Dnepropetrovsk found the defendants guilty and sentenced them:
  • Igor Suprunyuck — life imprisonment for premeditated murder.
  • Viktor Sayenko — life imprisonment for premeditated murder.
  • Alexander Hanzha — nine years in prison.
• The court’s findings at sentencing included:
  • Suprunyuck found guilty of 21 murders.
  • Sayenko found guilty of 18 murders.
  • They also received fifteen years sentences after being found guilty on the robbery charges.
  • Hanzha was found guilty of robbery and sentenced to nine years in prison.
• Ukraine has no capital punishment.

Judge’s stated remarks

• The judge stated in the verdict that the motive for the crimes had been a desire for “morbid self-affirmation”.
• Referring to the accused, the court noted “the poverty of their emotional world, and their absence of interest in people and moral standards.”
• The verdict was several hundred pages long and was read out over a period of two days.

Statements by Hanzha

• Alexander Hanzha said of Suprunyuck and Sayenko:
  • “If I had known the atrocities that they were capable of committing, I would have not gone near them at gunpoint.”

Appeals and outcome

• The lawyers for Suprunyuck and Sayenko launched an appeal.
• The claim was dismissed by Edmund Saakian, a lawyer for one of the victims’ families, who commented:
  • “In theory a photo can be faked, but to fake a forty minute video would require a studio and a whole year.”
• Larissa Dovgal, a representative of the victims’ families, claimed that other perpetrators involved in the crimes could still be at large.
• On August 18, 2009, the Supreme Court of Ukraine referred the case back to the Dnepropetrovsk regional court of appeal.
• The appeal was scheduled for October 5, 2009.
• On November 24, 2009, the Supreme Court of Ukraine upheld the life sentences passed in February 2009.
• Alexander Hanzha did not appeal against his nine year sentence.

Motive as described in the case

• The prosecution did not establish a specific motive behind the killings.
• Local media reported that the killers had a plan to get rich from the murder videos that they recorded.
• One of the suspects’ girlfriends reported that they were planning to make forty videos of separate murders.
• This was corroborated by a suspects’ former classmate, who claimed that he often heard Suprunyuck was in contact with an unknown “rich foreign website operator” who ordered forty snuff videos, and would pay a large sum of money once they were made.
• Regional security chief Ivan Stupak rejected the claim that the murders had been committed to make Internet snuff videos, saying that no evidence had come to light during the investigation that supported the claim.
• Detective Bogdan Vlasenko stated:
  • “We think they were doing it as a hobby, to have a collection of memories when they get old.”
• Deputy interior minister Nikolay Kupyanskiy commented:
  • “For these young men, murder was like entertainment or hunting.”
• At the trial, it emerged that Suprunyuck had collected newspaper cuttings about the case.
• Some photographs of the crimes had captions added, including “The weak must die. The strongest will conquer.”

Defence claims and related testimony

• The defence team consisted of three lawyers, one assigned to each suspect.
• All three lawyers were originally court-appointed, but after initial hearings Viktor Sayenko requested to be represented by his father instead of his previous lawyer, who had apparently graduated from law school only two months earlier.
• The request was granted and led to a significant delay as Sayenko’s father familiarized himself with multiple volumes of evidence.
• Igor Sayenko became prominent on the defence side, giving numerous interviews and taking a leading role in court proceedings.
• Hanzha’s attorneys based their defence on the fact that he never participated in the murder spree and was involved only with a single incident four months before the spree began, involving two men robbed in Dniprodzerzhynsk.
• Hanzha fully admitted his guilt, hoping for leniency in sentencing.

Defence allegations about evidence and searches

• The defence strategy for the other two suspects was to attack the prosecution across a wide front.
• Multiple investigators testified, including the leader of the arrest team and the lead investigator.
• The defence claimed illegal searches, improperly kept records, and problems during questioning.
• Igor Sayenko raised questions about the videotape of the searches conducted in the suspects' apartments:
  • According to Sayenko, the tape constantly stops and restarts, showing the evidence obtained only after being picked up by investigators, but never the actual moment of discovery.
• The legal team also denied that people shown in the murder videos were the suspects, claiming they were recognized instantly as different individuals.

Claims about a fourth suspect and alleged judicial reaction

• In an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda, Igor Sayenko claimed that a fourth suspect named Danila Kozlov was initially charged with the murders.
• Tatiana Shram, sister of victim Elena Shram, stated in an interview that she saw Kozlov’s name mentioned in court documents.
• Shram said Kozlov was reportedly aware of the murders and was with the suspects just before her sister was murdered.
• Shram further stated that investigators told her Kozlov remained free because he “did not murder anyone”.
• Shram said that when her attorney attempted to bring up the matter in court, the judge “asked him to sit down”.
• Authorities in Ukraine strongly denied that a fourth person was involved who could still be at large, and said rumors of similar crimes taking place since the arrest were unfounded.

