{{Short description|Kazakhstani serial killer and rapist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=June 2025}} {{Infobox serial killer | name = Sergey Yarovoy | image = | image_size = | caption = | alt = | birth_name = Sergey Alekseevich Yarovoy | other_names = "The Bloody Paramedic"<br>"The Opytnoye Pole Chikatilo"<br>"The Kazakh Chikatilo" | birth_date = {{Birth year and age|1963}} | birth_place = Kaskelen, Almaty Region, Kazakh SSR ''or'' Balkhash, Karaganda Region, Kazakh SSR | death_date = | death_place = | cause = | conviction = Murder x7 | sentence = 4 years imprisonment (1990)<br>15 years imprisonment (1994)<br>Life imprisonment (2011) | victims = 7–8 | beginyear = 1994; 2006 | endyear = 2008 | country = Kazakhstan, possibly Russia | states = Almaty, East Kazakhstan<br>Novosibirsk (suspected) | apprehended = '''For the last time''' on 24 July 2009 | imprisoned = Black Berkut Prison, Jitiqara, Kostanay Region }}
'''Sergey Alekseevich Yarovoy''' ({{langx|ru|Сергей Алексеевич Яровой}}; born 1963), known as '''The Bloody Paramedic''' ({{langx|ru|Кровавый фельдшер}}), is a Kazakhstani serial killer and rapist. Initially convicted of the rape-murder of a woman in 1994 and sentenced to 15 years imprisonment, he was paroled in 2004 and resumed killing two years later, murdering six children, teenage girls and women in Ust-Kamenogorsk and the village of Opytnoye Pole.
For the latter crimes, Yarovoy was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.
==Early life== Sergey Yarovoy was born in 1963, with different sources giving his birthplace either as Kaskelen or Balkhash.<ref name=vkodet>{{Cite web|url=https://www.inform.kz/ru/v-vostochnom-kazahstane-zaderzhan-seriynyy-ubiyca-dvd-vko_a2190252|title=В Восточном Казахстане задержан серийный убийца – ДВД ВКО|work=Inform.kz|date=7 August 2009|trans-title=Serial killer detained in East Kazakhstan – VKO Department of Internal Affairs|language=ru|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20250701094941/https://www.inform.kz/ru/v-vostochnom-kazahstane-zaderzhan-seriynyy-ubiyca-dvd-vko_a2190252|archivedate=1 July 2025}}</ref><ref name=kask>{{Cite web|url=https://time.kz/news/archive/2010/04/06/15447|title=По следу маньяка|author=Evgeny Fominykh|work=Vremya.kz|date=6 April 2010|trans-title=On the trail of a maniac|language=ru|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20250701095216/https://time.kz/news/archive/2010/04/06/15447|archivedate=1 July 2025}}</ref> He was raised in a seemingly normal family, and after finishing the 8th grade, he moved to Almaty in the late 1970s and enrolled into medical school. In 1981, he was drafted into the Soviet Army, and after demobilization, he resumed his studies and graduated with the certification of a paramedic.<ref name=ustk>{{Cite web|url=https://locman.kz/newsonly.php?ID=9627|title=Маньяка по прозвищу «Кровавый фельдшер» судят в Усть-Каменогорске|work=Bnews.kz|date=30 March 2011|trans-title=Maniac nicknamed "Bloody Paramedic" is on trial in Ust-Kamenogorsk|language=ru|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20250701094953/https://locman.kz/newsonly.php?ID=9627|archivedate=1 July 2025}}</ref>
Soon after this, Yarovoy started working at a hospital in Almaty, where he was regarded positively by co-workers and his direct supervisors alike. He also married to a woman named Elena and had two children with her sometime in the mid-1980s.<ref name=kask/>
By the end of the decade, however, Yarovoy's personality underwent a drastic shift and he developed an addiction to collecting and watching pornographic content.<ref name=kask/> According to his wife's testimony, in 1989, he developed various sexual perversions and demanded that she engage in unconventional types of sex with him – his wife refused, subsequently divorced him and took the children with her.<ref name=kask/>
==Murders== ===Initial crimes=== Following the divorce, Yarovoy resigned from his workplace and started living on the streets. In 1990, he was found guilty of raping a woman in Boralday, for which he was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment.<ref name=kask/> After serving it out in full, he returned to the town, and only a few months later, he raped and murdered a woman there.<ref name=kit>{{Cite web|url=https://time.kz/news/archive/2009/08/08/11822|title=Он обещал показать котят...|author=Natalia Shimolina|work=Vremya|date=8 August 2009|trans-title=He promised to show her the kittens...|language=ru|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20250701095124/https://time.kz/news/archive/2009/08/08/11822|archivedate=1 July 2025}}</ref>
Yarovoy was quickly arrested, tried and convicted for this, receiving a 15-year sentence. He was then transferred to serve it in a penal colony near Ust-Kamenogorsk, in East Kazakhstan.<ref name=kit/>
