Andrei Golovachyov

Andrei Grigoryevich Golovachyov (; born 22 June 1967), known as The Apartment Maniac , 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.

Early life 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. 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".

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.

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. His confession was considered credible, and he was soon transferred to Vladimir Oblast for interrogation. In his confession, Golovachyov claimed that he was living in Alexandrov at the time and had rented a room from a racketeer who was extorting migrant workers. In the spring of that year, he killed his landlord and two of his friends, after which he fled Moscow Oblast and started living as a vagrant, constantly moving between various regions of the country. Golovachyov claimed that he committed the murders after accidentally admitting that he was a wanted man in a drunken rambling, after which he killed the men out of fear they would expose him.

Over the course of several days, he viewed a number of advertisements for apartments for sale. He responded to one of them, went to the indicated address, inspected the apartment together with the owners and returned there in the evening, where he found a girl, whom he stabbed to death. He soon left Shakhty and fled to Voronezh, Voronezh Oblast, where, in the same manner, responded to an advertisement, went to the apartment and killed the landlady.

During the interrogations, Golovachyov accurately named the dates, places, victims' facial and physical features, the circumstances and the reasons for each murder. In all of these killings, he followed an identical modus operandi: he would scour for ads for a room or apartment for rent, then kill the homeowners or residents by stabbing between 20 and 40 times and then slitting their throats. Between 2019 and 2022, Golovachyov was transferred between the different regions to re-enact the crime scenes, with officers managing to find witnesses, neighbours and acquaintances of the victims who confirmed that Golovachyov had been a tenant at the time of the killings.

On 11 February 2022, the investigations were finally completed, and Golovachyov was officially charged with 8 murders. As of August 2023, the trial is ongoing and he is yet to be convicted of these offences.