Anatoly Kondratyev

Anatoly Vasilyevich Kondratyev (; born 31 January 1946) is a Russian-Ukrainian serial killer who was linked to murders of at least four people in Ukraine between 2000 and 2004, committed after his release from prison for a previous homicide conviction. His crimes were noted for their brutality – involving dismembering the victims' bodies and hiding their remains – as well as for him evading detection by law enforcement for several years.

After his arrest, Kondratyev was charged with 17 murders, but was only successfully prosecuted for four and sentenced to life imprisonment. He himself claimed to have killed 42 people throughout his lifetime, a claim which was never verified.

Early life and crimes Anatoly Kondratyev was born on 31 January 1946 in the village of Bayka, Penza Oblast, in the Russian SFSR. He spent his childhood and youth in a stable home, and in the mid-1960s, he moved to the Leningrad Oblast, where he married and had two children, but abandoned his family shortly afterwards. During this period, he worked as an electrical engineer and a maritime transport worker.

Kondratyev began his criminal career in 1966, and after his first arrest, he was transferred to the Serbsky Center to undergo a forensic medical examination. Once he was found sane to stand trial, he was imprisoned for some time in Leningrad – upon his release, Kondratyev moved to the Odesa Oblast in the Ukrainian SSR, where he resumed committing small-time offenses such as thefts, frauds, speculation and other crimes. In the early 1980s, he moved to the Lviv Oblast, where he committed a murder in 1983. Due to his status as a repeat offender, Kondratyev was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, which he served at the Yenakiieve Correctional Labor Colony No. 52 in the Donetsk Oblast. Being tall and strong, Kondratyev introduced himself as a retired officer from the Armed Forces, making it easy for him to gain the trust of his victims. Once invited inside the home, he spent a considerable amount of time with the victims, familiarizing himself with the surroundings and making sure that there were no potential witnesses around. Kondratyev would then attack the victims using a knife or an axe, stabbing and hacking them multiple times. As for the rest of the remains, he would bury them in vacant lots and forests, after which he would sell the apartment. Around 2002, he left the Odesa Oblast and moved to Lviv, where, according to his own confessions, continued committing murders. During this period, investigators allege that he met 26-year-old Valentyna Adamenko and her mother Iryna Haliy, who supposedly aided him in his crimes. While he was in the midst of dismembering his body with an axe, at approximately 10:30 PM, he was interrupted by 42-year-old Volodymyr Polyakov, a minibus driver who rented a room in the apartment. Surprised by the strange man, Polyakov asked who he was, to which Kondratyev replied in a rude manner. The court also ruled that since he had received no proper documentation after his previous release from prison, Kondratyev was now officially a Ukrainian citizen. The murder of the man's sister was used as a mitigating factor to explain his actions.

In the media and culture The Kondratyev case was covered on a documentary aired on Ukraine's Channel 7, titled "The Lodger" .