Alexander Spesivtsev was once again declared insane
Not long ago, a new trial of the cannibalistic maniac Alexander Spesivtsev ended. The sadist, popularly nicknamed the Novokuznetsk Monster, was arrested in the fall of 1996, and the remains of two teenage girls and a woman's head were found in his apartment. 15-year-old Olga Galtseva, who miraculously survived the meat grinder, was also in the maniac's lair. Unfortunately, the schoolgirl died three days later, but before her death she managed to give testimony incriminating her tormentor. The killer faced life imprisonment, but Spesivtsev managed to avoid a penal colony — he was declared insane and sent to a special hospital. In the spring of 2024, Spesivtsev was convicted of killing 15 more people, but his fate has not changed — the sadist continues to be treated in a mental hospital. MK decided to recall the story of one of the most dangerous and ruthless maniacs in the history of Russia.
Photo: ru.freepik.com
The pathological love of Novokuznetsk resident Lyudmila Spesivtseva for her long-awaited son Sasha knew no bounds. The woman gave birth at home: born on the first day of spring 1971, Alexander grew up as a child with health problems — he had headaches, suffered from nosebleeds and suffered from enuresis until the age of seven. Therefore, from childhood, the future maniac was surrounded by total care: they even slept alone in the same bed until Alexander turned 12. Spesivtsev's parent Nikolai did not feel any awe for his son — he was only interested in alcohol.
«The father abused alcohol, when drunk he would cause a row at home, chased his wife and children, and left the family early» (from the conclusion of the medical examination of the Kemerovo Regional Psychiatric Hospital, 1988).
Alexander had no contact with others: his peers bullied him and took his money. The boy's only friend was his mother: after the divorce, Spesivtseva got a job as a lawyer's assistant at the local court, and she and her son developed a new hobby — in the evenings they immersed themselves in the details of criminal cases and looked at the photographs of mutilated human bodies brought by Lyudmila. As often happens with children who are overloved and overprotected, Spesivtsev eventually became an egocentric and uncontrollable teenager. The schoolboy's favorite pastime was vandalism: he burned the buttons in the elevator, wrote fascist slogans and obscene expressions on the walls of the entrance, broke mailboxes and stuck matches in the door locks of his neighbors. The residents of the house quickly figured out the identity of the hooligan and turned to Lyudmila with a demand to rein in her offspring. But she categorically denied her son's guilt, and spat furiously at those who tried to prove the opposite.
His mother's blind patronage convinced Spesivtsev of his impunity, and he hastened to move to a new level of lawlessness — he began to steal. Alexander stole everything that caught his eye: mainly bicycles and neighbors' correspondence, and in 1988 he even broke into one of the school classrooms and stole radio components from there. The thief was identified and a criminal case was opened against him. However, at the very first court hearing, Spesivtsev behaved extremely inappropriately — he began to bang his head against the wall. During the examination, Alexander was found to have mental disorders and was sent to a mental hospital for a couple of months.
«… The commission came to the conclusion that Spesivtsev A.N. suffers from a chronic mental illness in the form of schizophrenia» (from the conclusion of the medical examination of the Kemerovo Regional Psychiatric Hospital, 1988).
A few years later, 21-year-old Alexander made an attempt to start his own family and began dating 17-year-old fellow countrywoman Evgenia. At first, Zhenia doted on her lover and even introduced him to her family as a groom. However, Spesivtsev's specific diagnosis soon made itself known — under a far-fetched pretext, he almost crippled his bride, who ended up in the hospital with a concussion. A couple of days later, the would-be suitor tried to finish off Zhenia right in the hospital ward, but was stopped by the medical staff who arrived in time. The frightened Evgenia decided to end all relations with the aggressor, but underestimated the treachery of her former groom.
When the girl was discharged from the hospital, Spesivtsev lured her to his apartment under a plausible pretext. His mother and sister moved to another home, allegedly so as not to disturb the young couple. Zhenya's parents also believed in their daughter's intention to move in with her fiancé, and so they raised the alarm only a month after her disappearance. And the girl ended up in hell: holding her in his room, Spesivtsev turned on loud music and began to beat the unfortunate girl. In the process of tormenting her, the maniac burned the victim's body with a lighter and stabbed her with a knife. One of the unhealed wounds led to sepsis, from which Evgenia eventually died. When the door of the Spesivtsevs' apartment was broken down by operatives searching for the missing girl, they saw that the body was spread out on the bed, and Alexander was lying next to her. During interrogations, he claimed that he had not laid a finger on his bride, but, on the contrary, had nursed the sick Zhenya as best he could. Lyudmila echoed her son's sentiments — she said that during the visit she had seen Sasha trying to feed the girl with a spoon. In memory of Evgenia, whom he had killed, Spesivtsev had the letter «E» tattooed on his hand.
A psychiatric examination confirmed the diagnosis of «schizophrenia», and Spesivtsev went to «improve his health» in a special hospital in the Oryol region. Three years later, he was discharged, and in 1995, he was declared sane, in connection with which Spesivtsev was finally to be held accountable for the murder. But the prosecutor's office, having never waited for the defendant to be interrogated, instead of declaring the sadist wanted, let the case slide. This negligence ultimately led to irreparable consequences.
