Fyodor Kozlov

Eventually, he was put on trial for the murders, and on April 23, 1990, the Novosibirsk Regional Court found him guilty on all counts and sentenced him to death. After the trial, Kozlov was transferred to the death row in SIZO-1 in Novosibirsk. Before the sentence could be carried out, he hanged himself in prison on September 1, 1990.

Shortly after his release on June 16, 1989, Kozlov committed his first murder. While returning home from work, he passed by the village's train station when he saw 18-year-old saleswoman Natalya Rodnikova walking along a dirt road, ostensibly to shorten her walk to her home village of Linyovo. Kozlov caught up with her and, at knifepoint, dragged Rodnikova deep into the woods, raped and stabbed her to death. That same night, after much deliberation, Kozlov returned to the crime scene, threw some branches over Rodnikova's body and then set it on fire in an attempt to destroy the evidence. The woman's charred remains were found on the next day by her father, who recognized her by the unburned clothing and shoes. Kozlov, as a convicted violent felon, was immediately considered a suspect by police - however, since he now supposedly led a law-abiding lifestyle; was not known to drink alcohol and had a positive work record, he was eventually written off as a suspect.

In early July 1989, while on an assignment in Iskitim, Kozlov accidentally had his foot run over by 12-year-old local girl Masha Dorofeeva while she was riding her bicycle. After showing her his shock worker's permit (which, in reality, belonged to his mother-in-law), Kozlov introduced himself as a policeman and lured Dorofeeva to an abandoned two-storey house near a heater-manufacturing plant. In there, he tied her up with a white ribbon and put a gag of plaster in her mouth before raping and stabbing Dorofeeva in the neck using a knife. He ultimately set her body on fire.

As a teenager, Kozlov started acting aggressively and showed possible signs of mental illness, and so in early 1976, the 17-year-old was placed in the care of his grandmother. This did not improve his mental state, and not long after, Kozlov proceeded to rape his 11-year-old third cousin during a psychotic break. His grandmother eventually entered the room and tried to stop him, causing Kozlov to grab a nearby axe and hack to death both her and his third cousin.

Kozlov was swiftly arrested after the murders, and by the end of 1976, he was convicted and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment, the maximum available penalty since he was still a minor at the time. After serving out his sentence in full, Kozlov was released in 1986 and moved to the Novosibirsk Oblast, where he soon married to a woman with whom he had been pen pals while imprisoned. The couple soon had a child, and Kozlov got a job as a welder. Not long after, however, his wife decided to temporarily move in back with her parents in the village of Evsino, while Kozlov stayed behind in Lozhok.

Fyodor Nikolayevich Kozlov (Russian: Федор Николаевич Козлов; April 9, 1959 – September 1, 1990), known as The Iskitim Maniac (Russian: Искитимский маньяк), was a Soviet serial killer and rapist who committed a series of murders in three oblasts from 1976 to 1989. Convicted and sentenced to death for these crimes, he hanged himself in prison before the verdict could be carried out.

Fyodor Nikolayevich Kozlov was born on April 9, 1959, in the village of Semiyarsk, Semipalatinsk Oblast in the Kazakh SSR (now part of East Kazakhstan, Kazakhstan). Shortly after his birth, the family moved to Rostov Oblast in the RSFSR, where Kozlov spent his childhood and adolescence. Due to his introverted nature, he was unpopular with fellow students and considered a social outcast, and in the mid-1970s, he lost all interest in pursuing his education, causing a rift between him and his parents.