Yuri Krinitsyn

Last updated • 5 min readFrom Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Yuri Krinitsyn
Born
Yuri Ivanovich Krinitsyn

1938 (age 85–86)
Moscow, RSFSR
Other names"The Riga Upyr"
Yuri Spitsyn
Conviction(s) N/A
Criminal penalty Involuntary commitment
Details
Victims3
Span of crimes
January –September 1975
Country Soviet Union
State(s) Riga
Date apprehended
25 December 1975
Imprisoned atChernyakhovsk Special Psychiatric Hospital, Chernyakhovsk, Russia

Yuri Ivanovich Krinitsyn (Russian: Ю́рий Ива́нович Крини́цын, born 1938), known as The Riga Upyr, is a Soviet serial killer, robber and extortionist who, between January and September 1975, killed three people in Riga. [1] His last would-be victim, whom he planned to blackmail, was famous composer Raimonds Pauls, who aided the authorities with Krinitsyn's capture. A psychological evaluation deemed that Krinitsyn was incompetent to stand trial, and he was interned at a mental hospital. [2]

Contents

Biography

Early life

Yuri Krinitsyn (or, according to other sources, Spitsyn) was born in Moscow, RSFSR in 1938. Later on, his entire family moved to the Latvian SSR while he was still young. On 13 August 1950, the Krinitsyn family were among the passengers of the steamer Mayakovsky ; the waiting crowd on the pier did not wait for passengers to leave, and started to board the ship. As a result, the steamer was not able to hold the load and sank due to passenger overcrowding. In a matter of minutes, 147 people perished, including Yuri Krinitsyn's parents, but he himself was rescued. However, as his brain had trouble receiving oxygen for a prolonged period before he could be resuscitated, this caused the young boy severe stress, which later on led to him being diagnosed with reactive psychosis. As an adult, Krinitsyn found a job at the Bureau of Hydrodynamics in Riga and got married, but his new wife often cheated on and scolded him for his meagre wage, despite him receiving a salary of 200 roubles, which was considered high by Soviet standards. In order to release tension, Krinitsyn bought a Luger pistol from a friend, with which he went out in the nearby Adazh forest to shoot at targets he positioned on trees. [3]

Murders

One time, while he had yet another quarrel with his wife, Krinitsyn went into the forest to blow off steam. While walking through the forest, he noticed a parked car in a clearing, with the driver sleeping inside. Suddenly, Krinitsyn attempted to shoot the driver, but his pistol misfired, causing him to hastily leave.

In January 1975, Krinitsyn got into the car of taxi driver Mekkers, a former spy for Nazi Germany who lived illegally in the country under a false name, having fled his homeland to escape being drafted into the army. [2] Krinitsyn approached him and offered to take him to the forest, where he shot Mekkers in the back of the head. After killing him, he stole 20 Rbls. 63  kop., which he immediately spent on gifts for his wife. He then drove the man's car to Riga, where he left in a conspicuous place. [lower-alpha 1]

On 14 September, Krinitsyn committed his next crime, killing a KGB operative named Markin, who worked for the Council of Ministers, by shooting him in the back of the head while he was walking along a forested path in Dārziņi. After discovering Markin's corpse, the investigators began to suspect that it was the work of foreign agents since the bullets used were matched to a Luger, a foreign-made weapon. In fact, Krinitsyn was unaware of who his victim was. [2]

Thirteen days later, Krinitsyn killed operative A. Serdechny, an employee of the army's counterintelligence unit. He got into the victim's car and asked for a lift to Langstiņi, and on the way, he shot Serdechny in the back of the head. After killing him, he drove the car and parked it in front of an official KGB building in the capital's centre, before promptly fleeing the scene. [2]

Blackmail of Raimonds Pauls

While waiting at a bus stop, Krinitsyn overheard a conversation between two women, who were discussing the material wealth of famous composer Raimonds Pauls. One of the women told her companion that for Pauls, 17,000 Rbls "amounted to 17 roubles for us", causing Krinitsyn to become infatuated with the idea of acquiring this exact sum from Pauls. He planned to first get the money and then kill the composer after, in order to become an infamous criminal. [2]

On 24 December 1975, Krinitsyn phoned the Pauls' residence and demanded the 17,000 Rbls from the composer, threatening that he would both him and his family members if he refused or notified authorities. He claimed that he had killed seven people so far, and said that Pauls would become his eight if he refused. After initially believing it was a prank call, Pauls eventually contacted an associate who worked in the police department and was convinced to participate in an operation to catch the extortionist. [2]

The following day, Pauls arrived at Mežaparks, carrying a briefcase which was boobytrapped with paint. [2] He left the briefcase on the ground and quickly left, and a few minutes later, Krinitsyn arrived, checked the surrounding area, grabbed it and began to run. He ran into the entrance of a nearby apartment building, whereupon he opened the briefcase and was splashed with paint. A few moments later, he was detained by undercover operatives who were keeping him under surveillance.