«After the «cure», he began to kill again with particular cruelty» (former investigator Ekaterina Gerlakh).
Returning to his hometown, Spesivtsev began to rapidly slide to the bottom: he often hung around the station, where he drank alcohol in the company of homeless people. In February 1996, Alexander met a 20-year-old kindergarten nanny, Elena, who imprudently agreed to visit her new friend. During the conversation, Spesivtsev complained to Elena about health problems.
«… Problems with the genitals. Even the first time, when he was in the pretrial detention center, they pumped some Vaseline into it. Then swellings and inflammations started» (the maniac's sister Nadezhda Spesivtseva).
According to the maniac, Elena not only did not sympathize with him, but also smirked, which drove Spesivtsev crazy. The girl was in for several hours of torture, after which Spesivtsev killed her and, having dismembered the body, ordered her mother to get rid of the remains. Lyudmila put the body parts in buckets, took them out to a vacant lot and buried them.
Like a beast that has tasted human blood, Spesivtsev could not and did not want to stop. With frightening regularity, he began to kill and dismember people — mostly children and teenagers, whom he lured into his home with various persuasions. The poor fellows had practically no chance of leaving alive.
Only a 12-year-old student from one of Novokuznetsk schools was lucky; he was captured in the same year, 1996. The maniac starved the child, didn't give him water, and forced him to watch as he dismembered the corpses of his victims. The same fate was supposed to befall this young prisoner, but the boy was able to seize the moment and escape. He became the first and only person who managed to survive the hell in the Spesivtsevs' apartment. If he had reported it to the police, other victims could have been avoided. But history knows no subjunctive mood: the frightened teenager did not dare to tell about all the horrors that he had to endure. However, Novokuznetsk law enforcement officers themselves distinguished themselves by their careless inattention: the signal from the Spesivtsevs' neighbor, who complained about the cadaverous smell from the strange family's apartment, was ignored.
The sadist's last victims were three young patients of the local hospital in August 1996: 13-year-old Anastasia and Evgenia, and 15-year-old Olga. One day, the schoolgirls, who had become friends within the walls of the hospital, went to the city to buy some water and met Lyudmila Spesivtseva near the store.
«When the three of us were walking past a store located near a parking lot with many kiosks, a grandmother approached us. She looked very old, gray-haired, small and thin… She asked us for help, said that she had locked the door to her apartment and could not open it, asked us to help her. We agreed» (from Olga's testimony).
And at the threshold of the apartment, Spesivtsev met his friends with his dog — a huge Newfoundland. The frightened schoolgirls unquestioningly obeyed the order of the maniac, who introduced himself to them as Andrey, to go inside and found themselves in a trap: the realization of this plunged Zhenya into hysterics. Spesivtsev decided to calm the girl down by injecting her with a sedative, and while the maniac was filling the syringe with the drug, Nastya crept up behind him and tried to stun the sadist with a glass bottle. But the blow landed not on the head, but on the shoulder, and the enraged Spesivtsev attacked the girl with a knife.
“I struck several blows… In the area of the heart, a little lower — somewhere near the stomach, in the throat. She continued to live, and I strangled her with a rope” (from the testimony of the maniac Alexander Spesivtsev).
Nastya and Zhenya had to cut up their friend's body: the process took place under the watchful eye of an experienced eviscerator, who then fed the spine and ribs to his Newfoundland, and made soup from the meat and forced the girls to eat it. By the way, with a high degree of probability, the Spesivtsev family themselves did not disdain to taste human flesh, however, all three categorically denied the fact of cannibalism. The next victim in the fall of 1996 was Zhenya, for whom Spesivtsev, unfortunately for her, developed unhealthy feelings. The maniac expressed his love by raping the schoolgirl and often hitting her head on the floor, then stitching up the wounds with ordinary thread and a needle. One of the outbursts of rage in the sadist turned out to be fatal for the schoolgirl — from the blows inflicted on her, Zhenya fell into a coma. Olya tried to revive her friend.
«Zhenya was lying on the floor and not breathing, but her heart was beating weakly. I gave her artificial respiration for about an hour, but she died» (from Olga Galtseva's testimony).
Spesivtsev did not touch the corpse for three days: he opened the window and waited for the soul to leave the body, and then ordered Galtseva to dismember her friend. The sadist dreamed of committing Zhenya's remains to the earth, but for now he turned his gaze to the only one left alive, Olya, who was awaiting days of terrible torment. But she left the maniac's lair still alive: at the end of October 1996, after unsuccessful attempts to enter the Spesivtsevs' apartment to inspect the heating system, the housing office employees turned to the police, and they broke down the door. The situation shocked even seasoned operatives.»The apartment is neglected, dirty, littered with empty boxes, disassembled televisions, tape recorders… A bloody pillow, a syringe filled with some yellowish liquid, pornographic postcards attached to the greasy wallpaper. In the corner of one of the rooms is a mountain of children's and women's clothing. On the nightstand are two shoe boxes. They contain dozens of wristwatches of all kinds and a scattering of jewelry» (from the book «Maniacs… Blind Death» by Nikolai Modestov).