===Parole=== After serving 10 years in prison, Yarovoy was paroled in 2004 and moved in with his elderly mother – who suffered from an unspecified mental illness.<ref name=kask/> For the next five years, both he and his mother lived in a variety of places around Ust-Kamenogorsk, predominantly rented apartments, as well as a ''dacha'' in the village of Opytnoye Pole.<ref name=kit/>
During this period, Yarovoy was officially jobless, making a living via stealing or doing casual labor. By the late 2000s, he became a member of a religious sect that supplied him with food and job opportunities – in exchange, he was required to periodically travel to Almaty and to Novosibirsk Oblast in neighboring Russia to proselytize to others.<ref name=chik>{{Cite web|url=https://yk.kz/news/kriminal/kazaxstanskij-chikatilo-81064.html|title=Казахстанский Чикатило?|author=Evgeny Fominykh|work=YK-News.kz|date=25 March 2010|trans-title=Kazakhstani Chikatilo?|language=ru|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20250701102320/https://yk.kz/news/kriminal/kazaxstanskij-chikatilo-81064.html|archivedate=1 July 2025}}</ref>
===Serial murders=== Between August 2006 and 2008, Yarovoy committed a series of at least 9 rapes and 6 murders against children and women in Ust-Kamenogorsk and Opytnoye Pole. His ''modus operandi'' consisted of attacking victims in deserted areas such as vacant lots or near railroad tracks, sneaking up on them and hitting them on the back of the head with a blunt object such as a steel pipe.<ref name=end>{{Cite web|url=https://www.inform.kz/ru/v-vostochnom-kazahstane-zakonchilsya-gromkiy-process-po-ugolovnomu-delu-v-otnoshenii-sergeya-yarovogo_a2366863|title=В Восточном Казахстане закончился громкий процесс по уголовному делу в отношении Сергея Ярового|work=Inform.kz|date=4 April 2011|trans-title=A high-profile criminal trial against Sergey Yarovoy has ended in East Kazakhstan|language=ru|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20250701095041/https://www.inform.kz/ru/v-vostochnom-kazahstane-zakonchilsya-gromkiy-process-po-ugolovnomu-delu-v-otnoshenii-sergeya-yarovogo_a2366863|archivedate=1 July 2025}}</ref> If the victim was knocked out successfully, he would then rape and sometimes beat them to death. He had no definitive victim type, as he killed both children, teenagers and women with age ranges from 8 to 50, with differing physical features and ethnicities. According to Yarovoy, they only thing that mattered was if there were no possible witnesses to an attack.<ref name=kit/>
His first confirmed victim was a woman he attacked in August 2006 along a railway station that led to the village of Shmelev Log, just outside Ust-Kamenogorsk.<ref name=kask/> After raping her, Yarovoy struck her multiple times with a metal bar in her vital organs, after which he disposed of the body in a nearby pit and covered it with branches and dirt.<ref name=kask/>
Less than a year later, in June 2007, he lured away 8-year-old Irina Shertsobaeva from her family home's yard to an abandoned barn, on the premises of showing her some kittens.<ref name=kask/> According to investigators, Yarovoy then raped the girl and subjected her to all kinds of physical abuse before strangling her to death – Yarovoy himself disputed this, claiming that he had no time to rape Shertsobaeva as she started screaming and threatening to call her father.<ref name=kask/>
Over the next few days, Yarovoy committed at least four separate attacks, killing 16-year-old schoolgirl Ekaterina Zlydareva and raping three other women, who survived the assaults.<ref name=vkodet/> One of these victims, Natalya Ushakova, managed to convince him that she was willing to be his girlfriend and that they would meet again tomorrow. Yarovoy seemingly believed her and let her go without harming her further, allowing her to escape.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=30917596&pos=4;100#pos=4;100|title=В Усть-Каменогорске начался судебный процесс над казахстанским Чикатило|author=Alexander Podoynikov|work=KTK.kz|date=21 January 2011|trans-title=The trial of the Kazakhstani Chikatilo has begun in Ust-Kamenogorsk|language=ru|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20250701095432/https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=30917596&pos=4;-106%23pos=4;-106|archivedate=1 July 2025}}</ref>
A few months later, he came across a woman late at night who was in a hurry to catch a train on the "Zashchita" railway station. Yarovoy caught up with her and threw her to the ground, but the victim fiercely resisted him, causing them both to roll down an embankment.<ref name=chik/> Once they reached the bottom, Yarovoy managed to put his hand over her mouth, get on top of her and hit her with a rock. He then raped the woman and subsequently killed her before fleeing the area.<ref name=chik/>
In the summer of 2008, Yarovoy killed a 16-year-old teenage girl and a 30-year-old woman near Opytnoye Pole, both of which occurred within a short time frame of one another.<ref name=vkodet/>
