The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (70 page)

A native of Vancouver, British Columbia, born on New lasted 64 days. Police were hot on his trail the whole Year’s Day, 1940, Olson spent most of his life in trouble time, furnished with descriptions of his Mazda and its with the police. Remembered as a bully in school, he license number by surviving victims, but Okubo still logged 94 arrests between 1957 and 1981, serving time managed to claim eight lives before he was captured. A on charges that ranged from fraud to armed robbery high school student, l7-year-old Tsuda Miyako, was the and sexual assault. In prison, Olson was known as a first to die, on March 31. Ten days later, Okubo killed homosexual rapist and sometime informer, once coach-Oikawa Mieko, a 17-year-old waitress. Ida Chieko, age ing fellow inmate Gary Marcoux into writing a detailed 19, was murdered on April 17, while another student, confession to the rape and mutilation-murder of a nine-17-year-old Kawabata Shigeko, died the following day.

year-old girl, then surfacing as a prosecution witness at Yet another 17-year-old student, Sato Akemi, met her the trial where the letters were used to convict Mar-death at Okubo’s hands on April 27. Kawabo Kazuyo, coux. Back on the street, Olson kept up his role as a an 18-year-old telephone operator, joined the list on police stool pigeon, moving in with the mother of his May 3. Six days later, Okubo raped and murdered 21-illegitimate son.

year-old Takemura Reiko. His last murder victim, 21-In November 1980, 12-year-old Christine Weller was year-old housemaid Takahashi Naoko, was slain the abducted from her home in the Vancouver suburb of next day, May 10.

Surrey, her mutilated body found in the woods south of Okubo displayed no particular ingenuity in dispos-town on Christmas Day. Colleen Daignault, age 13, ing of his victims: four were buried in a vacant lot adja-vanished from Surrey on April 16, and 16-year-old Darcent to an industrial park near Takasaki City, and the ren Johnsrud was abducted from a Vancouver shopping others were simply discarded at rural dump sites.

mall less than a week later and found dead on May 2, Repeated sightings of his Mazda in the Takasaki neigh-his skull shattered by heavy blows.

Olson finally got around to marrying his girlfriend borhood inevitably led to Okubo’s arrest on the on May 15, 1981, and 16-year-old Sandra Wolfsteiner evening of May 14. A girl was with him in the car disappeared four days later, while hitchhiking through when he was cornered by police, Okubo handing her suburban Langley. On June 21, 13-year-old Ada Court some money and remarking that “You’d better take a was reported missing at Coquitlam when she failed to taxi home.”

return home from a baby-sitting job. Judy Kozma, 14, Initially held on charges of abduction with intent to disappeared on July 9, her mutilated body recovered commit an immoral act, Okubo soon confessed his from Lake Weaver near Agassiz in the Frazer Valley on crimes and led police to the graves of several victims July 25.

they had not yet discovered. Tried on eight counts of By that time, Olson was already considered a sus-abduction, murder, and abandonment of corpses, pect in the various deaths and disappearances, his Okubo told the court, “I became the brute that I am name first mentioned at a law enforcement conference because of the police. During their investigation of the on July 15. Despite sporadic surveillance of their previous two cases in which I was involved, they treated man, police were unable to prevent him from claiming me very badly. Their punishment was dealt out in a way four more victims in the last week of July. Fifteen-that completely destroyed my humanity. It made me year-old Raymond King disappeared from New West-rebel against authority.”

minster on July 23, his body recovered from the shore Asked for any final comments on his situation, of Lake Weaver two weeks later. On July 25, 18-year-Okubo went on to say, “If I could be reborn, I would old Sigrun Arnd was abducted and killed while

like to come back as a weed. I was told by a woman I thumbing rides near Vancouver, her remains finally once knew that no matter how much weeds are tread identified through dental charts. Terri Carson van-upon, they snap back. That’s the kind of existence I ished from the same Surrey housing complex where would like to have in the next life.”

