Serial Murderer as an Argument For Capital Punishment

Hearings last week in the case of Anatoly Onopriyenko, charged with 52 murders in the first degree committed in the territory of Ukraine, took place in the largest courtroom of Zhytomyr Oblast Court. The latter-day history of Ukraine and other countries now generally referred to as civilized knows no precedent. Present in the audience were some 200 persons, among them dozens of reporters and foreign journalists. Onopriyenko is accused of offenses under 13 articles of the Criminal Code, but mostly murder. Legal formulations include organizing a gang, banditry, murder in the first degree, armed assault, robbery, etc.

Ruslan Moshkovsky, his defense counsel, considers the trial not only criminal, but also sociopolitical, because the crimes his client is charged with were facilitated by the modern condition of Ukrainian society. Mr. Moshkovsky champions the moratorium on capital punishment, saying that Anatoly Onopriyenko deep in his heart expects no mercy from the court and can only hope for a miracle (or maybe that same moratorium). The defense counsel receives Hr 17 for each day of the trial.

Anatoly Onopriyenko was born in 1959 in Zhytomyr oblast. His mother died when he was three and his father had been living elsewhere. At first he and his elder brother lived with their grandmother, but at seven Anatoly was enrolled in a boarding school (here that means a glorified orphanage - Ed.). Later he studied for two years at a forestry school, was drafted into the army, then studied at a merchant marine school in Odesa, whereupon he sailed overseas. He lived in a common law marriage with Iryna L. He worked for a fire brigade in Dnipropetrovsk and almost became head of a local Party cell. Then his son Taras was born, and in 1989 Anatoly disappeared and never returned (it was established that after this he never worked anywhere in Ukraine).

In fact, 1989 saw the first of a series of murders to which Onopriyenko has confessed. First in Synelnykove rayon, Dnipropetrovsk oblast, he shot and robbed the Melnykov married couple in their own car parked on a highway. Two more series followed in July and August that same year: seven persons robbed and murdered. The third one almost cost him his freedom; he could hardly shake off a militia patrol in hot pursuit. He decided to spend some time abroad until things blew over. He left Ukraine in early 1990, visiting Germany, Austria, and other countries. While abroad he was arrested for theft and other offenses, spending three months in jail, until 1994 when he was deported to Ukraine. He started his second round of serial murders in October-November 1995, shooting and robbing people for about five months, claiming 43 lives.

All told, Anatoly Onopriyenko murdered 52 persons, including ten children, the youngest being three months and the oldest 11 years old.