From “Capercaillie” to “series”
In 2002, Krasnoufimsk, a city in Sverdlovsk region, faced a grim report: a pensioner had been beaten to death with a hammer in her own apartment on Ukhtomsky Street, and valuables were stolen. The loot was small, fingerprints on the filing cabinet yielded nothing, and clues were scarce. The case was quietly shelved, shuffled first into a category jokingly labeled as “chicken” and then abandoned altogether.
This murder marked the start of a chain that baffled investigators for eight years. By 2003, officers had a detailed profile of the assailant, yet the killer continued to elude capture. The attacker, described by a victim as a slender young woman between 160 and 165 cm tall with blond hair, did not end after the third assault. Disguised as a social security worker, the criminal rang a doorbell and waited for the occupant to answer. The unsuspecting pensioner opened the door, and the intruder began hammering at the threshold. A neighbor’s alarm spurred the attacker to retreat, sparing the victim long enough for her to describe the criminal in detail. The city even saw a portrait of the murderer displayed in front of his own house, as locals dubbed her the “Krasnoufimskaya she-wolf.” The crowd joked that the killer bore a striking resemblance to the woman accused by the police, who remained suspiciously calm and simply laughed off the rumors.
Investigators canvassed nearly every blond resident of Krasnoufimsk, fingerprinting those who matched the identikit. Many were found at their registered addresses, but the effort yielded nothing decisive. Later discoveries showed the killer had changed hair color over time, and that his passport did not carry Krasnoufimsk records, suggesting the person once lived elsewhere, even in Nyagan, before returning to the area.
“Tour” and a fake trail
The killings persisted as the suspect’s pattern wandered through villages around Yekaterinburg and beyond, touching Serov, Nizhny Tagil, Shirokaya Rechka, Druzhinino, and Achit. On a second close call, a retiree who sheltered the killer alerted district police, but by the time officers arrived, the elderly woman was dead and the informant fled back into hiding as the door remained unopenable. Later, the killer left a hammer smeared with the blood of several victims across several cities, a clue that helped link the murders as the work of a single person who moved through the Sverdlovsk region.
For years the case wore on without decisive results, until 2008 when a tragedy struck the family of a deputy head of the Nizhny Tagil police department. The murder’s resemblance to a televised crime drama spurred investigators to escalate the search. A month later, Maria Valeeva, a woman of roughly the same age as the suspect and bearing a similar appearance, was detained at the Nizhny Tagil railway station. Valeeva confessed to the killings, claiming a traumatic past including abuse as a child. Her statements suggested a motive tied to rage against older women, a reaction she said stemmed from a gang rape endured in the home of a pensioner.
Inquiries revealed that Valeeva’s statements were coerced through coercive tactics used by some officers, including physical force. Interrogations involved threats and pressure, with Valeeva subjected to intimidation as the investigators pressed for admissions. Three operators faced prison terms, while two received suspended sentences. The case thus reset to square one, as authorities sought to determine the true author of the pensioner murders.
Passion and hatred for profit for the elderly
The pattern resurfaced in May 2010 when a new attack struck the same neighborhood. An 81-year-old retiree on Ukhtomskaya Street endured an onslaught of eighteen hammer blows, followed by strangulation in the bathroom to confirm death. Neighbors, alarmed by the cat’s cries at the door, called the police. Early inquiries revealed that the victim recently hired Irina Gaydamachuk, a painter at a railway warehouse, to redo ceilings. Forensic work and identikit matching linked the suspect to the gruesome branding of the killer. Hair, fingerprints, and a hair strand plucked from a victim all pointed to Gaydamachuk, who was promptly detained.
Interrogations indicated that the painter began the first murder on a whim. She had been employed to study painting by the pensioner, but the plan to rob her employer for alcohol turned into something far darker. Additional testimony hinted that a separate motive was a deep-seated resentment toward the elderly. The modus operandi remained consistent: a few days of surveillance to learn a victim’s routine, then a door-to-door approach as a seemingly trusted professional — a social worker, a fire safety officer, a gas service agent, or a housing office lawyer — who would slip inside and strike from behind with a hammer. Gaydamachuk reportedly made payments from older women ranging from one to sixteen thousand rubles, a relatively modest bounty that reflected a more opportunistic motive than a grand plan.
Abandoned children and passion for alcohol
Irina Gaydamachuk, born Mashkina in 1972 in Karpinsk, Sverdlovsk region, had a troubled youth marked by early alcohol abuse. Her parents lost parental rights when she was young, and later she herself faced loss of custody for her own child. In the late 1990s she moved to Krasnoufimsk, where she met her future husband, Gaidamachuk. They welcomed a daughter, but personal turmoil and drinking soon resurfaced. Unemployment pushed her toward temporary jobs as debts grew. Her husband supported himself by painting and garment work, but money remained tight. The couple’s volatility intensified, and by 2010 she left the family. He claimed a plan to visit his mother-in-law to settle debts, while he began living with a neighbor and sought another relationship.
After the arrest, Gaidamachuk hoped relatives would help establish an alibi, but they refused to lie. Forensic assessments showed Gaydamachuk, though showing some mental deviations, did not meet criteria for insanity. In June 2012, the so-called Krasnoufimskaya female wolf received a twenty-year sentence in a penal colony, a standard outcome given Russia’s sentencing framework for such crimes.