Christine Weller had lived, her corpse joining the list Convicted and sentenced to death on February 22, of those recovered from Lake Weaver. On July 30, 17-1973, Okubo spent nearly three years at Tokyo’s year-old Louise Chartrand disappeared while hitch-Kosuge Detention Center, appealing his sentence. The hiking at Maple Ridge.

appeals were rejected, and he was finally hanged on Officers tailing Olson arrested him days later, after January 23, 1976, six days after his 41st birthday.

he picked up two female hitchhikers on Vancouver
200

ONOPRIENKO, Anatoly

Island. The girls were unharmed, but a search of his van
ONOPRIENKO, Anatoly

turned up an address book belonging to Judy Kozma.

A native of Laski in the Zhitomirskaya Oblast district Formally charged with her murder six days later, Olson of the Ukraine, born in 1959, Anatoly Onoprienko was started dealing with the prosecution, striking a bargain placed in an orphanage at the age of one year, following that would pay his wife and child $10,000 per victim in his mother’s death. An older brother was kept at home return for information on four known murders and with their father, and the fact of his abandonment directions to six missing corpses. Olson made good on apparently fueled a pathological hatred of families, his part of the controversial deal, and the money was erupting into a seven-year killing spree that would snuff paid on schedule over furious public protest. On Janu-out 52 lives.

ary 11, 1982, the self-described “Beast of British A forestry student and sometime mental patient, Columbia” pled guilty on 11 murder counts and was Onoprienko got off to a slow start as a serial killer, sentenced to 11 concurrent life terms.

claiming his first victim at age 30 in 1989. Eleven In custody, Olson continues to provoke controversy more would follow by 1995, but he had yet to hit his with media forays reminiscent of CHARLES MANSON in stride with a series of ultraviolent home invasions that the United States. In August 1997, in a bid for early would lead Ukrainian newspapers to dub him the Ter-parole, Olson claimed that he had earned $1.3 million minator. Prior to December 1995, his murders had in advances for three unpublished books and a collec-gone virtually unnoticed, except by overworked police tion of videotapes; the money, he said, would be placed detectives and surviving loved ones of the victims, but in a trust fund for the benefit of his victims’ families, Onoprienko was preparing to change his MODUS

should he be released. (At the same time, Olson also OPERANDI, venting his rage at whole families instead claimed he was responsible for a total of 143 murders, spanning the United States and Canada, a claim unlikely to win favor with parole boards.) Crown Prosecutor Joe Bellows denounced Olson’s statements as

“fantastic lies,” predictably opposing the killer’s bid for early release. On August 23, Olson addressed the jury that would rule on his petition for parole, asking them,

“Do I look like some kind of raving lunatic?” The gallery of spectators exploded with shouts in the affirmative, and jurors deliberated less than 15 minutes before rejecting Olson’s parole bid.

Barred from another parole bid until 2006, Olson sought other means to keep his name before the public.

In 1999 he told Irish police that he had killed two women on a visit to their country in the 1980s, and that an unnamed personal friend was the still-at-large

“South Dublin Killer,” blamed for five disappearances.

In a telephone interview with the
Irish Mirror,
Olson said, “All I am doing is trying to help authorities around the world to find the bodies of the dead men and women. I can find the bodies in Ireland without any problem. I know exactly where they are.” Authorities passed on that offer, and likewise dismissed Olson’s bid for a trip to Hawaii, where he allegedly claimed two victims during a 1980 vacation. In May 2003, Olson’s ex-wife told reports that she had seen none of the infamous $100,000 payoff from 1982, which was eaten up instead by legal fees. The latest furor erupted in June 2004, when Olson and 12,500 other Canadian prisoners gained the right to vote in national elections. “It burns my ass,” the father of one Olson victim said, “to know that he’s going to cast a vote and cancel out my vote. It causes pain and suffering for all victims in Canada.”