==Arrest and confessions== On 24 July 2009, Yarovoy was arrested on Seyfullina Street in Almaty while attempting to attack another girl.<ref name=vkodet/> Shortly after his capture, he readily confessed to the investigators about the murders and expressed willingness to cooperate with them. For the following few months, Yarovoy was taken under escort to the crime scenes and demonstrated how he carried out the murders, as well as where he had buried the victims' remains.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://yk-news.kz/news/за-три-месяца-в-устькаменогорске-без-вести-пропали-три-женщины-5007|title=За три месяца в Усть-Каменогорске без вести пропали три женщины|author=Inna Chernyshevskaya|work=YK-News.kz|date=21 February 2013|trans-title=Three women have gone missing in Ust-Kamenogorsk in three months|language=ru|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20250701095135/https://yk-news.kz/news/%D0%B7%D0%B0-%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8-%D0%BC%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%8F%D1%86%D0%B0-%D0%B2-%D1%83%D1%81%D1%82%D1%8C%D0%BA%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BE%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B5-%D0%B1%D0%B5%D0%B7-%D0%B2%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B8-%D0%BF%D1%80%D0%BE%D0%BF%D0%B0%D0%BB%D0%B8-%D1%82%D1%80%D0%B8-%D0%B6%D0%B5%D0%BD%D1%89%D0%B8%D0%BD%D1%8B-5007|archivedate=1 July 2025}}</ref>
In subsequent interrogations, Yarovoy stated that he only killed victims who resisted his rapes, leaving the compliant ones alive.<ref name=kask/> He was additionally questioned about a similar rape-murder that occurred over the border in Novosibirsk, as a watchman of a local cooperative described seeing a man believed to be the killer that greatly resembled Sergey Yarovoy.<ref name=vkodet/> While he never admitted involvement and was never charged in this case, Yarovoy claimed that he was indeed in the city at the time the crime was committed to do missionary work.<ref name=chik/>
==Trial, sentence and imprisonment== Despite pointing out the crime scenes and recalling almost every detail about each murder, Yarovoy suddenly recanted his confession in the fall of 2009 and began to feign insanity. At his lawyer's request, he was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation. While he was initially ruled sane, he was soon after interned at a mental institution after experiences symptoms of psychosis.<ref name=kask/>
Yarovoy was again declared sane to stand trial in late 2010, after which he was charged by the court in Ust-Kamenogorsk.<ref name=ustk/> The trial began behind closed doors in January 2011, and during court hearings, Yarovoy insisted that he was being framed and that he was at the wrong place at the wrong time.<ref name=tant>{{Cite web|url=https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=30961317&pos=4;-100#pos=4;-100|title=Сергея Ярового признали виновным в целой серии жестоких изнасилований и убийств|author=Alexander Podoynikov|work=KTK.kz|date=5 April 2011|trans-title=Sergey Yarovoy was found guilty of a series of brutal rapes and murders|language=ru|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20250701095232/https://online.zakon.kz/Document/?doc_id=30961317&pos=4;-106%23pos=4;-106|archivedate=1 July 2025|via=Online.zakon.kz}}</ref> Supposedly, the real killer was an Asian man wearing a medical mask and a black cap that was the true culprit, with Yarovoy claiming that the police falsely charged him and put him in prison, where he was beaten and raped by other inmates.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://time.kz/news/archive/2011/04/06/poslednee-slovo-“chikatilo”|title=Последнее слово “Чикатило”|author=Evgeny Fominykh|work=Vremya.kz|date=6 April 2011|trans-title=The last words of "Chikatilo"|language=ru|archiveurl=https://archive.today/20250701095356/https://time.kz/news/archive/2011/04/06/poslednee-slovo-%E2%80%9Cchikatilo%E2%80%9D|archivedate=1 July 2025}}</ref>
His claims were disregarded due to the amount of exhaustive evidence that indicated his guilt. As a result, on 4 April 2011, Sergey Yarovoy was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life imprisonment.<ref name=tant/> He was then transferred to serve out his sentence at the Black Berkut Prison in Jitiqara, where he remains to this day.
==See also== * List of serial killers by country * List of serial rapists
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Yarovoy, Sergey}} Category:1963 births Category:Living people Category:20th-century murderers Category:21st-century murderers Category:Kazakhstani serial killers Category:Kazakhstani rapists Category:Kazakhstani people convicted of murder Category:People convicted of murder by Kazakhstan Category:Kazakhstani people convicted of rape Category:Prisoners and detainees of Kazakhstan Category:Kazakhstani prisoners and detainees Category:Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Kazakhstan Category:Kazakhstani prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment Category:Violence against women in Kazakhstan Category:People from Almaty Region Category:People from Karaganda Region