Sukletin, Alexey Vasilievich

The Early Years and First Crimes

Alexey Sukletin was born on March 23, 1943 ^[6] in Kazan ^[7] . His mother worked as a nurse in military hospitals (it is known that she was alive in 1985 when Sukletin was arrested on suspicion of a series of murders ^[5] ). Information about the father is not available. At school, Alex studied mediocre. As a teenager, he began to drink a lot of alcohol , as a result of which he became inadequate ^[6] .

The first crime Alexei Sukletin committed in February 1960 at the age of 16 years. At night, he attacked the girl, hit him on the head with a heavy object and tried to rape her. The sacrifice was saved by the appearance of two young people. The criminal tried to drive them away, but was detained as a result ^[6] . Sukletin was sentenced to 2 years in prison. He served a sentence in an educational labor colony ^[6] , and upon reaching adulthood he was transferred to a forced labor colony ^[8] .

In 1964, Sukletin committed a new crime, acting together with drinking companions. Once the company had no money for alcohol, and Sukletin told his friends about an elderly woman who lived nearby. The criminals entered her apartment together, introducing themselves as gas workers. Then they hit the woman with a heavy object on the head and took 80 rubles. The victim remained alive and reported to the police about the attack ^[6] . The criminals were detained a few hours later at the nearest pub ^[9] .

Alexey Sukletin was sentenced to 12 years in prison. While serving his sentence, he collaborated with law enforcement agencies, telling them about each violation ^{[5] [6]} . Sukletin also read many books in the colony. Later he used his well-readness to seduce women ^[6] .

Meet Madina Shakirova

In 1976, Sukletin was released. He got a job as a worker in the Tatremstroybyt trust, where he never went to work ^[5] , worked as a watchman in the horticultural partnership Voskhod, from where he was fired for absenteeism ^[6] . In 1978, Sukletin got a job as a nurse in a psychiatric hospital ^[5] . A year later, in 1979, he changed jobs, again becoming a summer cottage guard, this time at the Kaenlyk Gardening Partnership in the urban-type settlement Vasilyevo, Zelenodolsky District ^{[6] [10]} .

Having been released, Sukletin married, but constantly cheated on his wife, systematically tortured her. When the wife became pregnant, Sukletin divorced her ^[11] . After that, in 1979, he met 23-year-old Madina Nurgazizovna Shakirova, a native of Vasilyevo ^[12] , and began to cohabit with her ^[13] . According to the testimony of the lawyer Shakirova Boris Rybak, the watchman told his client and other women that he was allegedly serving his sentence in the camps of Kazakhstan and fled from prison ^[14] . Before meeting Sukletin, Madina Shakirova went to work in Uzbekistan , then moved to Kazan , where she worked as a turner in a factory ^[6] , and as a rabbit breeder on a farm ^[5] . Shakirova had a child whom she abandoned and gave to her parents, and she herself moved to Sukletin ^{[2] [15]} .

Soon Sukletin and Shakirova began criminal activity. At first they were engaged in extortion . They always acted in the same way. By order of Sukletin, Shakirova traveled from Vasilyevo to Kazan. Late in the evening, she took a taxi back to Vasilyevo. She complained to the taxi driver that her husband was cheating on her. When they came home to Sukletin, Shakirova suggested that the taxi driver spend the night together. If the taxi driver agreed, Sukletin and his accomplice Rinat Volkov burst into the bedroom, playing the role of a jealous husband and brother Shakirova. They beat the taxi driver and demanded money from him, and also photographed him in obscene poses and demanded that they give 200 rubles under the threat of the distribution of photos. The next day, the taxi driver gave the required amount ^[6] .

Murders

Soon after meeting Madina Shakirova, Aleksey Sukletin informed her of his desire to kill women and then eat their meat . He told Shakirova about the emperor of the Central African Empire, Bokassa , known as the cannibal, who was his idol ^[16] . Another idol of Sukletin was Jack the Ripper - the legendary British serial killer of the XIX century, whose identity was not established ^[17] .