Igor Sayenko’s speculation and alleged eyewitness claims

• Igor Sayenko continued to speculate about the influence of the families of the “real killers”.
• Sayenko claimed he conducted interviews with an escaped victim who wanted his identity kept secret out of fear for his life.
• The unnamed victim claimed he identified the suspects in his attack and that two other men were identified and arrested.
• The suspects were allegedly released an hour later due to pressure from their families, and two investigators were fired.
• In court, Sayenko also said that four days before the three suspects were arrested, police caught two men and a woman committing one of the murders.
• Sayenko said the suspects attacked the police officers but were arrested and booked under the names of Sayenko and Suprunyuck, but were not the men on trial:
  • “But now these details are being covered up,”
  • “The investigators claim that this did not happen.”
  • “But there are people, officers in the Militsiya, who on July 19, 2007 received reports that those three were arrested. [...]But, alas, it turned out that the persons arrested had powerful parents. So the information was quickly suppressed, and instead my son and two of his friends were railroaded.”
  • “I also believe that the girl arrested on that day has since left the country and is now in Germany.”
• The defence team also claimed the prosecution withheld court information that exonerated their clients.
• Viktor Sayenko claimed that police interviewed witnesses and recovered evidence from two additional murders; he said his clients had a strong alibi for those murders and so the information was removed from the case.

Claims about psychological dependence and fear

• Viktor Sayenko’s defence claimed he had a “psychological dependence” on Igor Suprunyuck, called the ringleader.
• The defence claimed that Suprunyuck repeatedly threatened Sayenko and that Sayenko feared for his life.
• Sayenko testified that he had been in constant fear of Suprunyuck since 7th grade.

Support from victims’ families and planned monitoring

• Some of the victims’ relatives were reportedly dissatisfied with the slow-moving legal process and an alleged cover-up by investigators.
• Some relatives said they planned to set up an independent organization to monitor court proceedings.

Murder videos and photographs (court treatment and described content)

Evidence shown in court

• The suspects’ cell phones and personal computers contained multiple video recordings of the murders.
• One full video was leaked to the Internet, showing the murder of 48-year-old Sergei Yatzenko.
• The photographic evidence showed the suspects attending funerals of the victims and smiling while “flipping off” coffins and gravestones.
• Evidence of animal abuse was also shown in court, with the suspects posing alongside mutilated animal corpses.
• The photographic and video evidence was shown in court on October 29, 2008, as part of a larger presentation of over 300 photographs and two videos.

Defence objections and judge response

• The defense objected to the presentation, claiming:
  • The evidence was obtained illegally.
  • The subjects shown in the video and photographs were digitally altered to resemble the suspects.
• When Suprunyuck and Sayenko were asked if they recognized people in the photographs, they replied that they did not.
• Judge Ivan Senchenko responded:
  • “You are not blind.”
• The court rejected all objections and accepted the prosecution’s argument that the material was genuine and showed the suspects in the act of murdering victims.

The Sergei Yatzenko video (leaked and described)

• The man whose murder was recorded in the leaked video was identified as Sergei Yatzenko from the village of Taromskoye.
• His murder took place on July 12, 2007, and his body was found on July 16.
• In the video, he was seen laying on his back in a wooded area and struck repeatedly in the face with a hammer held inside a plastic bag.
• One of the attackers poked out Yatzenko’s eyes and stabbed him in the abdomen with a screwdriver.
• Yatzenko was then struck with the hammer to ensure he was dead.
• The attack lasted over four minutes; during it Yatzenko lapsed in and out of consciousness.
• One attacker smiled toward the camera.
• The murderers walked back to their car, showing the crime took place a few feet away from the side of a road next to their parked car.
• They discussed the murder calmly, expressing mild amazement that the victim was still breathing after a screwdriver was plunged into his exposed brain.
• The suspects washed their hands and the hammer with a water bottle and began to laugh.
• Only two suspects appeared to be present in the video, with one always behind the camera.

Leaked video and public reactions

• The murder video of Sergei Yatzenko was leaked to a shock site based in the United States and dated December 4, 2008.
• Ekaterina Levchenko, adviser to Ukraine's Minister of the Interior, was critical of the leak, but admitted that control of videos on the Internet was “virtually impossible”.
• Caitlin Moran of The Times watched part of the video and recalled her reaction in her column in January 2009.
• Parts of the video became a viral video known as “3Guys1Hammer”.
• Some YouTube users posted videos recording their reactions while watching the murder video.

