Vladimir Guryanov

Vladimir Nikolayevich Guryanov (; born March 27, 1964) is a Russian serial killer and rapist who, together with accomplice Elvira Leonidovna Egorycheva (; born May 5, 1962), committed at least 13 murders in Nizhny Novgorod between 2007 and 2008. The pair were both convicted of the crimes, with Guryanov receiving a life sentence while Egorycheva received a 19.5-year term.

As the motive behind the attacks was religious in nature, Guryanov and Egorycheva were nicknamed The Bloody Sectarians , as well as The Russian Bonnie and Clyde .

Early life Little is known about Guryanov's early life. Born on March 27, 1964, in Saransk, Mordovian ASSR, he graduated from school with a specialized secondary education, got married in the mid-1980s and had a child. To people around him, he held a reputation as a creative artist who initially made a living by reselling copies of ancient icons, but later on opened a workshop in Ivanovo where he made lacquer miniatures and finely crafted music boxes. Following the collapse of the USSR and the subsequent economic reforms, Guryanov's family began to experience financial difficulties, so in the early 1990s, he began stealing and was eventually jailed for car theft.

Meeting Egorycheva Upon his release in 1995, Guryanov began to show signs of mental illness, as a result of which he divorced his wife and abandoned his family, deciding to live on the streets as a vagrant. Later that year, he became a Jehovah's Witness.

In 1999, while at a meeting, Guryanov met Elvira Egorycheva, a widow from Cheboksary who joined the Jehovah's Witnesses following the death of her husband. The two became friends in the following years, but after getting into some sort of conflict with other members, both of them stopped attending meetings.

Following Guryanov's return, he and Egorycheva dedicated themselves to their own religious beliefs, most of which borrowed various aspects from a number of religious doctrines. For example, both stopped referring to each other by their first names, with Guryanov calling Egorycheva "Mother", with her in turn calling him "[Her] son, Prince Vladimir".

While still in prison, Guryanov managed to convince Egorycheva of his beliefs. During the assault, Guryanov stabbed her multiple times, and after killing her, he and Egorycheva stole some jewelry which they later sold at a pawnshop.

On March 19, Guryanov and Egorycheva attacked 36-year-old Natalia Burenkova, an accountant for Kitkar LLC, inside a garage in the Leninsky City District. After raping the woman, Guryanov stabbed her to death by inflicting multiple wounds to her chest.

Just a few days after the double murder, they killed a woman named Yulia Malova in a nearby area. After the murder, the pair stole money and valuables, as well as a plushie that Malova intended to gift to her son. Based on entries in the logbook, it was noted that the jewelry was brought to the pawnshop by a woman claiming to be Natalia Burenkova on the exact date she was killed. The shop's employees said that this same woman later returned and pawned other items, and when said items were presented to other victims' family members, they were positively identified as belonging to Mashkatova, Kostina and Burenkova.

Following this, the pair were taken to the nearest police station, where Guryanov soon implicated himself in 13 murders. In the following weeks, he and Egorycheva took part in investigative experiments and were taken under escort to show the burial sites of some victims. In the midst of this, Guryanov was also interrogated about his motive, concerning which he said that all the killings and rapes were done for religious reasons. According to him, all the women he killed were done at the behest of God, with Guryanov believing that they all would be his wives in the afterlife. During sentencing, they both sat hugging each other and talking animatedly about something, paying no attention to what was going on.

The supposed religious motive for the killings was heavily doubted by investigators. One of them, Denis Kuznetsov, stated his belief that it was all a sham and the pair were financially motivated, while another, Andrei Kirillov, referred to them as "extremely cynical and cold-blooded".

There is no information about Egorycheva's current detainment or status.