Sukletin committed his first murder in November 1979 (according to other sources, in November 1981). He invited 22-year-old Ekaterina Osetrova to his home, introducing her to Shakirova as her sister (according to some reports, Osetrova was a prostitute ^[18] ). A feast took place, and at night Sukletin and Osetrova together went into the bedroom and entered into sexual intercourse. Then Shakirova offered Sturgeon a drink, distracting her, and Sukletin took a hammer wrapped in a rag and hit Osetrova on the head with it ^[13] . After that, he put the victim in a trough, tied her hands with a rope and cut her throat. Sukletin drank the blood of the Sturgeon when she was still alive, and forced Shakirova to drink with him. When Osetrova died, the maniac hung her corpse and, mocking him, cut out the soft tissues and internal organs of the victim. Shakirova helped him do this ^[13] . The remains of the blood of the slaughtered glass in a baby bath ^[19] . The killer ate the heart, liver and lungs of the Sturgeon. Shakirova prepared borsch and dumplings ^[20] from the remains of the victim and ate this together with her roommate ^[2] . Sukletin and Shakirova also fed meat to the victims of dogs. The bones of the murdered criminals were buried under the water tower ^[2] (according to other sources - by the barrel ^[5] ).

Sukletin killed all his subsequent victims in this way: he hit them on the head with a hammer or against the wall with his head, then in most cases he cut his throat (in one case, a blow to the head with a hammer became fatal). Before committing the murder, the maniac drank a large amount of alcohol ^[21] . After the death of the victim, Sukletin and Shakirova dismembered her corpse and ate soft tissue for food. The accomplice washed the bloodied clothes and linen of Sukletin, together with the roommate ate the remains of the victims. However, she did not directly participate in the killings ^[22] . The bones of all subsequent murdered criminals buried in the same place as the bones of Ekaterina Osetrova. Sometimes Shakirova kept the things of the victims. Under the guise of tenderloin or pork for barbecue, Sukletin and Shakirova sold human meat to neighbors ^{[3] [6]} . According to Farid Zagidullin, who was the head of the investigative unit of the Tatarstan prosecutor’s office in 1985 (he later became deputy prosecutor of Tatarstan ^[23] ), the adult victims of Sukletin led an asocial lifestyle: they were engaged in prostitution, vagrancy, and suffered from alcoholism ^[24] .

In January 1980 (according to other sources, in January 1982), Sukletin committed the second murder. Together with Shakirova, he met two girls and invited them to celebrate the New Year . At night, Sukletin killed and ate one of the girls, 22-year-old Tatyana Illarionova. The maniac did not touch the second of the girls, because she seemed to him too thin. When the surviving girl woke up, Sukletin told her that Illarionova had to get up early in the morning and leave for Kazan. Using Tatyana Illarionova’s passport, Madina Shakirova took an Elf tape recorder from the rental salon ^[13] .

The third victim of the maniac was the 15-year-old ^[13] (according to other sources - the 16-year-old ^[5] ) Rezeda Galimova. Sukletin lured the girl to his summer cottage, saying that he would solve her problems with her studies. The maniac raped Galimov and killed her with two blows of a hammer on the head. The victim begged Shakirova to leave her alive, but she refused to help her. Subsequently, Shakirova took away the sweater of the murdered ^[13] .

Sukletin committed the fourth and fifth murders almost simultaneously. The cannibal lured 22-year-old Nadezhda Sityavina to his site. He announced to Shakirova that he would now cohabit with Sitiavina, and presented Hope to his mother, who lived in Zelenodolsk ^[5] . Returning to his station, the watchman killed Sityavin ^[25] . Then Sukletin lured 19-year-old Natalia Shkolnikova, a work colleague of Nadezhda Sityavina. She identified Sityavina’s clothes on Madina Shakirova, after which she was killed ^{[5] [26]} .

The sixth and youngest victim of Alexei Sukletin was 11-year-old ^{[6] [13]} (according to other sources - 12-year-old ^[5] ) Valentina Elikova. Having met the girl in Kazan, the maniac introduced himself as her uncle and took her to his home. There he hit Elikov with his head on the wall, raped, killed and ate. Madina Shakirova tried to save the child, but Sukletin severely beat her. After the murder of Valentina Elikova, he ordered Shakirova to abduct the baby, but Shakirova refused. She left Sukletin and returned to her parents, but did not tell anyone about his crimes ^[6] . After the flight, Shakirova Sukletin raped the young daughter of his friend Boris. He got her location by talking about a nonexistent nephew living in Italy , for whom he promised to marry the girl ^[27] .

