Mihail Leshtarski

Leshtarski continues to deny any of the murders attributed to him, claiming that the police have framed him and that the real killer is out there. He has taken a huge dislike to his portrayal in the media, and in 2016, he claimed that when he gets out, he'd skin alive at least five people.

On February 22, 2011, Mihail Leshtarski was captured in a cave near Mezdra on suspicion of committing robberies and taken to the court, where he readily confessed to murdering Tomova, but later recanted his confession, claiming he was mistreated by the police and that he wasn't hiding from them due to killing Tomova, and that he was instead doing because he was filmed by a camera stealing heroin from a rich woman. Nevertheless, on September 29, 2011, he was given two life sentences by the court, and is currently serving in Sofia Central Prison.

Leshtarski is suspected by authorities to have committed at least four other murders in the Vratsa and Montana provinces. Although no details about the latter murders are available, the former suspected murders are that of Yordan Yolov and Vladimir Toshovski. The 82-year-old and half-blind Yolov was beaten to death at his home in Staro Selo in January 2011, not far from where Leshtarski was hiding after killing Tomova, after which he was robbed. The following month, the 75-year-old Toshovski was also robbed at his home in Gorna Kremena, and when he only tried to give half of his pension to the killer, he was also beaten to death in a rage.

On August 27, 2009, Elena Tomova, a 59-year-old woman who lived with her daughter and her husband in Sofia and often visited her renewed villa in Vlado Trichkov, noticed that somebody had been in her house and had slept in her bed. The woman even found a hunter's hat lying around, but none of the more expensive items were touched. Tomova contemplated calling the police, but decided that it's no use and abandoned the idea, instead wondering if she should remain in the villa or return to Sofia. As the villa was a bit farther away from other homes, Elena had decided to get her axe and place it nearby. Elena then went off to collect wild berries, later asking her neighbor if she could stay at her house, but the latter denied, as she had visitors. Soon after, while trying to read a book, she heard somebody open the wooden gate. That somebody turned out to be Leshtarski - scruffy, with a long, graying and bushy beard.

Aside from these, another similar murder that occurred in the capital is also thought to be Leshtarski's doing: the July 2007 killing of 59-year-old Mariana Dandova, who was also found strangled and with her breast cut off by a knife. Her body was found in a place frequented by a lot of prostitutes, but there were no witnesses to the crime. It was initially thought that, due to wild dogs having torn apart the rest of the corpse, she had been attacked by the rabid beings, but it was later determined that this was not the case. Leshtarski might have also had a motive here - the woman resembled the prostitute which had abandoned him years ago.

During his stay in prison, he was regularly visited by his brother, who'd often ask him for money to buy various house appliances. One of the women in the facility also taught Leshtarski how to do donations, in order to have his sentence reduced. Shortly after his incarceration, his mother suffered from a stroke and stopped talking. Leshtarski was described as an "excellent prisoner, bad citizen", and after 12 years behind bars, he was released in 2005. According to him, his father then told him that his mother had started talking again soon after seeing him.

After this, Leshtarski resumed with stealing and robbing rich people, being incarcerated and released at various times. He had bought off an underage Romani prostitute to have as a live-in girlfriend, but the girl later abandoned him, hurting him deeply. From 2005 to 2008, he worked in hotel complex "Chaika" in Vratsa as a worker. He was described as a good, hard-working employee, but one day, just after his probation period had ended, he went berserk, breaking all of the company cars' and trucks' windows before fleeing. Feeling that he couldn't fit into normal society, Leshtarski began living in caves around the mountain range, surviving by eating 3-4 spoonfuls of honey every day and hunting animals with a self-made bow, with some reports claiming that he had eaten live bats. He was also a skilled climber who scaled his way to most of his hideouts and even during his later confessions, he claimed that he could walk 30 kilometers to the seaside in the span of several days.

Mihail Tsvetanov Leshtarski (born 1959), also known as The Killer from the Cave, is a Bulgarian thief, robber, murderer and suspected serial killer. He was sentenced to life imprisonment for the murder of 59-year-old Elena Tomova in Vlado Trichkov, and is suspected of murdering at least four other pensioners from 2009 to 2011.

Leshtarski was born in 1959 in the village of Tsarevets as one of two children. His father Tsvetan was a wealthy shopkeeper, but a very aggressive and nervous man, while his mother was a housekeeper. Mihail was an unruly child, and in order to discipline him, his father would chain him to the family bed and put food just out of reach, starving his young son, with his mother never trying to protect or even interact at all with him. His father would even chain him to the family car and drive around the yard, and beat him with a motor cord until his skin turned blue. He studied up to the 8th grade, but didn't finish his education, and was continuously incarcerated for various robberies throughout the rest of his life, during some of which he was also abused and even gang raped by some of the inmates. In order to evade beatings by his father, the young Mihail would go out at night stealing and robbing people. Eventually, at 15 or 16 years old, he was called for mandatory service in the army, and began visiting the village only from time to time.