The killer released the witness and brought the police on his trail

On March 18, 1935, she returned from the forest alone. The man she went out with was shot in front of her. The attacker took the jewelry, but the witness let go. Moreover, he asked to write down his home address and made an appointment.

The woman didn't go to the police. She told about the whole friend, then other acquaintances learned about the crime. A few days later, the conversation reached the criminal investigation officers.

The operatives tracked down the witness. She described the attacker and named a sign that sharply narrowed the circle of suspects: the shooter did not have a right hand.

The beginning of the series is considered to be August 30, 1933. That day, in the forest behind the Powder Factories on the eastern outskirts of Leningrad, four dead were found - two men and two women. A fifth woman was seriously injured. A few days later, she died in the hospital without having to say anything.

The forest was adjacent to the Rzhevsky artillery range and the working village. Locals went here for mushrooms, for walks and shortened the road.

The victims lay near the path on a plot about half a kilometer long. From the location of the bodies, investigators decided that the attacker acted alone. Shooting cartridges on the ground was not — most likely, the offender used a revolver.

The main finding was made by experts. As bullets, the shooter used metal balls from bearings, fitted under the channel of the barrel. The cartridges were equipped in an artisanal way.

Unusual bullets became his handwriting. In the future, they helped to link the attacks, but it was not possible to bring the police to the weapon or the master who made the cartridges.

All five were robbed. However, the loot looked disproportionate to the crime: small sums, personal belongings and baskets of mushrooms. Some documents remained in place.

Investigators suggested that the killer was hunting one person, and eliminated the rest as witnesses. After the attack, he disappeared for more than three months. It seemed like the series was over.

On December 2, 1933, two more people were shot dead in the same forest. They lost their boots, food and 85 rubles. The bullets confirmed that the same man had fired.

After that, he lay low again.

On April 11, 1934, the victim was an elderly locksmith who was walking through the forest to a working-class village. The criminal took 150 rubles, a suitcase with tools and parts for locks, as well as three gold crowns.

Now the detectives did not doubt: the shooter is associated with Rzhevka-Powder. He knew the forest well, operated in a restricted area, and most likely lived or worked nearby.

The inspection of residents of the village began. She stretched out for months and gave nothing.

On November 13, 1934, an elderly birder died in the forest, who came to check the snares. This time, the killer’s prey was a cage with captured birds.

After the attack, police reinforced the area. Operatives secretly patrolled the forest and ambushes, hoping to catch the shooter on the spot. He kept slipping away.

On January 11, 1935, he attacked two couples. It was about two hours between the murders. Both locations were about a kilometer away from the site where the bird had died two months earlier.

In one day, the series grew by four victims.

On February 17, a lonely elderly worker was shot dead in the same forest. Homemade bullets again pointed to the former killer.

But in the winter, new evidence emerged. In the snow near one of the crime scenes, the marks of the shooter crossed with the female ones. A man and an unknown woman came together and moved in concert.

Before that, the police searched alone. Now it became clear that in at least one episode there was an assistant next to him.

Around the same time, the attention of detectives attracted a local locksmith with dubious connections. Later it turns out that he produced ammunition for Labutkin and nickeled his revolver. But in early 1935, the operatives did not know about these orders.

They approached the shooter, but his name was still unknown.

The last attack occurred on March 18. Labutkin met a man and a woman in the forest. He shot the man and took his girlfriend’s jewelry.

The killer never left eyewitnesses. This time I changed my rule for some reason. He let the woman go, took her address and made an appointment.

It was this mistake that ended the search.

When the stories of the crime reached the police, the man’s body was already discovered. The operatives quickly realized the attack in question, found the woman and questioned her.

She remembered the shooter's face. But the decisive was another detail - the absence of the right hand.

One-armed worker from the village at the Powder Factories detectives already knew. Alexander Labutkin began at a military enterprise, where he was engaged in shooting small arms. He learned to shoot with both hands and did not lose that skill after the injury.

The loss of the brush was officially recognized as an industrial injury, after which Labutkin was assigned a pension. In the late reconstruction of the case, another version is given: allegedly during the investigation it turned out that he suffered near the house, trying to uproot the stump stolen from the plant charge. Primary documents supporting this story are not publicly available.

After the injury, Labutkin worked as a plumber. He lived in a separate house with his wife Maria and a relative. The family kept the farm, dressed well, there was an expensive radio in the house at that time.

The witness identified Labutkin.

During the search, the police found a revolver, homemade ammunition and property of the victims. For the first time, men, weapons and assaults came together.

Another thing became clear: Labutkin was in no hurry to sell the stolen goods. Many things he just brought home, so it was impossible to get to him through the markets and dealers.

The production varied from case to case. Money and gold coexisted with boots, mushrooms, food, tools and a cage with birds. Labutkin himself was not poor.

The investigation explained the attacks as robbery. What else moved the shooter, could not be established. Later, he was credited with various mental disorders, but there is no confirmed information about a full forensic psychiatric examination.

In the case detained Maria Labutkina, the manufacturer of ammunition and several other people who may have known about the crimes. Female footprints in the forest were associated with Maria. Later publications claim that she helped her husband distract victims, but her actions in individual episodes are not reliably established.

In 1935, Labutkin was sentenced to death and executed. At the same time, the widespread assertion that the decision was made by the Special Conference at the NKVD does not correspond to the powers of this body: in 1935 he could appoint no more than five years in prison. The right to impose death sentences was granted only during the war. Which court considered the Labutkin case cannot be established without an archival verdict.

Different figures are given for the victims.

The known chronology includes 15 dead: five in August 1933, two in December, one each in April and November 1934, four in January 1935, one in February and a man killed on March 18.

Other publications claim that Labutkin confessed to 12 murders. There is no open verdict, so it is not known how many episodes the investigation was able to prove and refer to the court. It is not yet possible to call all 15 murders judicially established.

Homemade bullets combined the attacks. Female footprints pointed to an accomplice. The search yielded weapons and belongings of the dead.

But the last step was taken by a woman whom Labutkin let go. For almost a year and a half, the shooter did not leave eyewitnesses. The witness, whom he deliberately kept alive, called a sign, after which it was impossible to hide in the working village.

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