Victims 10-18 Name Oleg Kuznetsov | Span of killings 1991–1992 | |
Other names False DmitriDmitry the Liar Country Soviet UnionRussiaUkraine Similar Viktor Mokhov, Mikhail Popkov, Sergei Martynov (serial killer) | ||
Oleg Vladimirovich Kuznetsov (Russian: Олег Владимирович Кузнецов; born April 30, 1969) is a Russian serial killer who was convicted of killing 10 women and girls.
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Early Life
Oleg Kuznetsov was born on April 30, 1969 in Balashikha, Moscow Oblast, Soviet Union. His parents divorced when he was five years old. Kuznetsov lived with his mother and was not allowed to speak to his mother. He displayed an asocial personality in his childhood but was sexually active by the age of sixteen. He later served in the Soviet Army and was stationed in Kiev.
Kuznetsov returned to Balashikha in 1989.
Crimes
He started his criminal career at the age of 16 as a serial rapist. Kuznetsov later claimed to have committed as many as 500 or 600 rapes.
In May 1991, Kuznetsov committed his first murder while working as a truck driver. According to Kuznetsov, he was demanded money after consensual sex with a woman in exchange for her not reporting it as Rape. He then killed her after beating her with a wrench and tying her to a tree.
In November 1991, Kuznetsov met his ex-girlfriend near a cemetery in Balashikha and raped her. She told him that she would not report it to police but later did report the rape. Kuznetsov then fled to Kiev and began introducing himself to women as "Dima Fadeev", which caused him to later receive the moniker of "False Dmitry."
In the murders, Kuznetsov would lure his victims to a restaurant that he claimed was "in the park". He would also place an eye-catching or desirable object such as jewelry on the sidewalk and ambush women then they stopped to pick it up. He would kill the victims by stabbing them with a knife and also stabbed their eyes, as he believed that the eyes carried a snapshot of the killer. He later moved to Moscow.
Aftermath
Investigators believed that the suspect may be from Balashikha and a bank employee identified Kuznetsov as having deposited a large sum of money in Balashikha. Surveillance was set up at his parent's house and a panic button was installed at his ex-girlfriends apartment, who he had reportedly contacted. Kuznetsov went to his ex-girlfriends apartment but left before authorities could catch up with him. He was then arrested on a tram without incident. At one point he confessed to 18 murders, but 8 of them have never been substantiated.
Kuznetsov was sentenced to Death in December 1993. However, this was commuted to life imprisonment when capital punishment was indefinitely suspended in Russia in 1999.