WEBVTT - A Family Annihilation in Moscow 0:00:01.240 --> 0:00:06.080 Something strange is going on. Who is killing Russian billionaires? 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:08.600 Another Russian oligarch has been found dead. 0:00:08.800 --> 0:00:11.840 Reports suggests that he hanged himself, fell out of a window, 0:00:12.000 --> 0:00:15.520 slashed his wrists, was poisoned, murdered his whole family. 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:19.840 Last year, more than a dozen Russian oligarchs died in 0:00:19.880 --> 0:00:23.239 the space of nine months. Many of the deaths are 0:00:23.320 --> 0:00:28.120 suspicious with links to the Kremlin. This is sad Oligach, 0:00:28.440 --> 0:00:30.160 an investigation into. 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:32.320 These recently dead Russian billionaires. 0:00:32.840 --> 0:00:37.080 It's created by me Jake Hanrahan and my colleague Sergey Slipchenkov. 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.800 Sad Oligarch is a H eleven production for Kulsomidia and 0:00:41.840 --> 0:00:53.199 iHeart Radio. In the space of a year, more than 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:56.800 a dozen rich Russian businessmen have died in either brutal 0:00:56.960 --> 0:01:02.720 or mysterious circumstances. Fell out of windows, some had heart attacks, 0:01:03.120 --> 0:01:08.160 and a few even killed their whole families before committing suicide. 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:11.160 The official line from the Russian authorities is that most 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:16.240 of these deaths were accidents or violent consequences of mental illness, 0:01:16.760 --> 0:01:20.319 and maybe that's true. But considering the majority of these 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:24.800 dead rich Russians are either outright oligarchs or have other 0:01:24.840 --> 0:01:28.640 links to the Kremlin. It's possible that something much dark 0:01:28.680 --> 0:01:32.959 it is taking place. These deaths have all occurred within 0:01:33.000 --> 0:01:37.039 the backdrop of the Ukraine War, a brutal invasion that 0:01:37.080 --> 0:01:40.840 has shown the whole world that Russia's President Putin is 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:45.600 both ruthless and brazen. Maybe the Kremlin has been tying 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:49.120 up loose ends or making examples of those who go 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:54.040 against them, as several of these dead oligarchs have for 0:01:54.200 --> 0:01:59.080 some war can actually be bad for business. In this project, 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:04.000 Sad Oligarch, I'll be investigating the numerous strange deaths of 0:02:04.040 --> 0:02:07.720 these rich Russian businessmen. I'll be doing this with my 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:13.000 friend and colleague, journalist Sergei Slipchenko. We believe that to 0:02:13.080 --> 0:02:17.520 understand how these businessmen died is to understand more realistically 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.880 how the Kremlin truly operates. Now, of course, we're not 0:02:21.919 --> 0:02:24.960 the only reporters to have done this. We're relying on 0:02:25.000 --> 0:02:28.520 the work of many other sources and people who are 0:02:28.560 --> 0:02:36.280 helping us, some of them can't be named. To appreciate 0:02:36.360 --> 0:02:39.160 the relevance of these deaths, I think it's best to 0:02:39.360 --> 0:02:44.160 first understand the role of the oligarch within Russia. Now 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.480 side note, we do have oligarchy in the West as well, 0:02:48.040 --> 0:02:50.720 we just tend to refer to it by different terms, 0:02:50.760 --> 0:02:54.960 such as lobbying. Anyway, for this series, we'll be focusing 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:55.840 on Russia. 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:56.680 Now. 0:02:56.720 --> 0:02:59.720 Admittedly, not all of the dead Russians in this series 0:02:59.760 --> 0:03:04.200 are necessarily starred up oligachs. They've often been branded as 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.480 such by Western media, but it doesn't always apply. The 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.040 lines are blurry. We're using the term loosely to help 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:17.639 understand a complicated situation. Ultimately, though, all the dead businessmen 0:03:17.760 --> 0:03:22.880 were wealthy via employment in Kremlin linked business or otherwise 0:03:23.000 --> 0:03:27.480 had connections to the Russian government, oligach branding or not. 0:03:28.200 --> 0:03:33.639 But what actually is an oligach? An oligach put simply 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:38.800 is a wealthy businessman with deep political power and connections 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:39.720 to government. 