Anatoly Onoprienko, “The Terminator” (Author’s collection)
201

“ORANGE Coast Killer”

of solitary targets. The massacres followed a pattern, the house. Before he left, the stalker vowed that his Onoprienko invading isolated houses in the predawn cousin’s family would be “punished on Easter,” a threat hours, herding family members together and blasting that was relayed to local authorities. On Easter Sunday, them with a 12-gauge shotgun before looting and April 16, police traced Onoprienko to a girlfriend’s burning their homes. Frequently, police found family home where he was arrested following a brief scuffle. A photos scattered at the crime scenes, torn and tossed search of the premises revealed a tape deck stolen from about in the slayer’s fury.

the Novosad family, a pistol taken from a murder scene The first wholesale slaughter occurred on December in Odessa, and a second firearm linked to several of the 12, 1995, in Gamarnya, Zhitomirskaya Oblast, where a family massacres.

forestry teacher named Zaichenko, his wife, and two In custody, Onoprienko demanded to speak with “a infant sons were killed in their home. Nine days later, general,” and once the officer of proper rank arrived, four members of the Kryuchkov family were killed at he swiftly confessed a total of 52 murders, thus tying Bratkovichi, their home set afire. A passerby named the official Russian record held by ANDREI CHIKATILO.

Malinsky was also shot dead on the street outside when The murders were compelled by “inner voices” ema-he glimpsed the fleeing gunman. On January 5, two nating “from above,” he claimed, though Anatoly businessmen named Odintsov and Dolinin were shot wasn’t sure if his orders came from God or aliens in while sitting in their stalled car outside Energodar, outer space. Either way, the killer said, he was imbued Zaporozhskaya Oblast, and before the night was out, with “strong hypnotic powers” and telepathic control two more victims were killed at nearby Vasilyevka-over animals. The best thing, Anatoly said, would be Dneiprorudny, including a pedestrian named Garmasha for scientists to study him as “a phenomenon of and a policeman named Pybalko. The following day, nature.”

three more men were shot and killed in a car parked on Onoprienko was convicted on all counts and sen-the Berdyansk-Dnieprovskaya highway.

tenced to death on April 1, 1999. There are still signifi-The Terminator returned to Bratkovichi on January cant gaps in the time line of his movements between 17, butchering five members of the Pilat family and 1989 and 1995, although it is confirmed that Anatoly torching their home. Two apparent witnesses to the was expelled from both Austria and Germany during crime were also shot dead as the killer escaped. In Fas-that period. Investigators are exploring possible links tova, Kievskaya Oblast, four more victims were blasted between their prisoner and other unsolved homicides in on January 30, including a 28-year-old nurse, her two the Ukraine and elsewhere. Onoprienko’s life was sons, and a male visitor. The Dubchak family was next, spared on March 22, 2000, when Ukrainian president annihilated at home in Olevsk, Zhitomirskaya Oblast, Leonid Kuchma signed a new law abolishing capital on February 19. (The father and son were shot in that punishment.

attack; the mother and daughter were beaten to death with a hammer.) Eight days later, in Malina, Lvivskaya Oblast, four members of the Bodnarchuk family were

“ORANGE Coast Killer”

slain, the adults shot, their children hacked to death The latter 1970s were witness to a sudden rash of ran-with an ax; within an hour, a male neighbor was also dom, homicidal violence in America, alerting criminolo-shot and mutilated in his home. Back in the

gists to a disturbing increase in the incidence of serial Bratkovichi neighborhood on March 22, the Termina-murders. Some regions of the country—Texas, Florida, tor shot and burned to death four members of the New York—seemed bent on hogging headlines for their Novosad family.

local maniacs, but none could hold a candle to the Bratkovichi residents had seen enough. With the killing fields of southern California where the “Hillside largest manhunt in Ukrainian history already under Strangler,” “Freeway Killer,” “Sunset Slayer,” “Skid way, they demanded and received “an extreme

Row Slasher,” and a host of others plied their trade.

response.” A National Guard unit, complete with rocket One such—the “Orange Coast Killer”—went his ghoul-launchers and armored vehicles, was sent to protect the ish counterparts one better, slipping out of newsprint village, while some 2,000 officers scoured the western into legend as the one who got away.

Ukraine in search of their nameless, faceless quarry.