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Kaspars PETROVS
Classification:
Serial killer
Characteristics:
Robberies
Number of victims: 13
- 38
Date of murders: 2000 - 2003
Date
of arrest:
February 3,
2003
Date of birth: 1978
Victims profile: Elderly
women
Method of murder: Strangulation
Location: Riga, Latvia
Status: Sentenced to life in prison on May 12, 2005
Kaspars Petrovs
(born 1978) is a Latvian national who is a convicted serial killer of
the murder of thirteen elderly women by the Riga Regional Court on
May 12, 2005
and sentenced to life in prison.
Petrovs, the son of a prominent medical doctor, had
been homeless for several years. He was initially held in connection
with the murders of five women in February 2003 and would confess to
killing upwards of thirty women while being held in custody.
He would later be charged with the strangulation
murder and robberies of thirty-eight mostly elderly women residents of
Riga, Latvia between 2000 and 2003. However, authorities would
eventually only pursue charges in the deaths of thirteen of the
victims due to a lack of forensic evidence.
Petrovs, who had a previous conviction for theft in
1998, maintained after his arrest and during his 2005 trial that he
had not intended to kill his victims, but only to rob them. Petrovs
strangled the women after following them home and forcibly entering
their apartments or posing as a gas company employee and later claimed
that he had only intended to render them unconscious so that he may
rob them.
After his conviction, Petrovs apologized to his
victims' families in court and asked for their forgiveness.
Kaspars Petrows
(* 1975) is a lettischer assistant, who was arrested as of Riga
2003 in Riga.
Initially one suspected it in 5
murder cases, which were committed in Riga in the years 2002 and
2003. During the later investigation the police found out that
Petrows killed more than 20 older women. All its victims were
unmarried, older annuitants.
Its proceeding was the following:
He observed older women on the post office or on the market, made he
its acquaintance following and won their confidence, about by
helping to carry their shopping bags home.
Another variant, in order to
receive entrance into the dwelling, was, to spend itself than
Gasmann who would have to read off the gas meter. Petrows used then
the inadvertence of its victims and it with a bring along towel.
Afterwards it put its victims to bed and prepared it in such a way,
as if they would sleep.
Its booty was mostly little cash,
canned goods and sometimes also decoration. The police numbered the
value of the stolen things on approximately 35,000 US dollar.
The crimes of Petrows
were only by accident discovered: When the police finger marks in
one of the dwellings of a victim found, these were compared with the
central file. Petrows had been already seized there because of some
smaller Eigentumsdelikte. On 3 February 2003 Kaspars Petrows was
arrested.
During the process following on it it became to 13.
May of 2005 because of 13 these murders to a lifelong detention
condemns.
Serial killer receives life sentence
The Baltic Times
May 19-25, 2005
The Riga District Court sentenced one of the most
prolific serial killer in Latvian history, Kaspars Petrovs, to life in
prison on May 12. Petrovs was convicted for the murder of 13 people,
eight attempted murders, as well as theft and robbery.
Petrovs was originally charged with the murder of
over 30 women between 2000 and 2003, but due to a lack of forensic
evidence he was only convicted of 13 murders.
The assailant said he regretted the murders, and asked for the
families of those killed to forgive him. Petrovs had previously blamed
his upbringing and family for his killing spree, which involved the
murder of mostly elderly women.
"I understood that I would not be able to earn as
much as my family demanded from me. Therefore I turned to crime,¡" he
reportedly said at the trial.
Petrovs added that he regretted murdering the women.
"I can not return the victims to life by words, but
I wish they were still alive, that nothing had happened and that I
wasn't here. I would rather be sitting on the street, subsisting on
bread and water," he said. "I wanted only to rob them, not to kill
them.¡"
Petrovs would strangle his victims, who were often
older women that he followed home. The murderer would con his way into
their houses disguised as a gas company employee. Petrovs emphasized,
however, that when he left the women's apartments, they were often
breathing.
Petrovs had spent the last three years living on
the streets of Riga. By robbing his victims, he was able to collect an
estimated 18,000 lats (26,000 euros) in goods and money. The
conviction was not his first run in with the law. Petrovs was
previously convicted for theft in 1998.
Serial
killer begins life sentence for murdering 13 women
May 13, 2005
The most prolific
serial killer in modern Latvian history was sentenced to life in
prison yesterday after being convicted of murdering 13 elderly
women.
Kaspars Petrovs, 27, was also convicted of robbery and
inflicting serious bodily injury. Petrovs had been charged with
robbing and strangling 38 women between 2000 and 2003. However, the
Riga Regional Court said murder could only be proved in 13 of the
cases.