0:03:40.720 --> 0:03:41.960 Whilst Russia has. 0:03:41.840 --> 0:03:45.600 A specifically recent history of oligachs since the fall of 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.880 the Soviet Union, the oligarch is by no means a 0:03:48.960 --> 0:03:53.760 Russian concept only. However, in Russia oligarchs are often very 0:03:53.840 --> 0:03:57.320 useful for the government when they're trying to dodge sanctions. 0:03:57.760 --> 0:04:00.760 This is usually due to the complicated rupture of their 0:04:00.840 --> 0:04:04.920 firms and shareholdings. We'll go into this in detail in 0:04:05.000 --> 0:04:08.960 a later episode, As you'll see, many of the dead 0:04:09.080 --> 0:04:13.720 Russian businessmen of the last twelve months shares several characteristics 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:21.360 with the tried and tested Oligachs. One of the first 0:04:21.480 --> 0:04:25.120 murders we're looking into occurred just one month after the 0:04:25.200 --> 0:04:30.680 Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is what happened to Vasily Melnikov. 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:36.840 On March twenty third, twenty twenty two, affluent Russian businessman 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:42.240 Vasily Melnikov, forty one, was found dead alongside his family 0:04:42.640 --> 0:04:46.800 in their upscale Moscow apartment in the Nisney Novgorod area. 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:52.200 The family nanny discovered them. They'd all been stabbed to death, Vasily, 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:56.799 his wife, and their two sons, aged four and ten 0:04:57.000 --> 0:05:03.720 years old. The killings were brutal and tragic. Straight away, 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:07.840 some European media outlets speculated that it could be a 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:12.760 contract killing an assassination. According to the police in Moscow, 0:05:12.800 --> 0:05:16.680 though it was a murder suicide. They state that Vasily 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.880 stabbed his own family to death before killing himself, also 0:05:21.040 --> 0:05:26.960 with a knife. Case closed. There's currently no verified indication 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:31.520 as to why this atrocity happened. Outwardly, things seemed to 0:05:31.520 --> 0:05:34.599 be going well for Vasily Melnikov, him and his family 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:37.960 had just returned from a luxury holiday in the Maldives. 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:42.880 Vasily's company, Medstom, had just secured a lucrative three point 0:05:43.000 --> 0:05:48.320 five million dollar contract. However, despite this success, and unnamed 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:53.240 source told Russian media that Vasily was apparently suicidal and 0:05:53.360 --> 0:05:57.520 had confided this to his wife. There's no indication though, 0:05:57.600 --> 0:06:01.120 as to why he would so callously take Kisshole family 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:05.720 with him. 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:06.080 Now. 0:06:06.120 --> 0:06:08.120 On the face of it, this could just be a 0:06:08.160 --> 0:06:11.839 case of a rich guy who went berserk and killed 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:16.520 his whole family before committing suicide. Maybe it really is 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:21.159 an open and shut case. It's possible. Sadly, things like 0:06:21.200 --> 0:06:25.080 that do happen. However, when me and Sergey started looking 0:06:25.120 --> 0:06:30.480 into the Melnikov murder suicide, we noticed a few unusual details. 0:06:30.839 --> 0:06:34.000 What specifically caught our eye was one of the knives 0:06:34.160 --> 0:06:37.360 used in the killings. In one of the crime scene photos, 0:06:37.680 --> 0:06:41.640 the murder weapon, a tactical style knife, was seen resting 0:06:41.680 --> 0:06:44.280 on a kitchen unit with blood on the end of 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.240 the blade. Molded into the handle was the insignia of 0:06:48.360 --> 0:06:54.000 Russia's Special Rapid Response Team. They used the acronym SOBR, 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:57.240 which was also visible in the handle of the knife. 