Serial actor: the trial of the alleged murderer from VGIK has begun

The Moscow Regional Court has begun considering the case of Anatoly Gaskov, a graduate student of the acting department of VGIK, who, according to the investigation, strangled and raped nine girls, and also stabbed a man. He carried out attacks in Moscow and the Moscow region. Among the victims of the defendant is the daughter of the adviser to the President of Peru. Gaskov could not be caught for more than 20 years: he served ten of them for another crime, and for the remaining years he lived quietly in his native Berdsk, where he returned after the Moscow series of murders.

Deferred arrest

The investigation of the crimes of the serial maniac was carried out by the TFR of the regional administration. By the time of his arrest, Gaskov was 51 years old. He served time for raping a young girl and lived most of his life peacefully in his native Berdsk in the Novosibirsk region. In many ways, the arrest of the maniac is a professional success of the investigators, who had the opportunity to more carefully compare the genetic materials seized at the scene of serious crimes in 2002.

Prior to this, no one had linked the murders of girls in Moscow and the Moscow region to the series. It was only after the DNA match that it became clear that all these crimes were committed by one person. During his arrest, Gaskov did not resist and later, during interrogations, calmly and in detail described how he carried out the attacks. Clearly showing off to the investigators, he even stated during one of the interrogations that he had actually killed more than a hundred people. But the investigators did not believe his words and did not find any evidence for the loud statement.

As a result, the maniac was charged with the murders of nine girls and one man in 2002, as well as crimes against the sexual integrity of his stepdaughter, committed two decades later.

The maniac from the acting course

Gaskov, as his friends told him, had wanted to become an actor since childhood, loved to participate in plays and dreamed of fame. After serving in the army, he entered the Novosibirsk Theater Institute, but was soon expelled for absenteeism. In 2002, he came to Moscow, where he entered the VGIK for the course of Emmanuel Vitorgan, but he did not study there for long. The student drank a lot, explaining to his friends that this was how he managed to get into the role better. As a result, he was expelled after the first session for alcohol addiction and absenteeism.

He returned to his native Berdsk, and in 2006 he was arrested for raping an 11-year-old girl, sentenced to ten years in a penal colony. The victim turned out to be his girlfriend's daughter.

In 2024, he was detained and then arrested in a serial murder case. As follows from the case file, in preparation for admission to the theater university and the fate of VGIK, from March to November 2002, Gaskov killed and raped nine young women. He attacked her late at night, beat her on the head, and then raped and strangled her. The first three crimes occurred in the Babushkinsky district of Moscow, then, according to investigators, a college student was killed in Podolsk, and two more girls were strangled by a maniac on the same day in central Pushkino Park, where he stabbed a man some time later.

The latest victim was Agnes Carolina Santisteban, a 23-year-old student at the Moscow Institute of Culture, the niece of the adviser to the President of Peru. Her body was found near a student dormitory in Khimki.

What threatens

If the defendant's guilt is proven, he may face life imprisonment, Boris Feldman, Director of Legal Affairs at Destra Legal, told Izvestia.

"Such punishment is imposed for the murder of two or more persons involving rape, as well as for particularly serious crimes against the sexual integrity of minors," he said. — The investigation of crimes committed 20 years ago is particularly difficult. During this time, physical evidence may be lost or damaged, places of incidents may change, witnesses may forget circumstances, move, or die. In addition, individual episodes are often investigated by different departments and are not initially perceived as a single series.

Investigators must not only identify the alleged perpetrator, but also re-establish the evidence base for each murder: compare the method of attack, the place and time of the crimes, compare information about the victims, the results of examinations, as well as preserved biological traces. In this case, the serial sign was established upon re-examination of archival materials, after which the examination of physical evidence made it possible to link the crimes to a specific person, Boris Feldman noted.

According to the totality of particularly serious crimes that are incriminated to the defendant, the maximum term of imprisonment cannot exceed 25 years, but the possibility of life imprisonment remains, says Albert Khaleyan, a criminal lawyer and partner at the Vector Prime Moscow Bar Association.

"The law does not exclude it in the presence of aggravating circumstances," he explained. — The key factors that will affect the verdict will be the aggravating circumstances listed in Article 63 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, such as recidivism, especially serious consequences and the commission of crimes with extreme cruelty. Confessing oneself and actively helping to solve a crime may be mitigating circumstances.

According to the lawyer, serial murders are one of the most difficult forensic tasks, and the fact that the 2002 case was solved two decades later confirms this. The main problem for law enforcement officers is that maniacs often choose victims randomly. Because of this, the usual versions quickly come to a dead end, and the search for the culprit requires much more time.