Why did 21-year-old Russian Jack the Ripper Nikolai Radkevich kill women

The first officially registered serial killer in Russia - 21-year-old Nikolai Radkevich shocked the public of the capital with his cruelty in 1909. Surprisingly, the jury handed down an unexpectedly mild verdict against the St. Petersburg Jack the Ripper, but fate turned out to be a stricter judge.

Historians claim that there have always been maniacs, even during antiquity and the Middle Ages. But the first officially registered serial killer is the famous Jack the Ripper. His Russian "colleague" was Nikolai Radkevich, who is better known as "Vadim Krovyanik".

The exact date of Radkevich's birth is not known, but at the investigation, the killer named 1888 — the period of his predecessor's bloody crimes in London. And in 1909, St. Petersburg was already shuddering with horror, which was created by 21-year-old Vadim Krovyanik.

The orchestra of cadets of the Novgorod Count Arakcheev cadet corps

Blind rage and an unrestrained desire for revenge determined the further behavior of the rejected and humiliated lover. He was watching his abuser and when he saw her in the company of another, he rushed at the woman with a knife. But the ardent teenager overestimated his capabilities, the new boyfriend instantly neutralized the attacker and handed him over to the police. The scandal was hushed up, but his military career was over — he was expelled from the cadet corps with a bang. After this incident, Nikolai Radkevich decided that now the goal of his life would be "cleansing the world of depraved women."

One of the streets of St. Petersburg in 1909

Head of the St. Petersburg Detective Police Vladimir Gavrilovich Filippov

Priestess of love at the beginning of the XX century

The police drew attention to the fact that the murdered prostitutes were pretty brunettes, and Levina also turned out to be an attractive dark-haired woman. This already pointed to a plausible motive for the crimes — revenge on the fairer sex of a certain appearance and demeanor.

This is what the "yellow ticket" looked like - a prostitute's document in The Russian Empire, where prostitution was legal

Fatal for the Russian Jack the Ripper was September 19, 1909. On this day, adhering to his bloody "scenario", the attacker lured Maria Budochnikova to the Kyao Hotel. He stabbed her 35 times, robbed her and left a note with the following content:

The only surviving image of Nikolai Radkevich

In the photo: the main psychiatric hospital of St. Petersburg - the Hospital of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.

In his last speech at the trial , the defendant uttered the following words:

These words made an extremely strong impression on the jury. Their verdict turned out to be extremely "soft", and the maniac received only 8 years of hard labor. But he was not destined to serve out his sentence — in 1916 he was killed by his cellmates during the stage to the place of detention.