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.960 The SOBR or Sobber is an elite force in Russia 0:07:02.040 --> 0:07:05.320 which was originally formed to deal with domestic anti terrorism 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:10.480 situations and high level organized crime. They even fought against 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:14.440 rebels in the Chechen and Dagistani wars. The knife at 0:07:14.440 --> 0:07:17.120 the crime scene appears to belong to the SOB. 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:21.840 R Surgery explains the knife was like part of the evidence. 0:07:21.880 --> 0:07:26.360 The Sober knife. Sober is Russian basically swat. It's like 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:29.800 a special forces unit in the police. They were disbanded 0:07:30.120 --> 0:07:32.480 after like the early two thousands, but at that time 0:07:32.520 --> 0:07:36.040 they were like the elite kind of police, like counter 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:40.080 terrorist organization. I think I think the West also has 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:42.480 this where when you join like one of these groups, 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:45.880 you get like a knife kind of like I guess 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:47.160 they're like badge of honor. 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:52.800 As Sergei mentioned, the SOB was at one point dissolved. 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.920 This was in two thousand and two. It was reclassified 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.560 and given a new name later though, in twenty twelve 0:08:01.040 --> 0:08:04.200 and a volved version of these units was rearranged more 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.040 broadly as special forces and given the old name of 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:13.640 the SOBR. Whilst under different branches of control, the new 0:08:13.840 --> 0:08:18.080 SOBR is in many ways the same as the original. 0:08:18.440 --> 0:08:22.440 In twenty twenty two, SOBR units took part in Russia's 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:26.320 invasion of Ukraine. It seems that the idea was that 0:08:26.400 --> 0:08:29.520 they'd be put in place to crush riots in Kiev 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:33.280 once the Russian military had taken the city. The Kremlin 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:37.840 believed this would happen quickly. They were wrong. Ukrainian military 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.959 and armed volunteers defended the capitol over a year later. 0:08:42.400 --> 0:08:46.840 The nearest Russian position is around five hundred kilometers away 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:51.280 from Kiev. During the initial attacks on Kiev and February 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.599 twenty twenty two, there are reports the whole unit of 0:08:54.640 --> 0:08:58.760 the SOBR was killed on the outskirts of the city. 0:09:00.080 --> 0:09:04.959 The SOOBR a knife of theirs is clearly not your 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:09.320 average homewhere item. Yet this was the hand allegedly for 0:09:09.520 --> 0:09:14.120 Vasily Melnikov when he killed his whole family and then himself. 0:09:14.600 --> 0:09:16.920 What they found out the scene was a sober knife. 0:09:18.400 --> 0:09:18.600 Yeah. 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:20.599 Here it says they were multiple. I know it's but 0:09:20.720 --> 0:09:23.600 this one was specifically photographed and it caught my attention 0:09:23.640 --> 0:09:26.400 because like you could see the insignia on it, whereas 0:09:26.400 --> 0:09:29.720 the other knives are just kind of plain, and you know, 0:09:29.880 --> 0:09:32.800 this could be a replica. It could be something he 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:35.679 was gifted, But it's just interesting that he has this 0:09:35.920 --> 0:09:41.199 potentially memorabilia, potentially an actual knife from the group. From 0:09:41.200 --> 0:09:43.000 what I can tell, he wasn't a part of anything. 