During the trial, Petrovs admitted robbing the women but said
he strangled them only so they would lose consciousness.
Investigators said Petrovs, who had been homeless in Riga for three
years, followed his victims home and entered their apartments by
force or by posing as a worker with the country's state-owned
natural gas company. Once inside, they said, Petrovs would kill his
victims and rob them.
Petrovs apologised to victims' families in
court yesterday and asked for their forgiveness. "I can not return
the victims to life by words, but I wish they were still alive, that
nothing had happened and I wasn't here," he was quoted as saying.
Serial
killer suspect blames childhood for attacks on 30 women
May 3, 2005
A latvian
man accused of murdering 30 elderly women has said his upbringing
was partly to blame for the four-year killing spree.
Kaspars Petrovs, 27, is on trial in Riga Regional Court for robbing
and strangling the women and attempting to murder eight others
between 2000 and 2003.
He has admitted robbing the women but said he strangled them only so
they would lose consciousness.
"All my life I have felt that I am different," Petrovs told the
court. "I missed attention and tried to compensate for it with my
pranks and mischief.
"However, (my) family considered my problems to be minor, so I
sought consolation in books and created my own world of fantasy,
until I could no longer discern fantasy from reality," he said.
If convicted, Petrovs would become the most prolific serial killer
in Latvia's history. A verdict is expected on May 10.
Investigators said Petrovs, who had been homeless in Riga for three
years, followed his victims home and entered their apartments by
force or by posing as a gas worker.
Petrovs was held in February 2003 on suspicion of killing five
women. He later confessed to another 25 killings.
"I understood that I would not be able to earn as much as my family
demanded from me. Therefore I turned to crime," he said. "Of course,
I did not enjoy doing all this – it was disgusting – but I got
carried away and could not stop. I wanted only to rob them, not to
kill them."
He said his victims were still alive, talking and breathing, when he
left their apartments. He is also alleged to have stolen £18,000
worth of goods.
Serial killer tells
all
February 25, 2005
A court in Riga
continued hearing evidence Friday from suspected Latvian murderer
Kaspars Petrovs, whose trial on charges of killing 38 elderly women
resumed this week.
Petrovs, the 28-year-old son of a respected medical doctor,
described in graphic detail how he had killed one of his victims,
and told the court that, on some days, he was able to assault two
elderly women in a couple of hours.
"I came in to the stairway and walked up to the third floor, where I
knocked on the middle door," he told the court. He explained he had
learned in his four-month killing spree, which lasted from October
2002 to January 2003, that single, elderly women often lived in the
smaller, middle apartment in Latvian housing blocks.
"An old woman opened it. I presented myself as a gas company
official and went into the kitchen.
"I washed my hands, took the towel and went into the other room,
where the woman was, and strangled the woman with the towel. Then I
put her on the sofa, checked the closet and found the money:
approximately 60 lats," Petrovs said, recalling his crime in minute
detail.
"I looked at the woman and saw the blood running from her nose. I
went back to the kitchen, took the other two towels and cleaned the
blood. I put those towels in the bag, closed the room and threw away
the bag with the towels and a key.
"Afterwards I felt terrible and started to vomit," he said.
"But then I went to the next stairway and knocked again on the
middle door."
That door, too, was opened by an elderly woman, but she was one of
eight who survived Petrovs's frenzied attack.
Petrovs said his second intended victim of the day began to scream
when he tried to strangle her, so he "chickened out and ran away".
Petrovs, 28, was arrested on February 3, 2003 and initially charged
with the murders of five women in Riga, all pensioners and all
strangled to death in the space of four months.
His case went before Riga regional court last year, with an original
indictment listing 30 killings, increased to 38 in November.
Court psychiatrists have deemed him sane and able to stand trial.
Petrovs has confessed to all the killings, and fully cooperated with
the court investigators, his lawyer Antons Drebnieks said.
His trial began on February 9, but had to start over this week after
a court assessor fell ill.
Next week, the court will hear evidence from some of the women who
survived Petrovs's attacks, apparently carried out with a view to
robbing the victims.
Serial
killer Kaspars Petrovs on trial in Latvia
February 9, 2005
Kaspars Petrovs - a
most odious serial killer ever known in Latvia, has been put on
trial at the Riga district court on Wednesday.
The 29- year-old
killer has confessed to the murder of 38 women of retirement age.
Criminal charges against the killer were brought on 30 cases
investigated, while the actual number of his victims is unknown.
All the women were
killed for purposes of gain. The killer got acquainted with his
future victims, pretending it was a casual encounter, and shadowed
his victims home to find out where they lived if the women he met
looked well-to-do.