During the subsequent interrogation, Krinitsyn denied his guilt in the extortion, claiming that he had found the briefcase by accident and that his curiosity had gotten the better of him. However, Pauls recognized him after authorities played an audio recording of the extortionist's voice, which was recorded from his wiretapped phone. After he was confronted with this, Krinitsyn admitted to the extortion, as well as the three murders he had committed over the past months. According to him, he had killed Mekkers for "desecrating the forest"; Markin for looking back at him too much and Serdechny for being asleep on the job. Krinitsyn showed the investigators where he kept his weapon, that being his shed near his wooden two-storey house on Karevue Street. While exploring the household, authorities found multiple pistols. Krinitsyn also claimed that he would spend hours upon hours in the shed, disassembling and maintaining his pistol. [2]

Initially, Krinitsyn was deemed sane to stand trial, but during the process, his mental state grew worse at a rapid rate. [2] He was sent for a psychiatric examination, which deemed that he was mentally unfit and thus, incapable of understanding the gravity of his actions. As a result, Krinitsyn was interned at a mental hospital, where, over the course of time, his condition deteriorated rapidly and he became unable to communicate verbally. [3]

At present, Krinitsyn is being treated at the Chernyakhovsk Special Psychiatric Hospital in Chernyakhovsk, Russia. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs offered the government of newly independent Latvia to return the convict, but the offer was categorically refused. [4]

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The order of the killings is different in the various media sources

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yuri Gagarin</span> Soviet cosmonaut (1934–1968)

Yuri Alekseyevich Gagarin was a Soviet pilot and cosmonaut who, aboard the first successful crewed spaceflight, became the first human to journey into outer space. Travelling on Vostok 1, Gagarin completed one orbit of Earth on 12 April 1961, with his flight taking 108 minutes. By achieving this major milestone for the Soviet Union amidst the Space Race, he became an international celebrity and was awarded many medals and titles, including the nation's highest distinction: Hero of the Soviet Union.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sergei Kirov</span> Soviet politician and revolutionary (1886–1934)

Sergei Mironovich Kirov was a Russian and Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Kirov became an Old Bolshevik and personal friend to Joseph Stalin, rising through the Communist Party of the Soviet Union ranks to become head of the party in Leningrad and a member of the Politburo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrei Chikatilo</span> Soviet serial killer (1936–1994)

Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo was a Ukrainian-born Soviet serial killer nicknamed the Butcher of Rostov, the Rostov Ripper, and the Red Ripper who sexually assaulted, murdered, and mutilated at least fifty-two women and children between 1978 and 1990 in the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and the Uzbek SSR.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raimonds Pauls</span> Latvian composer and piano player (born 1936)

Ojārs Raimonds Pauls is a Latvian composer and a pianist who is well known in Latvia, Russia, post-Soviet countries and worldwide. He was the Minister of Culture of Latvia from 1988 to 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Friedrich Jeckeln</span> German SS officer and mass murderer (1895–1946)

Friedrich Jeckeln was a German SS commander during the Nazi era. He served as a Higher SS and Police Leader in the occupied Soviet Union during World War II. Jeckeln was the commander of one of the largest groups of Einsatzgruppen death squads and was personally responsible for ordering and organising the deaths of over 100,000 Jews, Romani and others designated by the Nazis as "undesirables". After the end of World War II in Europe, Jeckeln was convicted of war crimes by a Soviet military tribunal in Riga and executed by hanging in 1946.

The Jelgava massacres were the killing of the Jewish population of the city of Jelgava, Latvia that occurred in the second half of July or in early August 1941. The murders were carried out by German police units under the command of Alfred Becu, with a significant contribution by Latvian auxiliary police organized by Mārtiņš Vagulāns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikolai Dzhumagaliev</span> Soviet serial killer

Nikolai Espolovich Dzhumagaliev is a Soviet serial killer, also known as Metal Fang, convicted of the murders of ten people in the Kazakh SSR between 1979 and 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sergey Golovkin</span> Russian serial killer and rapist (1959–1996)

Sergey Aleksandrovich Golovkin was a Soviet-Russian serial killer, rapist and necrophile, convicted for the killing of 11 boys between the ages of 10 and 16 in the Moscow area between 1986 and 1992. Golovkin, also known as Fisher and The Boa, tortured, raped and killed young boys in his garage basement and the forests outside Moscow.

