Russia’s worst serial killer has confessed to a further two murders after being convicted of killing 81 women.

Fomer policeman Mikhail Popkov, 56, was branded ‘The Werewolf’ for his reign of terror which saw him rape many of his victims.

Now detectives believe he could have claimed the lives of ‘closer to 200’ people.

The father-of-one is currently serving a life sentence at a hard-labour penal colony and has been put to work making face masks during the coronavirus pandemic.

Popkov also revealed how he wishes Russia still had the death penalty.

It is the first time he is thought to have expressed any regret for his horrific catalogue of crimes.

The most recent confession relates to two women he butchered in the 1990s.

Speaking about his life behind bars from a detention centre in Irkutsk, Popkov revealed: “There were moments when I thought the death penalty was better.

‘I have a lot to regret.

‘For example, that none of this had happened, that
I had not done (these things).

‘It is a natural desire of any person – to regret.

‘I have had a lot of time to think (about it).’

But when quizzed about how many women he had killed in total, Popkov remained evasive.

‘I did not count the number of my victims,’ he replied.

Popkov routinely used his police car to offer lifts to lone women as they walked home after a night out in his home city, Angarsk.

Outlining the grisly details of how he killed one of the new victims, Popkov told police: ‘We quarrelled and I murdered her.

‘I hit her on the top of her head.

‘She fell down and did not show any signs of life.’

Lt-Col Evgeny Karchevsky, lead investigator on the mass murder case, said previously: ‘I am more than sure that Popkov committed 100-plus crimes, if not closer to 200.

‘It was impossible for him to stop halfway.’

Now fears are growing deranged Popkov is ‘rationing’ his confessions in a bid to return to the Siberian crime scenes and gain respite from the bleak conditions at Torbeyevsky Tsentral penal colony, in Mordovia.

‘I had been working in Torbeyevsky Tsentral for 10 months and just wanted a vacation, so I wrote a confession,” he has said.

‘I knew that I would be brought to Irkutsk.’

Criminals were executed with a gunshot to the back of the head before Moscow suspended the death penalty in 1996.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Source: Read Full Article