During the last arrest, the idea occurred to Neyland that next time he needed to rob and kill so that there would be no witnesses to the crime. Returning to the same apartment on Sestroretskaya Street on January 27, 1964, Arkady armed himself with a tourist hatchet. He knew that a woman and a child lived in the apartment, which meant it would not be difficult to deal with them. The main calculation of the criminal was that even if he was detained, the death penalty is not applied to minors, which means that the maximum he will face is prison.
In order to be allowed into the apartment, he decided to introduce himself as a postman. When the owner, Larisa Kupreeva, opened the door, he immediately attacked her. The woman began a desperate fight not only for her life, but also the life of her child, but the criminal with an ax was stronger. After killing the woman, he calmly dealt with the child, after which he ate in the kitchen without a twinge of conscience. To hide traces of the crime, he set fire to the apartment, but thanks to the prompt work of firefighters and the vigilance of neighbors, the fire was extinguished in time. At the crime scene, investigators managed to find fingerprints, which became the main argument in court.
He was executed at the age of 14 on Khrushchev’s personal orders. His name was Arkady Neyland. He was a famous child killer.
In 1964, the whole of Leningrad feared and hated him. His own mother abandoned him. He was shot at the age of 14 on Khrushchev’s personal order. This is the only reliably known case when a minor was sentenced to capital punishment in the USSR - contrary to all norms of international law. It took me a year and a half to find the true story of Arkady Neiland. Three volumes of the criminal case, classified “Top Secret,” are securely hidden in the archives of the St. Petersburg City Court.
Murder on Sestroretskaya
At noon on January 27, 1964, the Leningrad fire department received a signal: an apartment on Sestroretskaya Street, building 3, was on fire. The firefighters who arrived found the body of a woman in the room. She was struck 17 times with an axe. There also lay there, all chopped up - and absolutely gray-haired! - a boy with the face of an old man. Next to the corpses of 37-year-old housewife Larisa Mikhailovna Kupreeva and her 3-year-old son Yurochka, clear fingerprints were found - the killer left traces after being smeared in homemade jam. On the bed lay a bitten loaf of sausage, which the criminal had forgotten when running away. But he took with him oranges and apples from the refrigerator, a Zorki camera, bonds, money:
Lonely Christmas tree with charred tinsel. Tricycle near the balcony. The tape recorder is on full blast: the killer turned it on so that no one could hear the screams of his victims. He also turned on the gas, four burners - they say, the fire will cover all traces. The time for the crime was chosen ideally: morning, neighbors at work. The detectives pulled the first clue thanks to the janitor Aunt Lyuba. “I was collecting food waste when I saw a strange guy on the stairs,” she told the prosecutor’s office. “He was standing in profile, I only saw a green coat. He’s strange. I washed the bins and came back, but he was still standing...”
The name of the mysterious stranger has been established. 14-year-old Arkady Neyland lived across the street from the Kupreevs, in the same house, on the floor above, where he had a bosom friend. It was he who recognized Arkashka from the description...
Four days later, Abkhaz police detained an unknown teenager in Sukhumi wearing a green coat with brown blood stains. They found a Zorkiy camera on him. On the film is the dead Larisa Kupreeva in an indecent pose. Then Arkady will say that he wanted to make pornographic postcards and sell them for 20 kopecks apiece. And with the money you earn, you can buy something to eat.
But at first the detainee swore something completely different: “My name is Vitalik Nesterov, I ran away from home,” he repeated in the orphanage. In the explanatory note, “Vitalik” laid out everything as written, but at the end of the sheet he accidentally scribbled his real name - Arkady Neyland...
A boy nicknamed Pyshka
A courtyard similar to all the courtyards of our Soviet childhood. June rain smells like wet leaves. The boys, smoking on the bench, see off the late girls with impudent whistles. As if forty years had not passed...
It was here that Arkashka Neyland, nicknamed Pyshka, lived. He was nicknamed so for his loose, “womanish” figure and weak-willed character. In the courtyard company, Arkashka was for the “six”, he was often beaten, and he accumulated anger within himself. He absolutely hated his own mother. "She's a witch
- snapped during interrogation. “She doesn’t love me, she sent me to a boarding school so that she doesn’t get in the way.”
In fact, one could only feel sorry for Anna Neiland. Twice widow. The first husband, beloved, desired, died in the Finnish campaign.
He left his son in his arms. Anna married again and had a second child. But the Great Patriotic War began, and the second husband died a heroic death.