0:09:43.000 --> 0:09:46.079 He wasn't a part of like any police units, any 0:09:46.080 --> 0:09:48.840 of these special forces. But I mean technically that is 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:51.160 the only way you get one like a legitimate one, right, 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:52.600 But again, who. 0:09:52.440 --> 0:09:56.240 Knows where this knife is actually from is important If 0:09:56.240 --> 0:09:59.680 it's genuine. At the very least, it shows a Vasily 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.760 meli Kov had some connection to someone who was once 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:07.640 a member of the soob Ah, even if he just 0:10:07.760 --> 0:10:10.840 bought it from them as a collectible or was gifted it. 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:33.120 And if it wasn't Vasili's knife, whose was it. Over 0:10:33.160 --> 0:10:37.000 the last decade of my career as a journalist, I've 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:40.400 covered dozens of wards on the ground all over the world, 0:10:40.920 --> 0:10:44.240 from the trenches of East Ukraine to the barricades of 0:10:44.480 --> 0:10:49.120 East Jerusalem. I've never actually seen any fighters put that 0:10:49.280 --> 0:10:52.560 much value into a combat knife other than it being 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.280 a useful tool. I've seen people cut rope with them 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:59.720 or open it kind of food, but otherwise it's hardly 0:10:59.840 --> 0:11:03.080 used as a weapon on the front lines. If anything, 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:05.840 I've seen them passed around a few times as a 0:11:05.880 --> 0:11:09.800 sort of collectible or war trophy, but generally, in my 0:11:09.960 --> 0:11:12.240 experience at least, it's something. 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:13.400 Fighters will have at war. 0:11:13.559 --> 0:11:17.400 But again, it's just more of a tool than anything else. 0:11:18.400 --> 0:11:23.760 So perhaps Vasily Melnikov fought somewhere and picked this knife 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:26.520 up along the way and kept it as a sort 0:11:26.679 --> 0:11:31.440 of souvenir. It's possible, but neither Sergery or myself could 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:37.480 find any information on Vasily Melnikov fighting in any wars, 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.880 not one that the sobre units fought in. No old 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:46.320 photos on his social media, no mention of previous service, nothing. 0:11:46.480 --> 0:11:50.959 It's likely he didn't fight. Still, though, this sob Our 0:11:51.040 --> 0:11:54.040 knife was found in his apartment and was used in 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:58.240 the murder of his family. Due to its specific connection 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:02.680 to the Russian government and its numerous and forces, we 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:07.840 of course want to find out where it's from. So 0:12:08.200 --> 0:12:12.559 I reached out to several different knife collectors and experts 0:12:12.840 --> 0:12:16.359 to see if they could shed any light on the knife. 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:19.880 A few of them who really know their stuff associated 0:12:20.120 --> 0:12:25.000 with the conflict journalism collective the irun Popular Front. At 0:12:25.040 --> 0:12:28.480 Popular Front, we have a network all over the world 0:12:28.800 --> 0:12:32.880 where people with very niche esoteric knowledge on war and 0:12:33.080 --> 0:12:37.319 conflict come together, and so some of our people happen 0:12:37.400 --> 0:12:42.199 to know a lot about combat knives, both collectible and practical. 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:46.520 Speaking to these people, it became clear that the SOBR 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:50.400 knife pictured in the crime scene photos is an NAR 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:55.679 forty three knife, a relatively inexpensive scout knife first created 0:12:55.760 --> 0:13:00.120 in nineteen forty three and issued to Russian Special Forces. 