The Beast of Ukraine | Serial Killer Anatoly Onoprienko

The savage killer who took out his rage about being denied a family unit as a child on fifty-two different people all because they were symbols of what he missed.

Anatoly Yuriyovych Onoprienko (Анатолій Юрійович Онопрієнко) was born on July 25th, 1959 in Laski, Zhytomyr Oblast, Ukraine. When Onoprienko was four, his mother died, leaving her two sons, of whom he was the younger by thirteen years, to be raised by their father, aunt, and grandparents. But it wouldn’t last as Onoprienko was handed over to an orphanage in Pryvitne, Volyn Oblast, a few years later; his older brother would remain with their father and surrounded by their family members. It was this that started Onoprienko’s resentment towards families.

Very little is known about Onoprienko, his victims and the lives that they all led. The most that I could find were speculations about Onoprienko. Most say he was a sailor who studied forestry at university, was known to authorities for unknown reasons and was on an outpatient program with a local psychiatric ward at a hospital, again for unknown reasons. Onoprienko is said to have heard voices since the age of seven, when he was first sent to the orphanage.

He claimed that the first living thing he had killed was a deer in the woods in his early twenties. Onoprienko said he had no reason for the act and felt sorry for ending the animal’s life, but he apparently never felt that way again; he never felt guilt or sympathy for the human lives he destroyed. In regards to those victims, Onoprienko said in an interview following his arrest, “I have never felt sorry for those I killed. No love, no hatred, just blind indifference. I don’t see them as individuals, but just as masses.”

After Ukraine’s most extensive manhunt, which involved an entire military division and 2000 police investigators, both federal and local, Onoprienko was arrested on April 16th, 1996, at his girlfriend’s apartment in a village close to the Polish border.

The following are the murders that Onoprienko confessed to in chronological order, but, much like most serial killers, Onoprienko denied most of the murders for a long time. He claimed to have only eight victims upon arrest, but the number very quickly became a horrifying 52 people.

In 1989, while robbing a home with accomplice Sergei Rogozin, a family of ten was murdered; eight children and two adults were slain with weapons the murderers claimed they carried for self-defence.
That same year, a further five people were shot and killed by Onoprienko while they were sleeping in their car. He claimed that he had no intention of murdering them and had only wanted to steal their car. He took their bodies and burnt them.

From here until the next known murders, Onoprienko was in central and western Europe, where barely anything is known about his time. Onoprienko claimed not to have committed any murders, but it’s doubtful that this is true if we believe ONoprienko’s claims that the voices he has been hearing since he was a child were the ones guiding him to murder.

On December 25th, 1995, the Zaichenko family, a unit of two children and two adults, were murdered in their Garmarnia village home in central Ukraine while Onoprienko was robbing their home. He shot them all with a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun. He set the house ablaze with their bodies inside to destroy any evidence he was there.

On January 2nd, 1996, a family of four were shot and killed. They were followed by a male pedestrian who was potentially a witness to their murder and the arson attack on their property.

Four days later, Onoprienko claimed he killed four people in three separate incidents on the Berdyansk-Dnieprovs’k highway. He stopped cars and killed the drivers. The victims were: Kasai, a Ukrainian Navy ensign. Savitsky, a taxi driver. Kochergina, a Kolkhoz cook. And an unidentified victim.

On January 17th, the Pilat family of five were shot and killed in their home, which was set ablaze with their bodies inside. Two potential witnesses were also killed — a twenty-seven-year-old railroad worker, Kondzela and a fifty-six-year-old pedestrian, Zakharko.

On the 30th, Marusia, her two sons, and thirty-two-year-old visitor Zagranichniy were shot dead in Fastiv, Kyiv Oblast. It’s unclear any further details, like the rest of the killings, but it’s most likely that the four were inside a secluded home, gunned down before the house was robbed and burnt to the ground with their bodies inside.

On February 19th, the Dubchank family were killed inside their home in Olevsk, Zhytomyr Oblast. According to Onoprienko, he shot the father and son first, which strayed from his pattern of killing the adults first. He then claimed to have mauled the mother with a hammer before hunting down the daughter. Onoprienko found her praying in her bed; when he demanded she lead him to the money in the home, she refused, and Onoprienko mauled her with the hammer. The house was burglarized and set ablaze.

A week later, the Bodnarchuk family were murdered in their Malyn home; Onoprienko claimed he shot the parents before hacking their daughters, aged 7 and 8, to death with an axe. An hour later, Onoprienko killed a businessman, Tsalk, who was wandering around the property; he was killed in the same manner as the two little girls were.

On March 22nd, the Novosad family were shot and killed inside their home before it was set ablaze with all four bodies inside to eliminate any evidence.

The final victim of Onoprienko’s crimes didn’t come from his hand but rather that of six members of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) and one member of the Public Prosecutor’s Office representative. In the search for the man dubbed “The Terminator”, they captured Yury Mozola in March of 1996, certain that he was the killer tormenting the small villages of the country. The six SBU members and the representative tortured 26-year-old Yury for three days, trying to draw out a confession, but he continued to plead his innocence. On day four after his arrest, Yury succumbed to the injuries from the beatings, burnings, and electric shocks he was forced to endure.
Those responsible were given prison sentences of unknown lengths.

After police arrested Onoprienko, they found 122 items in his possession that linked him to the several murders, most of which were things stolen from victims’ homes that he had held onto.

Onoprienko’s trial took place in late 1998, and while in the courtroom, confined to a steel cage, he admitted to all the murders previously listed. After a lengthy process, Onoprienko was sentenced to death in April 1999, which was commuted to life imprisonment in August of that same year. His sentence changed when Ukraine joined the Council of Europe in 1995; therefore, the death penalty was abolished during the changing period.

On August 27, 2013, he succumbed to heart failure in the prison of Zhytomyr when he was 54 years old.