She got together with the St. Petersburg hard worker Vladimir Vladimirovich Neyland rather out of desperation. Also, out of despair, she gave birth to children of the same age: a daughter, Lyubasha, and a son, Arkady. My husband worked at a beer factory and rarely came home sober at night. I hung locks on the food cupboards so that the children would not eat too much. He drove his wife so hard that the neighbors in the communal apartment knocked on their wall. However, the neighbors did not wash other people's dirty laundry in public - they had enough of their own. They had nothing to do with Anya’s hungry and ill-mannered children.
From pain and resentment, Anna fell ill with her heart, meanwhile Arkashka completely got out of hand. He was perhaps her most difficult child. He disappeared all day long reading books, signed up, probably, in all the surrounding libraries, but did not keep up at school, although he was considered not without ability. “When I was little, I was often left at home alone. One day I wanted to eat and lit the gas without matches.
My father came back and beat me badly. I firmly remembered that this could set the apartment on fire and someday it would be useful to me,” Arkady talked about his childhood during interrogations.
Father Vladimir Neyland spoke differently about the same incident: “I beat him up, and Arkashka left home. When he returned, he didn’t look in my direction for several weeks. Since then, I swore off beating my son. I just don’t understand who he’s targeting so evil and secretive? There were no murderers in our family.”
Thousands of boys whose fathers drink and whose stressed-out mothers fail to cope with their responsibilities nevertheless grow up to be decent people. But, apparently, a genetic failure occurred in the Neyland family - Arkady was rapidly turning into an uncontrollable wolf cub.
There were still 10 years left before the murder on Sestroretskaya. It was still possible to stop the guy, take him in the other direction, straighten him out like a sprout of a crooked tree... But no one cared about the boy.
“I started stealing at four, smoking at six, and at seven I was registered in the children’s room of the police,” he said
Arkady. “I dreamed of growing up and going to work at the post office to steal money orders. With this money I would travel... "
At night, the nervous Arkashka wet his bed. At the age of 12, his exhausted mother sent him to a boarding school. There they found out about enuresis, and Arkady immediately became an outcast among his peers. But you kicked him out not for this, but for theft.
At the age of 13, he first ran away to Moscow. I wanted to find my aunt and meet her New Year, and then rush to the Far East as a researcher. He was caught and returned home.
A year later he made another escape. He was already 14.
“When Arkashka was caught again in Moscow, I didn’t want to take him back,” said Vladimir Neyland. “And the police answered me: “Where are we going to take him? He hasn't done anything yet."
At this time, Arkady Neyland had already suffered two robberies in the workshop of the Len-Pishmash plant, several cases of hooliganism - he molested girls, beat passers-by on the street with brass knuckles, burglaries...
Nevertheless, he was never caught - about his many secret
"exploits" are learned after the murder on Sestroretskaya.
Another life
The police had been looking for Arkady for several days. His teenage accomplice spilled the beans about one of the recent thefts.
Neyland was finally apprehended. On January 24, three days before the murder, he was interrogated at the Zhdanovsky district prosecutor's office. Arkady understood that a colony awaited him. He imagined it as a huge boarding school behind barbed wire, where they will start beating him again for soiling the sheets in his sleep. He didn't want to go to the zone.
... The prosecutor's office investigator only looked out into the corridor for a minute to find out when the "black funnel" would come for the arrested Neyland. This was enough for Arkady to run away again.
But he had nowhere to go. He was not expected at home. And absolutely no one was happy that tomorrow, January 28, he was supposed to turn 15 years old. Arkady’s soul was dark: “I wanted to commit some terrible murder out of spite. I thought that I would laugh at the police and at the same time get myself money to escape from Leningrad...”
The punks from the Moscow orphanage told him a beautiful fairy tale that in the city of Tbilisi there lives a man who gives homeless wandering boys new birth certificates and gives them a ticket to another life. Neyland wrote down the address of the mythical benefactor in blue pencil on a piece of paper. Now, on the edge of despair, he felt the treasured note in his pocket and began to think about
"deed".
He considered the house on Sestroretskaya Street his “lucky talisman.” It was here that he committed his first robbery: at the age of four he took a colored Chinese lantern from an unfamiliar boy and did not get caught. He decided to carry out his planned murder here.
Arkashka could have been stopped many times: in Moscow in an orphanage, in the Leningrad prosecutor's office. But some dark forces protected him, preparing him for sacrifice.
This house seemed to mock him, teasing him with inaccessible comfort. The warm front door smelled of semolina porridge. Behind the door in apartment No. 9, happy voices were heard - women's and children's. The door was upholstered in expensive leatherette and decorated with a double lock. “So, there’s something to hide,” Arkady spat on the clean floor and held the cabbage hatchet he had stolen from his mother tighter in his hands.
