Moscow, Russia,Dec.10 : A Russian court on Monday found an ex-policeman guilty of 56 murders, while he is already serving a life sentence for killing 22 women, making him one of Russia’s most infamous serial killers.
The court in the Siberian city of Irkutsk found Mikhail Popkov “guilty of killing 56 people between 1992 and 2007,” Irkutsk regional prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Popkov had confessed to 59 murders but was convicted of only 56 as prosecutors failed to bring up evidence supporting the claim.
Prosecutors said Popkov “has a pathological attraction to killing people.” He was also found guilty of raping 10 of the victims.
Popkov in 2015 was found guilty of killing 22 women. He received a second life sentence on top of the one he is already serving and was also formally deprived of his pension as a former policeman.
He killed his victims after offering them rides late at night, sometimes in a police car, while he was off-duty around his home city of Angarsk near Irkutsk.
The number of killings for which he has been convicted exceeds the total of several notorious murderers in Russia and the ex-Soviet Union.
Prasanta Patnaik