Mikhail Neznamov

Mikhail Aleksandrovich Neznamov (Russian: Михаил Александрович Незнамов; born 6 February 1979), known as The Kamensk Strangler (Russian: Каменский душитель), is a Russian serial killer who murdered at least five teenage girls and women in Kamensk-Uralsky, Sverdlovsk Oblast from 2000 to 2005. He remained undetected until 2023 when he was arrested and subsequently confessed to the crimes.

He would later be convicted for the murders in a trial, but despite the severity of his crimes, he was sentenced to a more lenient sentence of 17 years imprisonment.

Early life Neznamov was born on 6 February 1979, in Kamensk-Uralsky, where he grew up in a nine-storey apartment block on Aluminievaya Street. The end of the street faced the right bank of the Iseti River, densely overgrown with bushes and reeds, in the vicinity of which he would later commit his killings.

Neznamov attended Gymnasium No. 9, where he was described as an average student who exhibited no deviant behaviour. He did not attempt to conceal his crimes, as he left behind evidence and semen at the crime scenes. Despite this, the crimes went unsolved at the time until they were re-investigated in 2014 by the Sverdlovsk Investigative Committee. As four other victims were murdered in a similar manner until 2005, local investigators concluded a serial killer was operating in the area. Utilizing this information, Maurice Isakidis, an investigator for the Committee assigned to high-profile cases, ordered a DNA test on the seminal fluid found on Sapogova's bra. The results showed that the genotypic profile of the killer matched that of Mikhail Neznamov, from whom a blood sample had been taken in the mid-2010s as part of an investigation into a crime that he had committed near his hostel. After the move, Neznamov got a job as a mechanic at a local enterprise and got married, but the marriage did not last long. In later years, he began to exhibit an increased libido and desire for sexual activity. He spent most of his free time meeting various women, many of whom became his cohabitants and lived with him for periods ranging from several days to several months. In addition, neighbors at the hostel claimed that he became aggressive when intoxicated and often clashed with bailiffs. In exchange for leniency from the court, he agreed to cooperate with investigators and confess to the murders, describing in detail what had happened. Neznamov specified that after raping the girl, he strangled her with a belt taken from her raincoat. He then said that he committed the last two murders in September and December 2005. According to him, he killed one of the victims in a fit of anger after she had the indiscretion to call him a failure of a man. During sentencing, he expressed remorse for what he had done and apologized to the victims' relatives. The sentence sparked outrage from the victims' family members, who said that he deserved to be sentenced to life imprisonment. In response to this, the press service of the Krasnogorsk District Court released a press statement in which they clarified that since the statute of limitations for the qualified murder charge had passed, they would be unable to sentence him to life imprisonment.

Neznamov himself was satisfied with the sentence and later did not file an appeal, after which the sentence was confirmed in November 2023. Following this, he was transferred to a corrective labour colony, where he has the right to apply parole after serving 12 years of his sentence.