- The apartment is separate, and the woman doesn’t work, she lives with her husband and raises the child. Rich, happy - I hate..."
- Is Valya Sokolov here? - he rang the doorbell. The woman didn’t hear and muttered hastily: “Olya is on the floor below.” Arkady stomped on the stairs. I watched an elderly sneeze-wielding janitor rummage through food waste.
About 15 minutes later I went up to the apartment again: “There’s a telegram for you!” - shouted in a false Basque voice. The hostess opened the door. Tall, plump, in a flannel robe, she looked at him with bewilderment.
Arkashka. "Give me the money!" - he clicked the bolt behind him.
- The woman began to call some Vadim. I realized that it was my husband and tried to open the entrance lock to escape, but my hands were shaking with fear,” Arkady Neyland testified during the investigation. - At that moment a boy jumped out into the hallway. The woman yelped and rushed at me. Then I realized that they were completely alone. I started hitting her with an axe. She screamed at me: “What are you doing?!” I beat her until she fell. Then I beat the boy, who was crying and getting in the way. I think I hit him six times. When he died down, I rushed through the rooms to look for money and food. I found 57 rubles, bought cognac with them, and mentioned the boy and his mother before the train...
To be honest, I feel sorry for the boy now. But then I was angry with the whole world, I even forgot the stolen sausage on the bed.
Execute, cannot be pardoned
The adults judged the child. For your sins.
For years they did not pay attention to how it matured in Arkash
Neilande is a bloody maniac. And the boy became a monster. There was no turning back for him. And society found the only way to stop him - to destroy him. “We don’t want Arkady Neyland to continue killing after being released. Juvenile criminals are hiding behind a clause in the law that does not allow them to be shot,” the workers bombarded the Party’s Central Committee with letters.
Unexpectedly, Khrushchev himself intervened in the matter. It ended
"thaw". The era of mercy has brought disappointing results. According to the Central Committee, many dangerous repeat offenders were released on bail in those years. It was believed that labor and the team better than camps murderers and robbers will be corrected. But this led to a sharp rise in crime, and the angry Secretary General again demanded to “bend the hooligans to the ram’s horn.”
A series of cruel sentences ensued.
All that remained was to select a juvenile suicide bomber for the first show trial. Arkady Neyland was ideal for this role. “When the verdict was passed, I ended up in the city court on business,” says Olga Nikolaychuk, the oldest employee of the St. Petersburg court archive. “I was interested in looking at this terrible killer. But behind bars I saw a fat boy, clumsy, ugly, intimidated. I even felt sorry for him..."
The Presidium of the Supreme Council adopted a special decree on the specific case of Neyland and imposed capital punishment on the murderer, bypassing the existing ban on “child executions” in the Criminal Code of the RSFSR.
In Neyland's case, everything seemed crystal clear. He was a scoundrel and a donkey. And yet professionals condemned the decision
Khrushchev. “If the state does not comply with the procedural norms it itself has established, then what kind of law-abiding behavior can we expect from ordinary citizens in the future? What example should we educate them by?” - said the lawyers.
In April 1964, the harsh decision came into force, but the execution of Arkady Neyland was postponed. They could not find the executioner. Until two secret telegrams arrived from Moscow by special mail: “Why is there still no execution?”
On August 11, 1964, the exemplary sentence was carried out.
All Leningrad newspapers reported this with a feeling of deep satisfaction. The name and age of the killer were included in all textbooks on criminal law - as an interesting legal precedent. A rusty hatchet for chopping cabbage went into eternal storage at the Museum of Forensic Science.
Neiland's parents, who did not even want to see their son during the trial, refused to take a certificate of his death from the registry office.
The triumph of justice has taken place.
But was this the triumph of the Law?
40 years later, no one remembers Arkady Neiland. The old people died. Young people have other interests.
I was in St. Petersburg on the very day when teenagers suspected of murdering a 9-year-old Tajik girl were detained. This atrocity also had a public outcry. True, it’s not so loud anymore - you won’t surprise anyone with juvenile murderers these days.
The maximum that current murderers face, according to new international standards, is 10 years in prison.
Over the past years, society has not found a recipe for how to turn monsters into normal people. The death of Arkady Neiland taught no one anything.
If death can teach you anything at all...
