Yuri

**Yuri** is a suspected serial killer whose thought to have murdered at least five people in Belarus.

## Overview

### Early life and Bus Hijacking

Yuri studied at Molodechno school No. 1.

On July 7, 2003, the then 20-year-old **Yuri** broke into a bus station and demanded a bus to Minsk. When he heard all the buses had left already, he held a knife up to the throat of "Katerina," a pregnant 19-year-old who worked as a cashier at the bus station, and held her hostage.

**Yuri** and the victim then boarded a bus to Minsk. The ordeal lasted over seven hours before Yuri released the hostage and was detained by the Belarusian security forces. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison for this crime.

### After he was released from prison

After Yuri was released from prison, he lived in the Molodechno region for many years and cleaned pools there. in 2018, he bought a farm near the village of Tarnovo in 2018. Yuri liked photography and fishing. He also helped the local animal shelter. In mid-december of 2019, the animal shelter was full, so he took in five puppies on his farm until a home was found for them.

He was described as an ordinary calm, quiet person by his friends and neighbors. Nobody thought he was capable of murder. However, leading up to the murders, Yuri began to drink a lot. Some people believe this may have influenced him.

### The murder of "Svetlana"

On the evening of December 25, 2019, Yuri, his friend Gennady, and Svetlana, a 41-year-old woman, were drinking together in his farmhouse. Yuri suddenly became very angry and strangled Svetlana to death in front of Gennady. Yuri then cut off Svetlana's head and limbs in his shed with an axe. He then burned Svetlana's remains - aside from her torso - in his stove along with his axe. Then he went back to his shed, dug up the dirt floor, and poured bleach over it so that investigators wouldn't be able to find her blood.

He then buried her torso a few kilometers away from his home.

Yuri then talked to Gennady, who witnessed the murder, but didn't interfere or contact the police, about keeping it a secret. Yuri planned to eventually kill Gennady too, but wasn't able to do so in time.

### Yuri is arrested

Ten days later, Svetlana's sister, Baranovichi, reported her missing after not being able to contact her for over a week. Vitaly Gavrilkevich, a police officer, suspected that Yuri murdered Svetlana. This was because remains were found in the Svisloch river which were initially thought to be Svetlana's, (it turned out that it was an unrelated case) and there was a train stop 50 meters away from Yuri's home which he could have easily used to transport the remains to the Svisloch river.

Investigators then go to Yuri's house, and Yuri invites them inside. He said that Svetlana left on December 26, in the morning.

Authorities didn't find anything in Yuri's home, so they talked to his friend, Gennady. Gennady feared that he would go to jail for not reporting the murder, so he initially tells that police that Svetlana left in the morning, but he later confesses to witnessing Yuri murdering Svetlana.

The police then arrested Yuri. A forensic crew then arrived at his farm and inspected it. But they found nothing linking Yuri to the murder. So the police then talk to Gennady again, who tells them to look at the fence. So, the next morning, forensic experts examined the fence and found three droplets of Svetlana's blood.

The community was shocked. One police officer who was working on the case got a New Year's greeting card from Yuri, which stated "*Vladimirovich, Happy New Year! All the best!*." Vitaly, the officer that received the greeting card, later got an award from the Grodno Department of Internal Affairs for his work on the case. And he donated the money from the award to Svetlana's family.

### Other murders

Yuri is suspected of murdering at least four other people.

A resident of Brest stated *“He said he had killed at least five people, of different sexes and ages. He named the woman who helped him around the house, and the man who did various work on his plot. He carefully planned all the murders, thought everything over in advance in order to do everything secretly and hide the traces as much as possible. He says that he did it. After a while, he went to the police website, where he saw that the people he had killed were listed as missing. He admitted that this fact made him very happy. And since no one could solve his murders, his impunity gave rise to his desire to continue killing people."*

During Yuri's interrogation, he asked for his hands to be tied to his chair so he couldn't attack interrogator. He was angry because his family stopped speaking to him.

## References

1. "He said there were at least five victims." Details of a horrific murder near Lida, in which a bus hijacker is suspected 17 years ago - go015.ru