Viktor Ivanovich Ilyin is a Soviet Army deserter who, at the rank of second lieutenant, attempted to assassinate the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev on 22 January 1969 in Moscow.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zoya Fyodorova</span> Russian actress (1907–1981)

Zoya Alekseyevna Fyodorova was a Russian film star who had an affair with American Navy captain Jackson Tate in 1945 and bore a child, Victoria Fyodorova in January 1946. Having rejected the advances of NKVD police head Lavrentiy Beria, the affair was exposed resulting, initially, in a death sentence later reprieved to work camp imprisonment in Siberia; she was released after eight years. She was murdered in her Moscow apartment in 1981. The year before Fyodorova was murdered, she appeared in Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears, which won an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 1980.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Irina Gaidamachuk</span> Russian serial killer (born 1972)

Irina Viktorovna Gaidamachuk is a Russian serial killer who killed 17 elderly women in Sverdlovsk Oblast between 2002 and 2010.

<i>Rage</i> (2014 film) 2014 film by Paco Cabezas

Rage, titled Tokarev in most of Europe and Australia, is a 2014 American action crime thriller film directed by Paco Cabezas and written by Jim Agnew and Sean Keller. The film stars Nicolas Cage, Rachel Nichols, Peter Stormare, Danny Glover, Max Ryan, Judd Lormand and Pasha D. Lychnikoff.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igo (singer)</span> Latvian singer, poet and composer (born 1962)

Rodrigo Fomins better known by the stage name Igo is a Latvian singer, poet and composer of rock and other music styles.

Barry Kenneth Williams, known since 1994 as Harry Street, was a British spree killer. A foundry worker who lived with his parents, he shot eight people in the English Midlands towns of West Bromwich and Nuneaton in little over an hour on 26 October 1978, killing five. Following a high-speed car chase, he was arrested and in 1979 was convicted of manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. He was detained in high-security hospitals under mental health legislation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nikolay Sakharov</span> Executed Soviet serial killer

Nikolay Alexandrovich Sakharov, known as The Vologda Ripper, was a Soviet serial killer, who became a figurant of one of the most high-profile trials in Vologda.

Vyacheslav Vasilievich Markin, known as The Skopinsky Maniac, was a Soviet serial killer, mass murderer, robber, rapist and arsonist who committed six brutal murders.

Alexander Ivanovich Skrynnik (1953–1981), known as The Moldavian Chikatilo, was a Soviet serial killer who committed his crimes in Chișinău and Yakutia.

Sergey Alexandrovich Maduev was one of the famous Soviet brigands, as well as a serial killer. He had the nickname "Chervonets", but he called himself "Thief-outside-the-law". Despite beginning his criminal activity in the 1970s, his most high-profile crimes occurred at the very end of the 1980s, which is why Maduev today is regarded as one of the last criminals of the Soviet era.

Viktor Mikhailovich Selikhov, known as The Naked Demon, was a Soviet serial killer and rapist who, between 1962 and 1964, attacked numerous young girls and women in the Kirghiz SSR's Chuy Region, raping at least 10 and killing 3 of his victims. Noted for his peculiar appearance while committing the crimes, he was arrested, convicted and subsequently executed in 1965.

Sergey Nikolaevich Tsukanov, known as The Cemetery Maniac, is a Soviet-Russian serial killer and rapist who killed eight women in Likhvinka and Tula during two distinct periods. The first series of murders occurred between 1989 and 1991, when he was only 16 years old, and the second took place between 1998 and 1999. In 2000, Tsukanov was deemed incapable to stand trial and was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric clinic.

References

  1. ↑ "Kill the composer". Legends of the Soviet Investigation (in Russian). 2 January 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Ksenia Zagorovskaya (13 September 2011). "One on one with the killer". kp.ru. Retrieved 27 February 2021.
  3. 1 2 "Bullet for the Maestro". The investigation was carried out... (in Russian). НТВ. 3 December 2017.
  4. ↑ Evgeny Kolesnikov (26 December 2017). "How cannibals, serial killers, sex addicts are treated, and why they sometimes are released". versia.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 27 February 2021.

Literature

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.