E. SAZHNEVA, "Moskovsky Komsomolets".& 26;
During the last arrest, the idea occurred to Neyland that next time he needed to rob and kill so that there would be no witnesses to the crime. Returning to the same apartment on Sestroretskaya Street on January 27, 1964, Arkady armed himself with a tourist hatchet. He knew that a woman and a child lived in the apartment, which meant it would not be difficult to deal with them. The main calculation of the criminal was that even if he was detained, the death penalty is not applied to minors, which means that the maximum he will face is prison.
In order to be allowed into the apartment, he decided to introduce himself as a postman. When the owner, Larisa Kupreeva, opened the door, he immediately attacked her. The woman began a desperate fight not only for her life, but also the life of her child, but the criminal with an ax was stronger. After killing the woman, he calmly dealt with the child, after which he ate in the kitchen without a twinge of conscience. To hide traces of the crime, he set fire to the apartment, but thanks to the prompt work of firefighters and the vigilance of neighbors, the fire was extinguished in time. At the crime scene, investigators managed to find fingerprints, which became the main argument in court.
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Neyland Arkady Vladimirovich (Leningrad, 1964).
Arkady Neiland, although not a classic serial killer, can still rightfully take an honorable place among domestic fanatics and moral monsters.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that this young man was a potential serial killer, but thanks to successful exposure at the very beginning of his criminal career, his criminal potential was never realized. 
Arkady Neyland. Photos from February 1964 from the criminal case.
Arkady Vladimirovich Neyland was born in 1949 in Leningrad. His mother was married for the second time and Arkady had two older half-brothers, as well as younger sister. A family of 6 people lived in one room in a “sparsely populated” communal apartment (a “sparsely populated” communal apartment, by St. Petersburg standards of that time, was an apartment in which less than 4 families or responsible tenants huddled). In 1963 housing issue The situation in the Neyland family became even more aggravated - the eldest of the brothers brought his wife. Arkady's parents were heavy drinkers, his father worked as a mechanic at the Svetlana Production Association, and his mother was a nurse at an oncology hospital on Kamenny Island. The family lived very poorly, meagerly, the children rummaged through garbage dumps, collected bottles, dressed in things thrown away by someone. According to Arkady, he began to steal at the age of 4.
At the age of 12, he was expelled from school for poor academic performance (that’s how bad you had to be to be expelled from a Soviet school!). By this time, he was already registered in the Children's Room of the police as a juvenile hooligan and thief. Through the "police line" he was sent to study at boarding school No. 67 in Pushkin, where the same " difficult teenagers", like himself. Arkasha's relationship in the new team did not work out: he was caught several times for "ratting", i.e. stealing from neighbors, and in addition, Neiland suffered from enuresis, which caused understandable irritation of those around him. Several times the young man was beaten by his fellow students and after finishing the 6th grade he was expelled from the boarding school. Neyland was sent by the internal affairs bodies to work as an auxiliary worker at the Lenpischemash production association, located not far from his place of residence in the Zhdanovsky (now Primorsky) district of Leningrad. December 1963
In October-December 1963, a 14-year-old teenager committed several offenses for which he was quickly convicted. In particular, at this time he tried to rob a woman, and then a lonely man (both times unsuccessfully), committed theft from the Soyuzpechat kiosk, several thefts from a bathhouse, a hairdresser and a service center. In addition, Arkady stole the only suit and money from one of the brothers, although this episode was not included in the criminal case brought against Neyland by the Zhdanovsky district prosecutor's office.
It is difficult to say what the fate of the teenager would have been if the “Soviet Themis” had not decided to feign compassion. The criminal case against the young scoundrel was closed in December 1963, and he, to celebrate, as they say, “went into all serious troubles.” In January 1964, he, together with his friend Vitaly Kubarev, committed several more minor offenses, after which the friends began to prepare “big money”, i.e. a crime that was supposed to provide them with money for a trip to the Black Sea.
The young people conducted reconnaissance of the crime scene. In their opinion, this could be house No. 3 on Sestroretskaya Street in the Zhdanovsky district, well known to both. On the afternoon of January 24, 1964, Neyland and Kubarev, under the guise of schoolchildren collecting waste paper, walked around one of the entrances of this building, talking with the residents and simultaneously studying the situation in the apartments. It was then that Neiland first met his future victim - Larisa Kupreeva - who lived in apartment No. 9. This apartment seemed prosperous to the young scoundrel - in the large room he managed to see an imported color TV, which was considered an unheard-of luxury at that time! (Necessary clarification: from time to time, various kinds of stupid youth from the “Unified State Exam generation”, discussing this note on various forums, begin to lament: “Well, what kind of color TVs were there in the USSR in 1964? Well, what kind of nonsense does this Rakitin write, before the advent of the Soviet -French SECAM"and even more three years! oh, I can’t read these pearls...", etc. So, especially for over-aged fools who are not familiar with the history of science and technology of the Soviet Union, the author considers it necessary to explain that in the USSR in the late 1950s a standard was developed color TV broadcasting called "OSCM" - it was a slightly modified American NTSC format and imported color TVs reproduced it perfectly. In January 1960, regular test, three times a week, color TV broadcasting in the OSCM format began. Therefore, the question. “What kind of color TV was there in the Kupreevs’ apartment in January 1964?” the simple answer follows: “German Grundig.” Learn the history of technology, dear friends!".) 
