Serhiy Tkach

Case record: Serhiy Tkach

Background

Serhiy Tkach (Russian: Серге́й Фёдорович Ткач, born 12 September 1952 in Kiselyovsk, RSFSR) was a former Ukrainian police criminal investigator, originally from Russia. He claimed to have killed up to 100 people and was described as a convicted serial killer.

He suffocated girls aged between eight and 18 and performed sexual acts on their bodies after they were dead. He admitted his crimes and demanded the death penalty. Over the years, 9 people had been wrongly jailed for some of the murders for which Tkach was found guilty. One of the men wrongly accused killed himself.

Serhiy Tkach worked for the police in Siberia. After moving to Ukraine, he took on various jobs in coal mines and industrial plants. He was married four times. He had four children and was described as a father of five in trial-related reporting.

The offence

Tkach was accused of committing rape and murder involving young women and girls. A tribunal in Dnipropetrovsk sentenced him to life for the rape and murder of 36 women over more than two decades.

Appeals-court reporting later described findings of guilt for 29 murders and 11 attempted murders. Prosecutor statements described additional murders suspected to have been committed and other crimes not yet investigated. Reporting also stated that some victims had been raped.

Tkach acknowledged in testimony that the murders, dating from 1980, had been “animal-like,” but offered no explanation.

Investigation

Police said young women and girls started disappearing in 1984 in the Dnipropetrovsk region where Tkach was living. Prosecutors claimed a former forensic expert, Sergey Tkach, confessed to killing 40 people, while 60 other deaths were unsolved.

Tkach used professional skills to confuse investigators, often making his escape along rail lines treated with tar to throw tracking dogs off the scent. He was also described as looking for victims near roads and railways to make detectives think that the killer came from another city. Reporting said he reportedly left no clues and used tracks to escape.

A colleague or neighbour account described Tkach as a “very smart man, very quiet,” and suggested no one could have thought he was the person police were looking for.

Verbatim quotation:

“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.

Arrest

Tkach was arrested in southern Ukraine in 2005, where he had been living. Reporting said police arrived at his door and he surrendered, saying he had been waiting for them all these years.

Verbatim quotation:

When police arrived at his door, he surrendered and said that he had been waiting for them all these years.

He was described as being arrested two years ago at home after allegedly strangling his friend’s daughter. Another account said 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.

Trial

The trial of Sergey Tkach opened in Ukraine in December 2007. Court hearings were held in private to protect the rights of the relatives of the victims because most victims were underage girls.

Tkach was described as a 55-year-old father of five and as having been married three times in trial-related reporting. His lawyer was named as Yuri Syrotynko. Tkach was judged sane and was expected to stand trial, with reporting that the trial was expected to last at least six months and that he faced a lifetime in solitary confinement if found guilty. Reporting also noted that the death penalty in Ukraine had been abolished in 2000.

Prosecutor statements described him as being accused of some 40 murders and suspected of 40 other murders under investigation, while another 60 crimes, some committed in Russia, had not been investigated yet. Another reporting described an accusation of some 40 murders in the east and south of the country.

Verbatim quotation:

“The trial of Sergey Tkach started Wednesday behind closed doors, to protect the rights of the relatives of the victims,” a spokeswoman for the prosecutors, Svitlana Tchorna, told AFP.

Verbatim quotation:

“The explanation then became simple sexual pleasure. The fact is, we simply do not know what prompted him to commit these crimes.”

Judge Serhiy Voloshko commented after the verdict. He said:

“No one has been able to determine the motives for his actions. He first said he wanted revenge on women as his wives had mistreated him.”

During testimony, reporting said Tkach was impassive when the sentence was read out. He vowed to appeal.

Tkach’s lawyer Yuri Syrotynko said he had confessed but did not specify exactly to what. Prosecutor-related reporting said Tkach pleaded guilty to numerous crimes but refused to apologise for any of them. Psychologists found him fit to stand trial.

Another account quoted a police colonel, Viktor Olkhovsky, who said:

“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.

Tkach’s account included that he only did it to mock the incompetence of his former police colleagues.

Sentencing

A tribunal in Dnipropetrovsk sentenced Serhiy Tkach to life for the rape and murder of 36 women over more than two decades.

His sentence aligned with the abolition of the death penalty in Ukraine in 2000.

Appeals

An appeals court in the central city of Dnipropetrovsk found Serhiy Tkach guilty for 29 murders and 11 attempted murders. This appeals-court outcome was reported in connection with December 24, 2008 coverage.

The judge’s remarks were reported in comments after the verdict.

Outcome

Serhiy Tkach was sentenced to life in prison on December 23, 2008.

The appeals-court coverage described the final findings as 29 murders and 11 attempted murders. Reporting also stated he claimed to have murdered up to 80 or even 100 people during testimony.

Aftermath

News reports said at least six men were serving time for murders subsequently proven to have been committed by Tkach, captured by police in 2005.

One man was reported to have committed suicide in detention. Another man denied early release during an eight-year sentence and later became destitute and homeless.

Other details

The prison outcome was described as life in solitary confinement if found guilty. Reporting also stated that in 1999 serial killer Anatoli Onoprienko was condemned to death in Ukraine for killing 50 people, but the sentence was never carried out.

Anatoly Onoprienko was described as being convicted in 1996 for hacking to death and strangling 52 people while travelling across the country by train over a seven-year period.

Viktoria Kozachukhno and Viktor Olkhovsky were quoted in reporting about Tkach’s background and behaviour.