The Cleaners (serial killers)

The members met in far-right groups on the social media website VKontakte. The leading role among the participants was taken by Pavel Voitov: he distributed roles, made decisions and actively led the activities of the gang. The motives for the killings were the desire to "clean the city", and "hatred of alcoholics and homeless people". They committed murders with particular cruelty in different parts of Moscow, as well as the Moscow Oblast and the Yaroslavl Oblast, from July 2014 and February 2015. Victims were found not far from the Belorussky railway tracks, sometimes in the Eastern Administrative District. The corpses were subsequently found in deserted places, where there are no surveillance cameras (under bridges, near fences, garages, in abandoned hangars or on far-away glades in forest parks): • one killed at the Belorussky station, with 44 knife wounds on the body; • one killed at the hippodrome, with 18 hammer blows and 51 stab wounds on the body; • one killed in Begovaya, with 35 stab wounds on the body; • one killed under the bridge near Workers' Village, with 46 stab wounds and 2 blows from a stone on the body; • two killed on Izmaylovsky Boulevard, one of them with 15 stab wounds and 10 blows from a hammer, and the other sustaining 13 stab wounds; • one killed next to Filevsky Park, with 48 stab wounds on the body; • one killed in Nagornaya, with 9 knife wounds on the body; • one killed in Odintsovo, with 50 stab wounds on the body; • one killed near Kurskaya, with 48 stab wounds and 6 blows from a hammer on the body; • one killed on Lilac Boulevard, with 84 stab wounds on the body; • one killed in Kuskovo, with 171 stab wounds and 5 hammer blows on the body; • two killed on Bryansky Post Street, with one sustaining 42 stab wounds and 2 hammer blows, and the other sustaining 35 stab wounds. == Members ==

The five members of the gang included: Pavel Voitov, Elena Lobacheva, Artur "Narcis" Narcissov, Maxim "Zakirka" Pavlov and Vladislav "Persik" Karataev. Lobacheva and Narcissov lived in Moscow. Lobacheva had grown up on the outskirts of Moscow near the Vykhno metro station, and after school, she worked first as a courier, then as an assistant accountant. Before the murders, she had a suspended sentence for a series of thefts. Narcissov worked in a warehouse, and also as a courier. Karataev was born and lived in Pavlovo, 70 kilometres away from Nizhny Novgorod, with his father raising him. He previously had resided in a psychiatric hospital and had taken medication. The youngest of the "Cleaners", Maxim Pavlov, who at the time of the crimes was only 16, lived in Rostov, Yaroslavl Oblast. He wanted to be a soldier, so, together with Karataev and Pavlov, he tried to go to war against the rebels in the far-right Azov Battalion, but all three were instead deployed on the Russian-Ukrainian border, and then returned home to Moscow by bus. All of the members led a healthy lifestyle and did not drink anything stronger than beer. Subsequent psychological examinations determined that all of the "Cleaners" were sane, with the exception of Karataev, who was recognized as partially sane. == Investigation and arrest ==

In the fall of 2014, operatives paid attention to a similar style of murders in different parts of the city: victims were tricked into visiting scarcely populated or deserted areas, mostly at night, then hit with a hammer first and struck with dozens of knives afterwards, Subsequently, employees of the Main Department of the Sledkom and FSB were able to track the mobile phones in the areas where the killings occurred. Several of the same numbers pinged on communication towers near the crime scenes. Having researched the owners of the numbers, the FSB officers identified the suspects. As a result, on 19 February 2015, the police, together with the FSB, detained 20-year-old Pavel Voitov and 25-year-old Elena Lobacheva—their place of residence was calculated from video cameras installed around the city. During the searches, six knives, an unregistered "Osa" pistol, clothes with the janitor's blood and a hammer were found inside their home. After some time, the police arrested two other suspects—19-year-old Maxim Pavlov and 21-year-old Vladislav Karataev. A little later, 23-year-old Artur Narcissov was also detained. The detainees confessed at the first interrogation, including to the killings, even though the authorities hadn't suspected them of the murders. == Trial ==

The investigation of the "Cleaners" criminal case ended in April 2017, after which the criminals were transferred to the Moscow City Court. Elena Lobacheva demanded that the jury convict them, and this request was fulfilled. From late May to mid-June 2017, the prosecutor read out the evidence of the prosecution in court. Analyzing each episode, he showed the jury photos from the murders. At the first sessions, some jurors turned away from the photographs, but until the end of the process they had to see hundreds of photos. For the entirety of the trial, only Lobacheva's mother came to visit from any of the defendants' relatives. On 23 October 2017, the Moscow City Court sentenced Pavel Voitov to life imprisonment, Elena Lobacheva to 13 years' imprisonment and Maxim Pavlov to 9 years and 6 months' imprisonment in a penal colony. Vladislav Karataev was sentenced to 16 years, and Artur Narcissov to 9 years and 6 months, which were to be served in a corrective labour colony. ==See also==