Larisa Kupreeva and her son Georgy. Arkady Neyland first encountered them on January 24, 1964. If that day a benevolent woman had not allowed the young rogue into her house, the fates of Larisa and her son would have turned out completely differently...
However, at that moment Neyland was not yet ready to kill, so the couple continued to walk around the entrance. Having established that there was no one in apartment No. 7, the “waste paper collectors” entered it and robbed it. The thieves put the things they liked into blankets and pillowcases, after which Neyland and Kubarev calmly left the crime scene. In the courtyard, however, they encountered the janitor Orlova, who, with the help of passers-by, detained the suspicious couple. Ultimately, Arkady Neyland again found himself in the familiar building of the Zhdanovsky District Prosecutor's Office, where a new criminal case was opened against him.
Neiland in this situation showed unexpected impudence and presence of mind. After the assistant prosecutor ordered him to wait for the continuation of the interrogation in the corridor, Arkady calmly left the office and... left the prosecutor's office. Nobody detained him and the young bastard was free. True, without a hat - his headdress remained in the office.
Neiland was smart enough not to come home and spent three January nights in the basements of residential buildings, warming himself on heating pipes. At this very time, he developed a plan to rob the “prosperous” apartment No. 9 with a color TV. According to Arkady's plan, the owner of the apartment, who stood on the path to wealth, was to be killed. The attacker knew that he lived with his mother and little boy(Neyland saw him riding around in the room on a 3-wheeled bicycle), and he also decided to kill the child. To realize his plan, in the early morning of January 27, Arkady ran to his home, where, without saying a word to anyone, he grabbed an ax and disappeared. 
On the morning of January 27, 1964, Arkady Neyland ran into his home for a minute, where he got hold of an ax, which later became the crime weapon. Some sources erroneously indicate that the killer was wielding a light tourist hatchet, but this is not so - in his hands was the most ordinary ax with a wooden handle and a blade length of 12 cm, which were sold in any hardware store.
It was not yet 10 o’clock in the morning on January 27, and Neiland was already standing at the door of the treasured apartment. He rang the bell and said he was “collecting scrap metal.” The owner of the apartment recognized the lanky guy who was rubbing himself in the entrance a few days earlier, and this time she did not let him into the apartment, rather ungraciously slamming the door in his face. For some time, the confused attacker stood on the landing, wondering what he should do now, after which, plucking up the impudence, he again called apartment No. 9, changing his voice and introducing himself as a postman. Larisa Kupreeva opened the door and Neiland attacked her with an ax right at the threshold.
A struggle ensued, accompanied by noise that was heard by at least two neighbors. The attacker was unable to quickly suppress the victim’s resistance; about 10 blows with an ax landed on the woman’s arms and shoulders. As a forensic medical examination subsequently stated, these blows did not pose a threat to life. If Larisa had rushed out of the apartment, then most likely it would have saved her life and thwarted the plans of the scoundrel. But the woman, apparently afraid to leave her son, retreated deeper into the apartment, where the killer finally overtook her, threw her into a chair and inflicted several severe head wounds there. Thinking that he had killed the woman, Neiland retreated, however, Larisa found the strength to get up and again rushed at the robber. During the struggle, the woman managed to grab the ax handle with both hands and almost snatched the weapon. Only with great difficulty did Neyland again throw the victim onto the chair and finish him off there. A forensic examination counted at least 4 fatal blows to Larisa’s head with an ax. After this, Neyland hacked the little boy to death with 6 blows of an ax.
His further actions at the crime scene cannot but be considered reasonable and extremely cynical. First of all, Neiland washed himself in the bathroom, after which he quickly searched the apartment: his loot was a wallet with 54 rubles, a Zorkiy camera with film loaded, as well as the passports of the owner of the apartment and his daughter Larisa Kupreeva from her first marriage. The killer then pulled his victim from the chair to the floor, exposed her genitals and took 11 photographs, which he hoped to later sell as pornographic. And after that, the tormented, hungry criminal cooked scrambled eggs from 5 eggs and had breakfast with appetite.
