Maxim Petrov

Maxim Vladimirovich Petrov (, born 1965 Petrov, nicknamed Doctor Death by the Russian media, was a practicing doctor who targeted patients from a local health center, killing them by lethal injection at their homes then robbing them.

Petrov was sentenced to life imprisonment and is suspected to have killed up to 19 people until his arrest.

Background Maxim Vladimirovich Petrov worked as an emergency doctor in St Petersburg, living in the central Vasilievsky Island area of the city. Petrov got married twice and has three children, one from his first marriage and two from his second marriage.

Crimes

Early robberies In 1997, Petrov began robbing his patients by visiting their homes unannounced and usually in the morning when relatives would be at work. He would then measure their blood pressure and suggest they needed an injection which anaesthetized them. While they were unconscious, Petrov stole their possessions, even taking rings and earrings from his victims' bodies. The first few victims did not die, instead waking up later after he had left. Petrov committed 47 robberies until his arrest in 2000. Petrov would then set fire to their homes to destroy any evidence.

Arrest and conviction The police did not release a photofit of the suspect, thinking he would soon be caught. However, it took until the following year for them to realise how the victims were being selected. All were included in the same list of lung patients who had undergone a fluorography. Using this list, they identified 72 possible future victims in an operation called "Medbrat" ("Male Nurse") involving 700 police officers. They arrested Petrov when he visited one of the patients on 17 January 2000. On his arrest, Petrov admitted to the murders but recanted his confession a few months later, blaming it on the intense psychological pressure he had endured while in custody. Various possessions stolen from the victims were later found in his flat, though he had already sold others at the market. Six of the patients who were not killed were seriously injured.

Petrov was suspected of committing 19 murders but tried for just 17. In 2002, Petrov was found guilty of 11 murders and was sentenced by judge Valentina Kudriashova to life imprisonment.