GANG OF AMAZONS
MUM AND DAD HAD RESPECTABLE JOBS, BUT THEIR FAMILY BUSINESS WAS MURDER AND THEY THEIR KILLING SPREE TERRIFIED MIDDLE-CLASS MOSCOW
For Inessa Tarverdiyeva and Roman Podkopayev of Stavropol, in the south of Russia, murder was a way of keeping the family together. Other families might go out for a meal, to the cinema or for a country walk, but the couple and Inessa’s daughters preferred to all go out on a killing spree. Some in Russia, completely freaked out at the casual horror and total mayhem the family had caused, tried to rationalise the Podkopayevs’ actions as violent robbery but, as we shall see, what was stolen was insignificant. For the Podkopayevs it was all about the killing. They are the world’s first fully investigated and authenticated family of serial killers.
Eventually the Russian authorities caught up with the Podkopayevs, though in the end it was a routine ID check by police that ended their homicidal reign. Roman Podkopayev, the father of the family, and his stepdaughter Viktoria had just robbed a house on Baklanova Street, in the town of Aksay on the banks of the River Don in Rostov. They had taken only inconsequential items – some booze, chicken drumsticks and candles, but no money – before Roman and Viktoria shot the homeowner and his wife dead. They left the murder scene on a scooter and then their luck ran out – they ran right into a routine police ID check stop. After being asked for his documents, Roman panicked, pulled out a gun and started firing at the unsuspecting patrol cops.
Police patrolman and father Ivan Shakhovoi was shot dead on the spot without even getting the chance to draw his weapon. His colleague Aleksey Lagoda was badly wounded but managed to crawl to safety and call for emergency back-up. A patrol car nearby responded and began a pursuit of Roman and Viktoria’s scooter through the streets of Aksay. It ended in a gun battle. Roman did not survive it.
Having ascertained Roman’s identity, police rushed to the home of the Podkopayev family – a comfortable suburban house in the city of Stavropol, about 1,500 kilometres south of Rostov. The case moved swiftly from the Rostov police to the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the Russian equivalent of the FBI (usually known simply as Sledkom) tasked with cross-province criminal investigations. Sledkom is powerful – it answers only to Russian President Vladimir Putin, it polices the police, looks for corrupt politicians, deals with organised mafia groups and the kind of crimes that are so terrible they require the most hardened and seasoned law enforcement veterans. It quickly became clear that the Podkopayevs were going to shock even the most veteran of Sledkom officers.
AT HOME WITH THE PODKOPAYEVS
Vladimir Markin was one such toughened-by-experience veteran of Sledkom, but the Po