Neiland spent about an hour in the apartment with two corpses. When leaving, he used the newspapers he found to light a fire in the room and open the gas valve in the kitchen. Neyland hoped that the fire and subsequent explosion would disguise the crime. He didn’t care that a gas explosion would collapse an entire entrance and lead to new victims... 
Despite the active extinguishing of the fire and the forced presence of firefighters at the crime scene, the Kupreevs’ apartment retained very important evidence for the investigation: fingerprints, numerous bloody stains and marks on the walls, doors and furnishings, and most importantly, the fire did not damage the corpses.
By luck, the explosion did not occur (due to low temperatures the gas pressure in the lines was reduced). Firefighters began extinguishing the fire at 12:45 p.m. Since there was a smell of gas in the entrance, the firefighters suspected an accident from the very beginning and acted with extreme caution: first they broke out the window in the kitchen and one of them quickly turned off the valve of the gas stove. The fireman only had a few seconds to see numerous traces of blood in the hallway and two corpses. Therefore, by the time the fire was put out, the heads of the city’s law enforcement agencies had already gathered near the house on Sestroretskaya Street.
Initially, the husband of the deceased Larisa Kupreeva came under strong suspicion of involvement in the crime. The double murder seemed too well thought out and unmotivatedly cruel. Indirect arguments in favor of the fact that the robbery only disguised the murder were the insignificant value of the missing property, the absence of a crime weapon, and the fact that the front door was not broken into or opened with a master key. In fact, it is true that the killer left the crime weapon in the apartment, but this became clear only on the third day, when forensic scientists found a smoked ax on the balcony (it was at the epicenter of the fire, its handle burned out and firefighters swept it onto the balcony along with other debris).
However, everything fell into place when on January 28, Neyland’s bloody handprint was discovered on the side of the wardrobe. Since Kubarev knew about Arkady’s intention to go to the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea, Neyland was put on the all-Union wanted list and the corresponding information was sent to all territorial police units of Georgia and the Krasnodar Territory.
What was the killer doing at this time? The first thing he did was buy winter hat, a bottle of champagne and cognac and left for Moscow from Warsaw Station by train at 15:55. In the capital, Arkasha went on a sightseeing tour of the city, met the young tramp Nesterov, with whom he moved further south. On January 30, 1964, the couple got off the train in Sukhumi and literally 10 minutes later fell into the hands of a police patrol. When asked by the police: “What’s your last name?”, Neyland, without hesitation, blurted out: “Nesterov!” Which, of course, greatly impressed his new friend, the real Nesterov.
During a search of Neyland, they found things stolen from the Kupreevs’ apartment, and the camera still contained film with photographs of the naked body of the woman killed by the scoundrel. On the same day, an investigative team flew to Sukhumi on a special flight from Leningrad, which, having verified the identity of the detainee and previously interviewed him, immediately flew back with Neyland.
Arkady, at first extremely depressed by the arrest, quickly managed to regain his good spirits. He willingly testified about the crime he committed, without showing even a shadow of remorse or sympathy for the victims. Moreover, he repeatedly stated (and then repeated this statement in court) that he would kill people in the future. His courage and arrogance were a consequence of the firm belief that he, as a minor, could face a sentence of “only” 10 years in prison. And this is in worst case!
Photograph from 1964. On the right in the photo is the investigator of the Leningrad City Prosecutor's Office O. Prokofiev, who conducted the investigation into the case of Neyland and Kubarev.
However, at the same time, events took place in Moscow that had the most direct relation to the fate of Neiland. On February 17, 1964, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a resolution allowing the use of capital punishment - execution - against minors. Formally, this resolution owes its birth to Neyland’s brutal crime, however, it seems that in fact the reason for the appearance of this document should be sought not in the criminal, but in the political plane. From the very beginning of the 50s. The Soviet Union was faced with an ever-growing wave of hooliganism and youth crime. Many cities, especially on the periphery and in the national outskirts, literally found themselves at the mercy of unbridled youth groups. Since the beginning of the 60s, i.e. During the time of Khrushchev’s unsuccessful economic innovations, a wave of many thousands of riots and even open riots swept across the country, openly taking the form of social protest of young people (more information about mass conflicts in the Virgin Lands, in the armed forces and places of deprivation of liberty can be read in the very informative book by V. A. Kozlov " Unknown USSR. Confrontation between the people and the authorities. 1953-1985", Moscow, OLMA-PRESS, 2006). The communist government, which significantly softened criminal legislation after Stalin’s death, was faced with the threat of increased youth violence in the country. The authorities needed to curb this process and Neiland, who had committed a heinous crime, was ideally suited for a demonstrative act of intimidation.
