Ex-Cop Serving Life for 22 Murders Charged With 47 More

An ex-cop already serving life for 22 murders has been charged with 47 more killings and another 12 are under investigation, which would make Mikhail Popkov the worst serial killer in Russian history and the third-worst in world history. Law enforcement sources tell the Siberian Times that Popkov, who targeted women he thought were immoral because they were out late at night, has been providing investigators with information including the locations of bodies. He claims to have started his killing spree, which stretched across a large area of Siberia, after he began suspecting that his wife had cheated on him.

Popkov, who resigned from the force in Angarsk in 1998, per the Washington Post, was arrested in 2012 after investigators got a tip-off and checked the DNA of thousands of current and former police officers, the Times of London reports. Police sources say he has claimed to have killed at least 81 women with axes, knives, and screwdrivers, a total that exceeds the 52 killed by "Butcher of Rostov" Andrei Chikatilo between 1978 and 1990 and the 48 murdered by "Chessboard Killer" Alexander Pichushkin between 1992 and 2006. (Here's why he was called the "Chessboard Killer.")