Anatoliy Tymofeev (né Krivobok; 1960 – August 1996) was a Ukrainian serial killer and burglar who murdered at least 13 pensioners in both Ukraine and Russia between 1991 and 1992.
In the early 1990s, due to the difficult political situation and poor economic status of the country, Krivobok had trouble with finding a normal job and was inclined to return to his old habits.
[1] Not long after, the newly renamed Tymofeev returned to his criminal ways, and began burgling into the houses of elderly residents in the Kyiv Oblast to steal small items of value.
On that date, he had broken into three consecutive homes in the village of Pristromi, Pereiaslav-Khmelnytskyi Raion, but had only managed to steal a small amount of karbovantsi and 20 shawls.
Using an axe wrapped in cloth, he struck Sukhomlin several times on the head and then strangled her with a noose made from some rags, before setting the house ablaze.
Frightened, she ran out into her garden, but Tymofeev caught up to her and hanged a rope over her neck, forcefully dragging the woman back inside and strangling her there.
[1] Three days later, he broke into a two-storey house in Bar, where he strangled the homeowner Protsenko and robbed the first floor, before going to the second one and repeating the act with another woman, Bornaya.
[1] Sensing that the Ukrainian authorities were closing in on him, Tymofeev decided to flee the country, moving to Voskresenka, Kaluga Oblast in Russia, where his wife and mother-in-law lived.
Deciding that he'd get rid of them both, Tymofeev moved to the yard, where he strangled A. with a noose and then hid her body and the garden, before returning to the house and killing her sister in the same manner.
[1] By this time, police units from both Ukraine and Russia were aware that a serial murderer was active, as witnesses had given similar descriptions of a slenderly-built young man being seen near the crime scenes.
[3] At trial, prosecutors tried to tie the defendant to four cold cases that matched his modus operandi, but Tymofeev ultimately was not tried for any of them due to lack of evidence.
He lodged an appeal to the Supreme Court of Ukraine in 1995, citing his rough childhood and prison sentences as a drive that made him mad "like the Zmei Gorynych", causing him to kill any potential witnesses to his crimes.