The victim: Sergei Yatzenko (as described)

• Yatzenko had recently been forced into retirement due to a cancerous tumor in his throat.
• The treatment left him unable to speak for some time, but he was unhappy with being unable to work and continued to find odd jobs around the village.
• He took on small construction projects, fixed cars, weaved baskets, and cooked for his family.
• He was beginning to regain his voice by the time of the murder.
• He was married and had two sons and one grandchild.
• He had a disabled mother whom he looked after.
• Sixteen years earlier, Yatzenko had another brush with death when, while working at a farm, he lost control of his tractor and rolled downhill into a river.
• Yatzenko stayed in the cabin trying to save the vehicle and became pinned underwater; he was clinically dead when freed but was resuscitated.
• Doctors called his survival “one in a thousand”.
• Around 2:30 PM on the day of the murder, he called his wife to let her know he was riding his old Dnepr motorcycle to see his grandchild.
• He never arrived at his son’s house; his cell phone was turned off by 6 PM.
• His wife Lyudmila called a friend and walked around the village, afraid he might have fallen ill or had a motorcycle accident.
• They were unable to locate signs of him.
• They were unable to file a missing persons report because in Ukraine a person could not be declared missing until at least 72 hours after last being seen.
• The next day, Lyudmila posted photographs of her husband around the village and enlisted more local help to search the surrounding area.
• Four days later, a local who saw one of Lyudmila’s posters remembered seeing an abandoned Dnepr bike in a remote wooded area by a garbage dump.
• The local took Yatzenko’s relatives to the scene, where they discovered his mutilated and decomposing body.
• The fact that Yatzenko’s murder was captured on video was unknown to the public until a court session on October 29, 2008.
• The court agreed with the prosecution that the video was genuine and showed Igor Suprunyuck attacking the victim, and that Viktor Sayenko was the man behind the camera.

Other people involved

Co-defendants

• Viktor Sayenko
  • Arrested with Suprunyuck.
  • Found guilty at the same time as Suprunyuck and received life imprisonment.
• Alexander Hanzha
  • Was charged with two armed robberies before the murder spree.
  • Was found guilty of robbery and sentenced to nine years in prison.
  • Was found guilty on the animal cruelty charges.

Lead investigator

• Lead Criminal Investigator Vasily Paskalov headed the task force set up from Kiev.

Judge

• Judge Ivan Senchenko chaired the panel of judges.

Additional officials mentioned

• Deputy interior minister Nikolay Kupyanskiy
• Regional security chief Ivan Stupak
• Detective Bogdan Vlasenko
• Edmund Saakian
• Larissa Dovgal

Defence and relationships (as described in the narrative)

• The three suspects were lifelong friends who attended school together.
• According to interviews with the suspects’ families:
  • Sayenko and Hanzha were friends from an early age.
  • Suprunyuck moved to the area later, and the three became friends in the third grade.
• One teacher reported that Suprunyuck was shy and withdrawn, but always picking fights and getting into trouble.
• By the fifth grade, the boys had their first brush with the law when they were caught throwing rocks at passing trains.
• By the eighth grade the three suspects had found more common ground.
• Sayenko stated during questioning:
  • “Me and Igor [Suprunyuck ] were both afraid of heights, and we were afraid we'd be beaten up by bullies”
• The narrative describes Suprunyuck being involved in hanging over a balcony railing for hours with the other boys standing on a balcony of their 14th floor apartment.
• Hanzha was described as the most squeamish of the three, with blood phobia.
• Suprunyuck suggested tackling fears by torturing stray dogs.
• The boys reportedly captured dogs in a wooded area near their house, hung them from trees, disembowel them, and took pictures standing next to the corpses.
• Prosecution evidence included photos taken by the underage suspects, showing them drawing swastikas and other symbols with animal blood and giving the Hitler salute.
• In one photo, Suprunyuck posed sporting a “Hitler moustache”.
• Suprunyuck was born on April 20, the same day as Adolf Hitler, and often made references to the fact.
• A long video showing the three torturing a white kitten was shown in court.
  • The video took place in their garage.
  • The suspects fashioned a cross out of two wooden boards and nailed the kitten to it, then shot at it with two pistols.
  • Foam and glue were placed in its mouth to muffle the kitten’s screams.

Financial or operational details mentioned

• Some murders involved robbery of cell phones and other valuables, with possessions pawned to a network of second-hand shops.
• The narrative described the plan to get rich from murder videos recorded by the killers.
• Suprunyuck was described as having an unlicensed taxi; a green Daewoo Lanos with a taxicab checkerboard marking was described as a vehicle used in the murders.
• According to confessions, some murder victims were picked up as passengers in Suprunyuck’s unlicensed cab.
• It was reported that Suprunyuck collected newspaper cuttings about the case.

Aftermath and prison-related reporting

• In an interview with the newspaper Novi Most, the mothers of Suprunyuck and Sayenko said that their children were being treated well in prison.
• It was also reported that Igor Sayenko was considering setting up a website about the case.
• The parents of Suprunyuck and Sayenko repeated their belief in the innocence of their sons.
• Vladimir Suprunyuck claimed Igor had been tortured to extract his confession, stating that police covered his head and forced him to inhale cigarette smoke.
• Igor Sayenko claimed his son had been made a scapegoat and that the crimes had been committed by relatives of senior officials.
• The parents planned to appeal to the Supreme Court of Ukraine and the European Court of Human Rights.
• The parents also argued that the sentence on Alexander Hanzha had been too lenient.
• An opinion poll conducted in Dnepropetrovsk found that 50.3% of people believed that the sentence was fair, and 48.6% believed that the sentence should have been more severe.