The CPSU launched a mass campaign to “express the will of the people to demand the death penalty” for the criminal. During lunch breaks, “urban and rural workers” across the country gathered for “voluntary rallies” and adopted resolutions addressed to the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, as well as prosecutorial and judicial authorities at all levels, with a “demand” to impose a death sentence on Arkady Neiland. Of the 3 volumes of criminal case No. 78-sk4-2, an entire volume was taken up by such “citizen appeals.” 
In the criminal case of Kubarev and Neyland, an entire volume was taken up by citizens’ appeals to the Leningrad city prosecutor’s office and the court with a “demand” to sentence Neyland to death. Such appeals could not have any legal force in any civilized country in the world, but the USSR was not such a country. The “voluntariness” of putting forward such demands should not be taken at face value - in those strict times, an unauthorized appeal to high government authorities could well lead to the labeling of the applicant, such as “troublemaker”, “scandalist” or “demagogue”. In this case, more than 3 hundred appeals from “work collectives” throughout the country, filed with the case, were called upon to provide the basis for a sentence voluntarily imposed on the Leningrad city court from Moscow.
It is clear that these pieces of paper themselves did not have any legal force, therefore, in order to give the judge grounds to impose a death sentence on Neyland, a truly unprecedented action in the history of the domestic court was organized - a written survey was organized among the city judges, inviting them to decide whether consider the resolution of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Court of February 17, 1964 to have retroactive force and allow Neyland to be sentenced to death? The very idea of interviewing judges unfamiliar with the circumstances of the judicial investigation was contrary to the fundamental principles of criminal proceedings. An even more flagrant violation of the USSR Constitution, as well as common sense, legal rules and customs, it looked like an attempt to give retroactive force to the resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Council. This has not been done in civilized societies since the days of Ancient Rome. But the Leningrad judges did not live in Ancient Rome, but in the Soviet Union, they understood what answer the Government expected from them, and therefore unanimously answered “yes”.
And on March 23, 1964, after considering the circumstances of the case in a closed trial, Arkady Vladimirovich Neiland was sentenced to death. The convict filed a petition for clemency. There is a legend that the head of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR L.I. Brezhnev, having received a lawyer’s opinion on the obvious illegality of the execution, turned to the General Secretary of the CPSU N.S. Khrushchev with a proposal to authorize a pardon. This would allow the Soviet government to “save face” by demonstrating both firmness and generosity. But Khrushchev only scolded Brezhnev and ordered the sentence to be carried out.
On June 12, 1964, the Supreme Court of the RSFSR rejected Neiland's petition for clemency and on August 11 of the same year, Arkady was shot.
Although, according to formal criteria, Arkady Neyland cannot be classified as a serial criminal and sexual maniac, it would not be a mistake to note that he potentially belongs to this category of criminals. Neyland is an obvious psychopath (you can read more about psychopathy in R. Haer’s book “Deprived of Conscience”; almost all the signs described by Haer can be seen in Neyland). His crime had a certain sexual connotation, as evidenced by both the choice of the victim and the post-mortem manipulations of the criminal. Neiland's libido, although not fully formed due to his youth, nevertheless firmly connected sexual desire with violence and humiliation of a partner (Arkady received the corresponding experience in a boarding school and this experience was firmly imprinted in his subconscious attitudes). To suggest correction of the behavior of such a young man is at least frivolous, if not stupid. If in 1964 life path this moral monster was not stopped by the executioner’s bullet, then upon his release society would have received an extremely cynical and ruthless sadistic misogynist who would torture as many people as he could.
Despite his inability to study at school, Arkady Neyland was certainly not a stupid person and, moreover, capable of analysis, planning and long-term thinking in general. Given the appropriate criminal experience, he would eventually become a sophisticated and exceptionally dangerous criminal. Therefore, although his execution was, in its legal form, an act completely lawless, from the point of view of common sense, the logic of N.S. Khrushchev cannot be objected to. People like Neiland cannot be corrected, and for those around them, it doesn’t matter who or what is to blame: drunken conception, bad heredity or birth trauma. It is in the interests of society to ensure that such people are clearly and 100% reliably excluded from society. How this will be done technically - by execution or life imprisonment - is completely unimportant for society.