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:03.560 Either that or it's a replica. Still, the design matches 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:08.640 exactly with the Russian Special Forces scout knives. Whilst the 0:13:08.679 --> 0:13:11.120 crime scene photo of the knife is a bit out 0:13:11.120 --> 0:13:14.560 of focus, a specific logo can be seen on the 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:17.960 blade of the knife. The logo looks like the infinity 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:22.840 symbol or the number eight. It's the logo of Aiars Latooste, 0:13:23.040 --> 0:13:26.640 a large Russian knife manufacturer. They make decent knives that 0:13:26.679 --> 0:13:29.800 are generally pretty accessible. You can buy a brand new 0:13:29.920 --> 0:13:33.880 NR forty three knife, for example, from Latoost in Europe 0:13:33.960 --> 0:13:37.800 for around one hundred euros. So the knife was manufactured 0:13:37.800 --> 0:13:41.520 by Aiar's latoost However, there isn't a single one of 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.360 their NAR forty three knife for sale anywhere that has 0:13:45.440 --> 0:13:49.880 the SOB medallion molded into the handle. The same way 0:13:50.280 --> 0:13:54.880 as the Melnikov murder weapon. There aren't currently any commercially 0:13:54.920 --> 0:13:59.200 available NAR forty three knives like that, so where did 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:04.320 it come from? We thought maybe theoretically, at some point, 0:14:04.559 --> 0:14:08.240 a specific SOBR unit could have commissioned a batch of 0:14:08.600 --> 0:14:12.760 spoke knives from ai As Latouste to award to some 0:14:13.000 --> 0:14:14.119 of its fighters. 0:14:14.200 --> 0:14:15.640 It's quite possible. Now. 0:14:15.760 --> 0:14:18.280 This company is obviously not going to tell us the 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:23.920 specific details of another customer's purchases, especially if it actually 0:14:24.080 --> 0:14:27.400 was so OBR. But we wanted to know if we 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:30.800 could order the same bespoke knife that would tell us 0:14:30.840 --> 0:14:34.640 something at least. We reached out to Aiis Latoos to 0:14:34.680 --> 0:14:38.600 see if this was possible, essentially acting as a customer. 0:14:39.400 --> 0:14:42.600 They said, quote, yes, such an order with such an 0:14:42.600 --> 0:14:46.840 emblem can be completed ends quote. Later they sent us 0:14:46.880 --> 0:14:49.640 a mock up of what it would look like. Instead 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:52.960 of the knife with the SOB medallion molded into the 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:55.960 plastic of the handle, they sent us a version that 0:14:56.040 --> 0:15:00.320 would have the SOBRE insignia laser engraved on to the 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.200 hilt of the blade. Whilst that's not the same knife 0:15:04.240 --> 0:15:07.520 as what Vasily Melnikov apparently killed himself and his whole 0:15:07.560 --> 0:15:11.960 family with it's pretty close. My point being, it's definitely 0:15:12.000 --> 0:15:15.680 possible that this knife could have been produced by someone 0:15:16.080 --> 0:15:21.560 unrelated to the SOBR, But still, why did Vasily Melnikov 0:15:21.640 --> 0:15:24.760 have it if it was just a random replica. He 0:15:24.960 --> 0:15:28.120 was a multi millionaire and the quality of the knife 0:15:28.200 --> 0:15:32.640 is largely unremarkable. Is what our knife collector associate had 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:34.080 to say about the blade. 0:15:34.240 --> 0:15:38.760 It didn't really strike me as anything particularly special, just 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.240 your typical combat type knife that you'd see for sale 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:46.840 anywhere from some sort of a gas station or junk 0:15:46.880 --> 0:15:52.720 shop all the way through maybe an outdoors tactical or 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:55.520 a surplus type shop. As far as construction goes, it's 0:15:55.560 --> 0:16:00.240 not anything particularly high end. It's definitely not custom, just 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.720 your typical machine made, mass produced item. 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:09.720 So if the blade doesn't appear to be particularly special superficially, 0:16:10.440 --> 0:16:14.720 maybe it had some sentimental value for Vasily Melnikov, or, 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:19.880 as others seem to believe, maybe it wasn't his at all. 0:16:21.120 --> 0:16:26.080 Online in Russia, there are various theories and rumors going 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:30.720 around about Vasily Melnikov and the slaughter of his family. 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.240 Many believe he was killed on behalf of the Russian government. 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:38.680 In fact, so many Russian oligarchs have died in the 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:43.200 last year that it's become somewhat of a running joke. 