Andrei Golovachyov
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"The Tenant Maniac"
"Schwartz"
Andrei Golovachyov | |
|---|---|
| Born | Andrei Grigoryevich Golovachyov 22 June 1967 |
| Other names | "The Apartment Maniac" "The Tenant Maniac" "Schwartz" |
| Conviction | Murder |
| Criminal penalty | Life imprisonment |
| Details | |
| Victims | 14+ |
Span of crimes | 1996–2000 |
| Country | Russia |
| States | Komi, Vladimir, Krasnodar, Rostov, Voronezh, Moscow |
Date apprehended | For the final time in 2000 |
| Imprisoned at | Vologodskiy Pyatak, Ognenny Ostrov |
Andrei Grigoryevich Golovachyov (Russian: Андрей Григорьевич Головачёв; born 22 June 1967), known as The Apartment Maniac (Russian: Квартирный маньяк), is a Russian serial killer who committed at least 14 murders in six regions of Russia from 1996 to 2000. Arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment for five of the murders in 2002, he has since confessed to nine additional killings.
Little is known of Golovachyov's background. Born in 1967 in Yarega, Komi ASSR, he is known to have engaged in sporting activities during his school years.[1] In the mid-1980s, following the enactment of the "Cooperative Law" and the blossoming of the cooperative movement which brought large profits from protection and racketeering, Golovachyov began a criminal lifestyle in the city of Ukhta. By the end of the decade, he was imprisoned for robbery and released in the early 1990s, whereupon he joined a local gang. While with this gang, he was known by the nickname "Schwartz".[2]
Murders
In September 1996, Golovachyov committed his first murder - while visiting a café with a friend of his, he started making romantic advances towards one of the waitresses. After being rebuffed, Golovachyov grabbed a knife and stabbed her several dozen times in the stomach before he ultimately slit her throat. He managed to escape, but from then on was listed as a wanted fugitive.[3]
Between November and December 1996, he shot and killed three men in Ukhta during random quarrels. In order to dispose of the bodies, he threw two of them from a bridge into the Pozhnya river, while the body of the third victim was found on the side of a highway in early 1997.[2] Forensic autopsies confirmed that all three had been beaten and then shot in the head, with ballistics establishing that the murder weapon was a TT pistol. A few months later, Golovachyov was arrested and charged with the four murders after the murder weapon was seized from him.[3]
At the end of 1997, during a hearing to extend his detention, the judge unexpectedly released him from custody on his own recognizance, after which Golovachyov fled the Komi Republic and went into hiding. He was put on the federal wanted list but was only apprehended in the Moscow Oblast in 2000, where he had bludgeoned a landlord with an axe.[2]