Ivan Strack

Ivan Igorevich Strack (; born 1990), known as the Leningrad Maniac , is a Russian serial killer, responsible for the murders of his grandfather and two underage girls in 2004 and 2005, while he was still a minor. Judged unfit to stand trial, he was kept in a psychiatric institution until 2017.

Shortly after his release, he committed another murder and was later sentenced to 22 years in that case.

Early life Ivan Strack was born in Vyborg in 1990 into a family with German roots. His father abandoned the family in the late 1990s, leaving the young man to live with his mother and older brother, a security guard. At school, he was described as a handsome, well-mannered boy with a nerdy appearance, although a rather quiet one. In November 2004, his mother died suddenly, and little Ivan was taken under the care of his older brother, who took full custody of him. The two bodies were discovered on the early morning of the following day by Nikolai Kirilenko, a retired military doctor who was on his way to visiting his dacha. When questioned, the young man willingly confessed to the murders and actively participated in recreating the crime scenes, but also unexpectedly admitted to another murder. In March 2017, he quit his job so he could operate from home. Officially unemployed, he wanted to start a business with a 400,000 ruble loan for business development, but none of his friends agreed to lend him the money.

In early 2017, while still working at the shopping centre, he befriended 19-year-old Ekaterina Frolova, for whom he eventually started developing romantic feelings. Despite his various attempts to court her, Frolova rebuffed Strack as she was not interested in him in that way. Strack himself would later say that they mostly interacted via social media, and almost always in relation to him fixing various appliances. On at least two occasions, he supposedly did it for free. Strack then dragged the semi-conscious woman into the kitchen, where, at knifepoint, she put two iPhones, a laptop and money belonging to both her and Frolova into a bag. After she finished, Strack proceeded to stab her 13 more times in areas with vital organs, but miraculously, Khlebnikova endured and pretended to be dead. He then got inside, shut off the gas burners, called the emergency services and gave Khlebnikova first aid. She was subsequently driven to the hospital and placed into intensive care, where she managed to survive her injuries.

In the midst of the investigation, Strack's lawyers filed a motion for a forensic psychiatric evaluation, which was granted. In late 2017, he was transferred to the Serbsky Center in Moscow, where specialists worked on him for the next two months. In February 2018, much to the objection of Strack and his aunt, he was declared sane to stand trial. His lawyer quickly submitted an appeal, but the Tula Regional Court denied it in December of that year, leaving the sentence unchanged.

Current status Following his conviction, there has been no reliable information about Strack. In August 2023, a number of media outlets reported that he had signed a contract with the Ministry of Defence and that he had been sent off to participate in the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where he supposedly died in combat in mid-2023. However, this claim has never been verified.