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:45.720 Vasily was just another one. 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.480 Even pro Russian telegram channels linked to Russian units fighting 0:16:50.560 --> 0:16:54.160 in Ukraine joke about the likelihood of being bumped off 0:16:54.200 --> 0:16:58.600 by their own government. For example, the operator of the 0:16:58.720 --> 0:17:02.880 Russian propaganda tell channel gray Zone, with more than four 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:07.600 hundred thousand members, wrote recently saying, quote, once I was 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:09.720 having a cup of tea with a comrade from the 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:13.840 General Staff of the Armed Forces of Russia, talking about 0:17:13.880 --> 0:17:18.040 the various risks and consequences of saying certain things in 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.840 this channel on telegram, I jokingly said that one day 0:17:22.000 --> 0:17:24.800 I might fall out of a window, to which my 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.520 comrade replied, bro, if the generals want to eliminate you 0:17:28.600 --> 0:17:31.640 by throwing you from a window, they'll most likely throw 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:32.240 you from. 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.640 The first floor. End quote. 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.400 As we'll find out later in this series, falling out 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:43.120 of the window is something many Russian oligarchs have recently 0:17:43.160 --> 0:17:48.119 had in common. Plenty of people online in Russia have 0:17:48.200 --> 0:17:53.000 found the whole situation suspicious. Now I don't speak Russian, 0:17:53.119 --> 0:17:56.920 but Sergey does. He found numerous comments relating to the 0:17:57.000 --> 0:17:58.800 Vasili Melnikov murders. 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:00.960 There's a lot of speculator. You know, a lot of 0:18:01.040 --> 0:18:03.520 them say like, oh, look at them cleaning cleaning out, 0:18:03.680 --> 0:18:06.399 you know, referring to like whoever's higher up kind of 0:18:06.440 --> 0:18:09.720 maybe cutting closing loose ends or getting rid of like 0:18:10.119 --> 0:18:12.320 people who might know some like have dirt on them. 0:18:12.320 --> 0:18:13.640 You know, it's all over the place. 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:13.840 You know. 0:18:14.920 --> 0:18:18.840 Mostly you see this on Contactya, like their VK, like 0:18:18.920 --> 0:18:22.639 Facebook kind of counterpart you see this on the actual 0:18:22.720 --> 0:18:25.639 articles because you know, you can post anonymously, so a 0:18:25.640 --> 0:18:29.119 lot of people will say like, oh, smell suspicious, or like, oh. 0:18:29.040 --> 0:18:30.480 Is this do you really want us to believe? 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.959 This doesn't go like anywhere from that, but you know, 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.119 it's it's interesting to see that a lot of people 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:39.320 are voicing the fact that, like this sounds like bullshit. 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:40.679 It's almost seems like they're used to it. 0:18:40.680 --> 0:18:43.040 They're kind of like, oh, there goes another one. It's 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:44.399 nothing new to them. 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:49.320 That said, Rumors and theories on the internet, just rumors 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:51.880 and theories on the internet. We don't know if they 0:18:51.920 --> 0:18:57.520 hold any white often they don't. What we do know, though, 0:18:57.720 --> 0:18:59.960 is that the police in Russia say that we're silly 0:19:00.119 --> 0:19:04.920 Melnikov killed his whole family, a brutal act beyond most 0:19:04.920 --> 0:19:09.360 people's imagination. This crime is so awful that it even 0:19:09.440 --> 0:19:14.440 has its own terminology. It's often referred to as familicide 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:37.879 and the perpetrators as family annihilators. To get a better 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:42.680 understanding of this horror, I spoke to Professor Elizabeth Yadley. 