The new cohabitant of Alexei Sukletin was 23-year-old Lidia Fedorova, prone to excessive drinking. She came to the maniac, accompanied by her relative Anatoly Nikitin. Together with Sukletin, they had parties and drank alcohol. However, the new roommate of the guard refused to help him kill women and eat them. She threatened Sukletin to tell the police about his crimes. On March 12, 1985, Alexei Sukletin and Anatoly Nikitin raped and killed Lydia Fedorova, who became the seventh and last victim of the Kazan Eater, burned her clothes, mocking her corpse, dismembered him and consumed soft tissues for food. On March 18, 1985, Madina Shakirova returned to Sukletin. In order to conceal the murder of Lydia Fedorova, she cleaned the roommate and washed his bloodied linen ^[13] .

According to the recollections of the neighbors, Alexey Sukletin did not arouse suspicion among them. They knew him as a good conversationalist and drinking companion who could repair the roof, dig potatoes, recite a poem, was a hospitable host ^[28] . Women liked sukletin and enjoyed their success ^[13] . At the same time, the maniac liked to call passers-by children “meatballs”, and said that they would “fry” them ^[26] . Vasilievskaya police visited Sukletin, but the watchman did not arouse any suspicion ^[29] . In Soviet society in the mid-1980s, it was not customary to talk about serial killers, which were considered a characteristic feature of the capitalist countries, as a result of which law enforcement authorities kept secret the disappearance of women and girls in Vasilievo ^[5] . Disappearance of people was attributed to accidents ^[30] .

The identity of the offender and the motive for the killing

According to Sukletin himself, he was a serial “missionary” killer : the maniac motivated his crimes by the fact that many of his victims were prostitutes, and claimed that he was cleansing society of the “immoral element” ^{[31] [32]} . At the same time, according to Madina Shakirova, the cannibal experienced pleasure at the time of the murder, turning into a "real beast" and "Satan" ^[22] . The offender said that he was worried only during the commission of the first murder, and when committing further fear did not feel ^[33] .

A forensic psychiatric examination conducted during the investigation noted psychopathic character traits in Sukletin’s personality: egocentrism, increased excitability, cruelty, revenge — which did not deprive him of the ability to direct his actions ^[21] . Madina Shakirova characterized her roommate as a very cunning and cruel person, for whom “there is nothing sacred.” According to her, Sukletin tried three times to kill her, looked at women only as a possible source of meat. She also said:

Arrest

The long absence of Lydia Fedorova interested in law enforcement. Their representatives visited Sukletin and asked him questions about her whereabouts, but the maniac replied that he did not have information about this ^[6] . Soon after the murder of Fedorova, he went into a binge. Sukletina was visited by his drinking companion Gennady Uglov, who worked at the guard's site. The corners asked Sukletin where Lydia Fedorova was. In response, the maniac showed the guest the burial place of her remains ^[2] . Uglov was financially dependent on Sukletin, who promised to make an entry in Gennady's work book so that he would avoid criminal liability for parasitism . Therefore, the criminal hoped that Uglov would not tell about the murder of Fedorova ^[5] . However, on June 3, 1985, Gennady filed an application with the police ^[6] .

Initially, they did not believe Uglov’s words, but when the investigators came to Sukletin’s house, they smelled a cadaverous smell, and forensic expert Alexander Fedyunov found a piece of human skin in the courtyard ^[6] . Four bags of human bones were collected in the garden on the Sukletina site ^[6] , half a bucket of melted human fat was found in the utility room ^[34] . The Olympic champion in weightlifting Nikolay Kolesnikov participated in the capture of the cannibal, in 1985 he worked as a senior detective officer of the Tatarstan Criminal Investigation Department for especially important cases ^[2] . He found a nail in the criminal’s house, on which Sukletin hung the bodies of the victims, as well as boards and knives used by the maniac to cut corpses ^[3] . At the same time, no traces of blood were found at the crime scene ^[35] . On June 4, 1985, the day after Gennady Uglov filed a statement with the police, Aleksey Sukletin was arrested ^[2] . A few hours later, Madina Shakirova was also arrested ^[6] . When the residents of Vasilyevo learned that the watchman was a murderer and cannibal, they burned his house ^[36] , and organized a landfill on the site of the house ^[37] .