Running along a crooked path
Arkasha was unlucky. He was born, let's say, into a dysfunctional family. Parents - Latvians by origin - were ordinary hard workers in Leningrad. His father worked as a mechanic at one of the local enterprises, his mother worked as a nurse. A completely ordinary Soviet family, if not for one “but”. Both loved to kiss the bottle, and then to their children. The boy was constantly beaten, and there was often nothing to eat in the house. Because of this, he ran away and wandered.
Arkady was born into a dysfunctional family
Already at the age of seven, Arkasha was registered in the children's room of the police. He found it difficult to get along with people because of his aggression and feelings of envy towards other, prosperous children. When the boy was twelve years old, his mother hastened to get rid of him and sent him to a boarding school. But it didn’t work out here either. Constant conflicts with peers forced Arkasha to run away. But instead of home, he decided to go to Moscow. The capital's “tour” turned out to be short-lived. The police detained the teenager and returned him to Leningrad.
Arkady Neyland
Arkady had a chance to change his life. He got a job at the Lenpishmash enterprise. It would seem that you study, work and dream together with everyone about a happy communist future. But no, Arkasha was not one of those “simpletons”. He constantly skipped work, took everything that was bad from there and, of course, had conflicts with all the people around him.
By 1963, the fourteen-year-old teenager had numerous arrests with the police due to theft and hooliganism. But the Soviet Themis endured. At the end of January 1964, he was caught again for theft. Arkady managed to escape from custody and planned a “terrible murder.” He understood that petty theft was nothing. He needed one big and solid business that could provide him with funds for several years.
Neiland dreamed of settling in Sukhumi
Arkady decided that “to start new life» best in Sukhimi. And on January 27, the day before his fifteenth birthday, he went to turn his dream into reality. And the teenager took an ax as a “magic wand”.
Postman Pechkin
Neiland chose the victim who would give him a happy future by chance. He wanted to rob a rich apartment. In his opinion, wealth could be determined by the condition of the front door. In Leningrad, in house No. 3 on Sestroretskaya Street, Arkady liked apartment No. 9. The fact is that its front door was upholstered in leather. The teenager decided to act.
The victim's apartment
He rang the doorbell and introduced himself as a postal worker. Thirty-seven-year-old Larisa Kupreeva and her three-year-old son lived in the apartment. Making sure that there was no one else, Arkady closed the door and took out an ax. To prevent the neighbors from hearing the screams, he turned on the tape recorder at full volume. Having killed Larisa, Neiland did not spare the child. Then he went to the kitchen and had lunch. Afterwards, he began to rob. But the loot turned out to be not as rich as the criminal expected. He managed to find some money and a camera. By the way, he found a use for the technique - he photographed the dead Larisa in obscene poses. Arkady hoped to sell these photos and improve his financial condition.
Arkady chose the victim by chance
Before leaving, Neyland turned on the gas in the kitchen and set the wood floors on fire. After which he set off to meet his dream. By the way, the teenager left the murder weapon at the crime scene.
Larisa's neighbors smelled burning and called the fire department. They worked quickly and the apartment was practically not damaged. Then the police appeared. Based on numerous fingerprints, an ax, and the testimony of witnesses, they were able to quickly identify the criminal. All that remained was to find him.
Larisa Kupreeva and her son Georgy
This happened just three days later. Neiland was arrested in Sukhumi. The meeting with the dream turned out to be fleeting...
"Everyone will forgive"
During interrogations, Arkady behaved very confidently, even arrogantly. He actively helped the investigation, was not afraid of anything and did not repent of what he had done. Neyland repeatedly repeated to the police that “everything will be forgiven” for the youngster.
The incident received wide publicity, causing a storm of discussion. The trial took place on March 23, 1964. And the verdict turned out to be extremely unexpected: Arkady was sentenced to death. The surprise was that such a decision was contrary to the legislation of the RSFSR. After all, people from 18 to 60 years old could be sentenced to death. Citizens of the Soviet Union were divided into two camps. Some supported the judge's decision, others demanded that the law be followed. The latter point of view was shared by foreign lawyers and the media. Foreign newspapermen immediately trumpeted the flagrant violation of international agreements. There is even a version that Brezhnev tried to intercede for the criminal, but Khrushchev stopped this attempt. And the increased attention had no effect on Neyland’s fate. He was shot on August 11 of the same year.
According to legend, Brezhnev stood up for Neiland
By the way, there was another case in the USSR when a minor was sentenced to death. In 1940, Vladimir Vinnichevsky was shot for murder and sexual violence. Its victims were eight children aged two to five years old. But that pre-war case was completely legal. The fact is that at that time in the USSR the resolution of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars “On measures to combat juvenile delinquency” was in force. According to it, the death penalty could be applied to persons over twelve years of age.