0:19:43.200 --> 0:19:47.520 She's a professor of criminology at Birmingham University in the UK. 0:19:48.320 --> 0:19:52.520 She's studied family annihilation at length and has authored several 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:53.199 papers on it. 0:19:53.440 --> 0:19:56.520 When this individual hills their family and so that is 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.960 often their wife or female partner and their biological children, 0:20:00.080 --> 0:20:03.720 and in some cases they then kill themselves as well 0:20:03.800 --> 0:20:06.399 and in other cases they know. So it is the 0:20:06.440 --> 0:20:10.040 wiping out essentially of the entire nuclear family units in 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:11.399 one particular event. 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:13.760 Right, And you've done a lot of research on this. 0:20:13.840 --> 0:20:16.560 Obviously it's a case by case basis. But is there 0:20:16.560 --> 0:20:20.520 any kind of idea that's shared by people as to 0:20:20.720 --> 0:20:25.720 why people do this? Because it's extremely violent. It's just 0:20:25.920 --> 0:20:29.639 unbelievable to anyone that's saying that someone would kill their 0:20:29.720 --> 0:20:32.080 or own family. Is there any kind of consensus on 0:20:32.160 --> 0:20:33.199 why this might happen? 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:36.360 Yeah, I think For me, the two key words are 0:20:36.800 --> 0:20:41.000 control and possession. When I look at cases of family annihilation, 0:20:41.640 --> 0:20:45.320 the family members who are murdered, very often they're not 0:20:45.440 --> 0:20:49.000 seen as living, breathing human beings with their own hopes 0:20:49.040 --> 0:20:52.600 and dreams and freedoms and choices. They're seen as objects 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:57.399 that are possessed by the perpetrator. They are things that 0:20:57.440 --> 0:21:01.000 the perpetrator owns, and therefore the perpetrator can do, you know, 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:04.359 what he wants with them. And these cases are really 0:21:04.400 --> 0:21:07.600 interesting because a lot of the coverage of the cases 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:12.479 will present these as cases where somebody's snapped, somebody's lost it, 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:16.720 They've gone overnight from you know, a loving, caring father 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:21.080 figure to a homicidal maniac, and that just doesn't happen. 0:21:21.320 --> 0:21:24.280 Snapping isn't actually a thing. And when you look in 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:27.600 detail at these cases, when you find out the details 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.199 about these families and their lives, what you often come 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:35.159 across is quite significant histories of domestic abuse, of coercive 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:38.679 and controlling behavior, a very kind of domineering head of 0:21:38.680 --> 0:21:42.680 the household type figures. So it does make sense when 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:45.520 you look at it in that broader context. And I 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:47.840 don't think I've come across a single case where somebody 0:21:47.840 --> 0:21:50.440 has just you know, snapped and lost it in an 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:52.359 instant that doesn't tend to happen. 0:21:52.680 --> 0:21:55.840 Do you think that it's a case of someone over 0:21:55.880 --> 0:21:58.919 the years or over a certain amount of time of 0:21:58.920 --> 0:22:02.159 fermenting these ideas, isn't getting more angry, or do you 0:22:02.200 --> 0:22:04.800 think this is something that someone potentially kind of always 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:05.280 had in them. 0:22:05.760 --> 0:22:07.920 I think it's something that they've always had in them, 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:10.520 because the way that they think about their family, the 0:22:10.560 --> 0:22:13.520 way they think about other people, that is an element 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:16.760 of their personality that's very much part and parcel of them. 0:22:17.080 --> 0:22:20.480 To be controlling is normal for them. To be possessive, 0:22:20.640 --> 0:22:23.520 is normal for them. To be abusive, it's normal for them. 0:22:23.920 --> 0:22:26.240 So this is the key thing about all of the 0:22:26.280 --> 0:22:30.600 family annihilations that I've covered, Like it's more about continuity 0:22:30.760 --> 0:22:34.880 than it is about change. And