Investigation, trial and execution

At the first interrogations, Alexey Sukletin said that the investigation would not be able to prove his guilt in the killings. However, investigator Farid Zagidullin was able to obtain a confession from Madina Shakirova, saying that she would face the death penalty if she remained silent. Frightened that her daughter would remain an orphan, Shakirova began to testify, taking a total of 70 sheets of text ^[5] .

Sukletin was transferred to Moscow for a forensic psychiatric examination at the Serbsky Institute ^[5] . During the examination, the offender stated that he did not feel pity for the dead ^[33] and remorse for the crimes committed. When asked if he was afraid of God and the Last Judgment , Sukletin answered:

According to the results of a forensic psychiatric examination, Aleksey Sukletin was declared sane , despite his attempts to imitate insanity ^[6] , and was transferred back to Kazan ^[32] . In the pre-trial detention center, Sukletin did exercises, intensely engaged in physical exercises, planning an escape ^[38] . He tried to gain authority among the prisoners, but after a fight with a cellmate he fell into the lower prison caste of the “ lowered ” ^[39] .

Trying to tighten the investigation, the maniac talked about crimes that he did not commit ^{[6] [40]} . He demanded 50 rubles, cigarettes and tea for issuing the remains of each victim. Having written six confessions and not having received money for the seventh, the cannibal refused to go for interrogations, spent all day lying on the bunk in the cell, cursing others. Farid Zagidullin himself had to intervene. Sukletin spoke of the crimes he committed with pleasure and in the smallest details ^[41] . He presented Farid Zagidullin with a photograph on which he left an autograph and an inscription: “In memory of the first meeting with the cannibal” ^[42] . The investigation in the Sukletin case lasted until March 3, 1986 ^[43] . During the trial, the maniac behaved calmly. As in the investigation, he spoke in detail and with pleasure about his crimes, interrupted the course of meetings to smoke ^[44] .

On April 18, 1986, Alexey Sukletin was sentenced to an exceptional measure of punishment - the death penalty by shooting ^[7] . Before the execution, the maniac made women's shoes out of bread and presented them to Farid Zagidullin ^[2] . On July 29, 1987, the sentence was carried out in Kazan ^{[6] [45]} .

For Madina Shakirova, the prosecution also requested the death penalty. However, the court took into account extenuating circumstances: the defendant's repentance of the crimes committed, as well as the fact that she was involved in criminal activity by Sukletin under the threat of murder ^[45] . Shakirova was sentenced to 15 years in prison. Anatoly Nikitin was also sentenced to 15 years in prison for the murder of Lydia Fedorova, Rinat Volkov - to 7 years in prison for extortion (Volkov’s further fate is unknown) ^{[5] [46]} . When Shakirova was serving her sentence, her cellmates refused to accept her, nicknamed "Dina the meat grinder." Initially, Shakirova was detained in a colony in Kozlovka ( Chuvashia ), where other prisoners fought with her. After that, she was transferred to a colony in the Plesetsk district of the Arkhangelsk region , where other convicts announced a conspiracy of silence to her ^[47] . In 2001, Shakirova and Nikitin were released ^[5] . The media received erroneous reports that Madina Shakirova died in 2005 ^[4] , but in 2008 she was alive and gave an interview to the television program City. After Shakirova’s release, her relatives did not accept her, and she herself tried to communicate with other people as little as possible ^[48] . The fate of Anatoly Nikitin after his release is unknown.

• Sergey Sherstnev. Bloody nights of the watchman Sukletina (neopr.) . Special report of the TV show “City” (2008). Date of treatment July 14, 2019.
• Rinat Ibragimov, Adele Khairov. Vasilievsky cannibal. Telecast "Black Lake", series 1 (neopr.) . TNV (2013). Date of treatment July 14, 2019.

• A.K. Bataev . The end of the bloody devil. - Naberezhnye Chelny: KAMAZ, 1993. - 96 p. - 100,000 copies.
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