Serial Killers

Anatoly Onoprienko

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In “The Terminator,” the T-800 breaks into several homes and even a police station, murdering everyone in sight. In that respect, he’s not much different than his Ukrainian namesake, Anatoly Onoprienko.

In 1989, Onoprienko pulled up beside a car parked on the side of the road and shot everyone inside. He didn’t have a motive. He just felt the urge. For his next kill, the Terminator and a friend from his gym broke into a home, stole whatever they could find, and murdered everyone there. Not long after that, Onoprienko found another car by the side of the road, butchered the family inside, and torched the bodies.

In 1995 and 1996, the Terminator armed himself with a sawed-off 12-guage shotgun and broke into homes across the Ukraine, slaughtering entire families. Sometimes he shot the lock off the door, and sometimes he hurled a brick through the window, tricking the owner into stepping outside. The Terminator always blasted the men, but he was a bit more diverse when it came to the women and kids. Sometimes he used his shotgun, but sometimes he used knives, hammers, or axes. After the deed was done, he’d take a trophy and then set the house on fire. If anyone witnessed the crime, Onoprienko made sure they didn’t tell a soul. By the time he was arrested in 1996, he’d killed a total of 52 people.

During his trial, Onoprienko claimed he was possessed, that government agencies were spying on him, and that voices from outer spacee ordered him to kill. It was later revealed that Onoprienko’s lawyer told him to act insane, but the charade did little good. He was initially sentenced to death but Ukraine abolished the death penalty shortly after the trial. Instead, he was given life, and spent 17 years behind bars before dying of a heart attack in 2013. While some of his claims were pretty strange, he did make one that was probably true: “There is no better killer in the world than me.”

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