very often these individuals 0:22:34.920 --> 0:22:38.680 are quite good at maintaining like a facade of normality 0:22:39.119 --> 0:22:42.720 and respectability. And this is vania which most people don't 0:22:42.720 --> 0:22:46.440 really get to see behind. So it is really shocking 0:22:46.560 --> 0:22:49.359 when this kind of thing happens. But very often you 0:22:49.400 --> 0:22:52.040 speak to people who are kind of known intimately to 0:22:52.080 --> 0:22:55.200 those involved in a crime, like this, and they're like, yeah, yeah, 0:22:55.480 --> 0:22:57.600 he was an awful person. You know, he was just 0:22:57.720 --> 0:22:59.359 very good at claiming that he wasn't. 0:22:59.440 --> 0:23:02.000 This case that I'm looking at with this guy in Russia, 0:23:02.040 --> 0:23:04.560 this Melnikov guy. The thing with him is though he 0:23:05.320 --> 0:23:09.399 just come off of a very luxurious holiday with his 0:23:09.440 --> 0:23:12.320 two children and his wife in the Maldives. He just 0:23:12.840 --> 0:23:15.560 made a deal on a three point five million dollar 0:23:16.280 --> 0:23:20.040 business contract, and he had a really nice flat in 0:23:20.080 --> 0:23:26.160 an upmarket part of Moscow. On the outside, like everything 0:23:26.280 --> 0:23:29.600 was going good for him. Now, allegedly he told his 0:23:29.640 --> 0:23:31.920 wife he was depressed, but the source for that is 0:23:32.000 --> 0:23:35.680 kind of like anonymous person that told a Russian government 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:38.880 media channel, so it's not exactly reliable. But he seemed 0:23:38.880 --> 0:23:43.520 to have everything going for him. Yet he apparently, according 0:23:43.520 --> 0:23:47.520 to the Russian police, killed his whole family using a 0:23:47.600 --> 0:23:48.960 series of different knives. 0:23:49.480 --> 0:23:50.960 Also then killed himself. 0:23:51.520 --> 0:23:54.960 He seemed to kind of have everything going for him. 0:23:55.200 --> 0:23:56.800 Do you see that kind of stuff happen as well? 0:23:56.800 --> 0:23:59.639 All the people do this, even if you know everything 0:23:59.680 --> 0:24:02.080 find Angela is okay, and you know, I mean, who 0:24:02.160 --> 0:24:03.640 knows what is going through someone's head? 0:24:03.640 --> 0:24:05.359 But I don't know. This guy didn't seem to be 0:24:05.359 --> 0:24:07.000 losing things. It was quite the opposite. 0:24:07.600 --> 0:24:11.000 No, that doesn't really ring truth for me. If he's 0:24:11.200 --> 0:24:15.040 if he's seeing a particular level of success and like 0:24:15.040 --> 0:24:18.120 you said, he's got this this big multi million contract 0:24:18.160 --> 0:24:21.520 in the offering, and if he's you know, quite well 0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:24.080 healed and things are going well, that's not the time 0:24:24.119 --> 0:24:26.920 when this sort of thing tends to happen. Then you've 0:24:26.960 --> 0:24:30.400 got situations where you know, large amounts of money are involved. 0:24:30.640 --> 0:24:34.120 It's normally when there's the threat of losing that money, right, 0:24:34.119 --> 0:24:37.400 and that's like a real thing. And the murders are 0:24:37.480 --> 0:24:41.679 essentially away of sort of regaining control essentially, because for 0:24:41.720 --> 0:24:45.040 a lot of these guys, the family is is a 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:49.480 way of kind of displaying success, their indicator to the 0:24:49.520 --> 0:24:53.080 world that they've made it. You know that they're economically successful, 0:24:53.080 --> 0:24:56.199 they've got money, and if you think of you know 0:24:56.240 --> 0:24:58.560 that the vast expense that comes from having a family 0:24:58.720 --> 0:25:02.520 at the family home and and very often some expensive 0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:04.960 leisure purshoots and hobbies and that kind of thing, and 0:25:05.040 --> 0:25:08.119 these grand holidays in the Moldies. That's basically announcing to 0:25:08.119 --> 0:25:09.920 the rest of the world, I've made it, and look, 0:25:09.960 --> 0:25:11.080 my family are helping me. 0:25:11.119 --> 0:25:13.639 Perform my success to the rest of the world. 0:25:13.840 --> 0:25:16.119 When there's the threat of that money kind of going away, 0:25:16.920 --> 0:25:20.119 the family doesn't serve a function anymore, because for these guys, 0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:22.560 the family is a way of performing success. There isn't 0:25:22.600 --> 0:25:26.480 any real sort of genuine emotion or kind of attachment 0:25:26.560 --> 0:25:29.000 to the people in the family. They're simply props. And 0:25:29.440 --> 0:25:31.960