When he received bad grades, his mother immediately wrote statements in which she reproached teachers for psychological pressure on her son, and if the marks were written only on his diary, she would write complaints about the concealment of information.

[14] According to some reports, however, Anoufriev himself provoked the conflict by insulting the Armenians' family on an internet social networking site, after which his representatives called him to a "showdown", and the criminal case was stopped after the parties reconciled.

[17] His great-grandparents were hydraulic builders, and participated in the construction of the Uglich and Irkutsk hydropower stations,[18] while his mother Marina worked as an employee at a shoe store.

[16] Prior to the 5th grade, Lytkin was a good student, had exemplary behavior, often participated in creative contests and received commendable letters, his hobby being video games.

This group didn't last long, but managed to release one full-length album in 2008 entitled Чёрные полосы крови (English: Black Streaks of Blood).

[15] After his arrest, Anoufriev said that it was the communication with the skinheads that led him to commit murder, although he had not participated in their society for long, finding their ideology too passive and soft.

[26][clarification needed] Meanwhile, Alexander Kostrov, an associate professor at the department of Modern National History of the Irkutsk State University, supported the claim in court that their actions fit into the misanthropy category.

[10] A certain role was played when they watched a TV program in 2007 about the "Bitsa Park Maniac" Alexander Pichushkin, who committed several dozen murders in Moscow.

They were interested in the so-called "Dnepropetrovsk maniacs" Viktor Sayenko and Igor Suprunyuk, as well as the Irkutsk "Blood Magic Gang", whose sentence was delivered on March 1, 2010.

[35] Since Anoufriev and Lytkin always attacked from behind, all the survivors of the "Molotochniki" could not tell the investigators any specific details that could immediately expose the criminals, because all of them at best saw them only briefly and did not even remember their voices.

[21] In October 2012, a 27-year-old Vladimir Gusev from Krasnoyarsk Krai spoke at the trial, admitting that he was Anoufriev's "second friend", with whom he agreed on the basis of common extremist views.

When Anoufriev signed the protocol, he, imitating Pichushkin, told investigator Yevgeny Karchevsky that: "As one hero said, give me a glass of whiskey and a cigar—and you will learn so much new about this life that your hair will begin to move on your head.

[20] During a search in the apartments of the teenagers, a 60-mm mallet, four "pearly yellowish" teeth, a black hat with slots, an air gun which Anoufriev had hidden in an electric stove,[23] folding knives, video tapes and flash cards were found.

[20] On April 7, 2011, the Sverdlovsk District Court of Irkutsk chose a measure of restraint in relation to Anoufriev and Lytkin in the form of detention for a period of two months.

[9] On June 9, 2011, the media published a video message made by Anoufriev, where he apologized to the victims' families and advised parents to monitor their children in order to avoid similar crimes in the future.

[10][62][63] A month earlier, an open letter was published by Irina Alekseyevna Antipova, Lytkin's grandmother, in which she accused the media and the Internet of promoting violence.

[1] Although the forensic psychiatric examination found both sane, the Anoufriev SIZO was registered as prone to self-mutilation and suicide, and psychologists carried out separate work with him.

His lawyer Svetlana Kukareva considered this the result of a strong emotional outburst,[77] which was caused by the fact that his mother first appeared in court that day.

According to him, he made confessions to the murders under pressure from police officers, and after the incident on October 16 in the temporary detention cell in which he was taking breaks during the trial, the escorts handcuffed him to the window bars.

[80] Nevertheless, his lawyers noted that a few days after his arrest, the examination recorded an abrasion in the region of the crown of Anoufriev's head, inflicted by a tangential blow of a hard blunt object.

[42][65] From the very beginning of the trial, Anoufriev firmly insisted on his non-involvement in the killings (he confessed only to the murders of Pirog and Kuydina), referring to the fact that his case was never proven guilty.

First in the debate was the public prosecutor, who, taking into account all the evidence examined at the court session and the position of the defendants, asked the court to find the defendants guilty and sentence Anoufriev to life imprisonment in a strict regime correctional colony, and Lytkin to 25 years' imprisonment serving the sentence in a strict regime colony.

[10][81] Without interrupting, Anoufriev read a prepared text, in which he again asked for forgiveness from the victims, once again rejecting accusations against him:[81][83] Thanks to the media on me now is a stain which I can't wash off.

[12] On April 21, 2016, the Irkutsk Court partially granted Anoufriev's claim for compensation for non-pecuniary damage and collected money from the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation in its favor.

As a result, in August 2016, the Zavodsky District Court of Kemerovo ruled that he should be released from prison and placed in a psychiatric hospital for compulsory treatment.

However, before this ruling was implemented, Lytkin attacked another inmate, striking him multiple times with a metal dustpan in the toilet area of the prison’s medical unit.

According to investigative records, Lytkin later admitted that the attack was a deliberate attempt to receive a life sentence and be transferred to a different penal colony, specifically to be housed in the same facility as his co-defendant, Artyom Anoufriev.

Black Zones" (Чёрные зоны): Facilities where inmates enforce an internal criminal code, often subjecting low-ranking prisoners to mistreatment, forced labor, and violence.

While there are no direct reports of abuse specific to Lytkin, human rights organizations have raised concerns about prisoner mistreatment in Russia’s strict-regime facilities.

Although no official inquiry into his death has been reported, concerns remain regarding whether systemic mistreatment in Irkutsk’s penal colonies played a role in his suicide.