But the most horrific finds were the remains of bodies in a huge pot, Zhenya's torso in the bathtub, and another woman's head, blackened by decomposition, in a laundry bin. The law enforcement officers did not find the owner of the house himself, but only found Olga, barely alive, with a large abdominal wound and a broken arm.
«I was lying on the floor of the room and was afraid to speak up, because I thought the police had come. Andrei kept saying that if the police came, he would kill me right away» (Olga).
She was urgently taken to the hospital, but it was too late — a few days later the girl died from peritonitis and pulmonary edema, but before her death she managed to tell the investigators about all the horrors that she had experienced.
< p>Spesivtsev, who returned home two days later, was waylaid by operatives in his apartment: the maniac, who did not expect to be detained, tried to justify the atrocities with his poor physical and mental health.
«I have a weakened immune system. In the summer I wrap myself in a jacket and a sweater. Look : all hands are covered in sores» (maniac Alexander Spesivtsev).
His loyal assistant, his mother Lyudmila, was also in the department with her son. During the confrontations, the relatives tried to drown each other out: Spesivtseva was very outraged by her offspring's treacherous behavior, and she repeatedly tried to appeal to Alexander's conscience.
«- I killed, I don't deny it. But where did you hide the bodies?
— I don't know of any bodies. I saw four buckets in the bathroom. But I didn't hide anything.
— How can I show if you took them out?
— No need, Sasha, don't bring your mother down. I wasn't drunk, I remember everything well. There were buckets, I saw them. I don't know anything else…» (from the protocol of the confrontation between Lyudmila and Alexander Spesivtsev)
For aiding and abetting, the woman received 13 years in prison. The sister avoided prison, but due to attacks from neighbors, she was forced to move out of the apartment — she found shelter in one of the special institutions belonging to the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
«I am forced to live next to homeless people and even convicted criminals. A whole year in the same clothes» (the maniac's sister, Nadezhda Spesivtseva).
She tried to return to the apartment together with her mother, who had been released from the colony, but the residents of the house once again put up fierce resistance. After that, both women disappeared in an unknown direction — according to some reports, they now live in the Khanty-Mansiysk village of Vysoky. Spesivtsev himself initially admitted guilt in 19 murders during interrogations, but then hastened to retract his testimony. Since many of the body fragments found earlier on the banks of the Aba were never identified, the criminal case on these episodes was separated into a separate proceeding and temporarily suspended. Investigators managed to link the cannibal to only four massacres: Spesivtsev, who was eventually declared insane, was sent for compulsory treatment to a special hospital. No one was ever held accountable for the prosecutor's negligence in 1995: the investigator who chose to close the case instead of searching for Spesivtsev was simply sent into retirement.
However, the detectives did not lose hope of proving the cannibal's involvement in dozens of other crimes: they were able to do this with the advent of new technologies that allowed them to identify the remains found on the banks of the river. The scope of the work carried out was astonishing in its scale: hundreds of examinations were carried out, including an inspection of the Spesivtsevs' apartment using new means of searching for traces of victims and molecular genetic studies by specialists from the Forensic Center of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. They also found a valuable witness — the same one who escaped from the maniac at the age of 12. His testimony, replete with terrible details, formed the basis for the revived case of the Novokuznetsk Ripper. Investigators reliably established that in April 1996, six teenage boys aged 11-13 died at the hands of the monster. Having met the schoolchildren at a city construction site, Spesivtsev offered them to rob an apartment, and he himself brought the children to his lair and stabbed them one by one. The children's bodies lay in the hallway for almost a week until Lyudmila dropped in to visit her son: the mother got rid of the remains by throwing them into the Aba River. A month later, the same fate befell four girls who, to their misfortune, wandered into the construction site already familiar to Spesivtsev. The maniac offered the schoolgirls to engage in the sale of soap, allegedly to issue a batch of goods, brought them home, where he again grabbed a knife. Spesivtsev threw some of the body fragments into the Aba, and some went to feed the dog. In May 1996, 11-year-old Olga with her 9-year-old brother Alexander, as well as 13-year-old Irina and 12-year-old Dmitry, found themselves dead in the maniac's apartment. Then 19-year-old Natalya was killed and dismembered. By the spring of 2024, law enforcement officers had enough evidence to leave no doubt that Spesivtsev, in addition to the previously proven four episodes, killed and dismembered another 15 people.
However, this time, the monster managed to avoid a special regime colony — a repeat examination again found the cannibal insane, and the court had no choice but to send the maniac back to the mental hospital in the Volgograd city of Kamyshin. 53-year-old Spesivtsev does not complain about life: in the hospital, he is provided with proper nutrition, care up to cutting his nails and quality leisure — the maniac reads a lot and enjoys handicrafts. Plus, he receives a disability pension, part of which he sends to his mother. She, in turn, continues to run around various authorities in fruitless attempts to free her son. Meanwhile, seasoned investigators continue to insist that the final number of victims of the Novokuznetsk monster is approaching a hundred, since 82 sets of clothing and several dozen pairs of shoes were found during a search of its lair. But the places where the remains of these unfortunates rest have not been found in 28 years.