Arkady Neiland: photo, biography. The case of Arkady Vladimirovich Neiland

Every adult and capable person knows that the law of the state in which he lives must be observed. But in exceptional cases, for particularly grave crimes, the punishment provided by law may not be enough. It's about private and very rare situations that invariably fall into world history. For example, in 1964 in Leningrad was sentenced to death and shot minor offender Arkady Neiland. What did this teenager do and why did the higher ranks of the state decide to violate the current legislation of the RSFSR?

The history of the Neiland family

In 1949 Arkady Neiland was born in Leningrad. The history of his family is typical for his time. The boy lived with his parents, brothers and sister in the most common communal apartment. Mother and stepfather often drank and gave little time to children. The norm in this family was physical punishment, often unreasonably cruel. My mother worked as a nurse, and my stepfather was a mechanic, respectively, about the material wealth of speech and did not go. As Arkady himself admitted (after his arrest), he often was undernourished with his brothers and sister, engaged in vagrancy, and started stealing from his earliest childhood. From the age of 7 the boy was registered with the police for hooliganism and petty robbery. At the age of 12 he was expelled from the school of general education, and the mother determined the unfortunate son to boarding. But in this institution Arkady "did not get accustomed" - he often clashed with peers, tried to run away. As soon as Neiland graduated from the 6th grade, he was expelled. After which he was sent to work at the production association "Lenpischemash". However, in this kind of activity Arkady could not prove himself positively. The guy came across small thefts and absenteeism, but because of his age of serious penalties and courts, he was avoided.

A big "business" for the sake of a "new" life

Until 1964, the biggest crimes of Neiland were thefts from the Soyuzpechat stall and hairdresser. But all this seemed to the ambitious teenager a trifle, besides, the majority of offenses ended with inevitable "visions" in the police station. In January 1964, Arkady Vladimirovich Neiland, along with an accomplice-minded person, decided to do something really "big" and seize a large sum of money at a time. The ideal crime for teenagers was apartment theft. There was only little - to find a suitable object. Attackers liked the house number 3 on Sestroretskaya street. For the forthcoming theft, the scoundrels began to prepare in advance. On January 24, 1964, they went around the whole entrance of the chosen building and communicated with the residents under an innocent pretext. In one of the apartments no one opened the door, and then the criminals picked up the key and unlocked it on their own. After making an apartment theft, Arkady and his accomplice quietly left the apartment, but immediately collided with her mistress, who made a noise when she learned her things. As a result, the thieves were detained.

A crime that could not happen

For another theft of teenagers by tradition was interrogated and left in the office to wait. It was during this pause that Arkady Neiland stood up unperturbed and left. What is striking is that none of the employees of the bodies paid any attention to him and did not try to detain him. The criminal went to his home and stole a tourist hatchet, which is small in weight and size, and also with a sufficiently high quality sharpening. Arkady immediately realized that you can not stay in the parents' apartment. For several days he spent the night in the cellars and attics, not ceasing to follow the chosen apartment. According to some versions, the thought of committing a robbery with murder came to the head of a teenager spontaneously, during the last detention. But if you evaluate all the facts in aggregate, you can make the assumption that Arkady Neiland and his accomplice came up with and planned everything in advance. Whatever it was, on January 27, 1964 the criminal went "on business". And just think: if he had not managed to escape from the department three days earlier, or if he had been placed in a correctional facility for earlier crimes, tragedies could have been avoided.

A brutal murder on Sestroretskaya Street

A young criminal for several days watched the chosen "rich" apartment. By the time of the attack, he already knew for certain that inside the day there was only a middle-aged housewife woman and her little son. As Arkady Vladimirovich Neiland later confessed to the interrogation, he went on a crime, having decided in advance that he would kill the mistress and, most likely, the child too. The moral side of this issue did not bother him, and as for the probable punishment - the attacker on a personal example has repeatedly experienced that the judicial system of the RSFSR is loyal to adolescents. Arkady rang the door of the chosen apartment, and immediately opened it. Mistress - Larissa Kupreeva - recognized a gloomy youth, who came in a few days ago, and pricked up her ears. The criminal himself also hesitated and uttered some completely unconvincing excuse for the visit, in response to which the door in front of his nose was closed. Then Arkady waited a while, called again, called the postman, changed his voice, and when the door opened, he immediately attacked the hostess of the apartment with an ax. Struggle ensued, the woman understood that she was responsible for the life of her own son, and desperately resisted. At one point, she almost managed to snatch an ax from the hands of the criminal. But then Arkady knocked Larissa in the armchair and struck a series of blows on the head. After the mistress of the flat was quiet, the criminal calmly dealt with her son. Then he went around the rooms and collected valuable things, after which he did not disdain and eat in the kitchen. Before leaving the apartment, Arkady committed arson, expecting that the fire would destroy all traces of his atrocities. However, this expectation was not justified. The fire crew arrived quickly enough: the neighbors suspected something was wrong, smelling the smell of burning in the entrance. The fire was extinguished quickly enough. But when the firemen entered the apartment, they were shocked. Dead bodies, traces of blood and the general mess in the rooms were clearly evident. In addition, it was possible even to find fingerprints of the unknown, who later became important clues against the main suspect.

To the sea, for a new life!

15-year-old Arkady Neiland - not a maniac, but just an unhappy child, who grew up in terrible conditions and with a complete lack of concepts of morality and conscience. In his official statements, he himself and his partner failed to say that they wanted to commit the big theft in order to leave for the money to the sea (in Sukhumi or Tbilisi, according to different sources) and there to rest, and then start a new one, Law-abiding life. Of course, these plans were not destined to come true. Immediately after the crime was committed Arkady handed over the stolen items to the storage room at the station. And he himself, after a little walk, started looking for tickets. In Leningrad, on that day, it was not possible to take a long-distance train to the south, so the criminal purchased a ticket to Moscow, hoping to make a transfer there. And he succeeded, but when he left the train to the platform of the southern city of Sukhumi, Neiland Arkady was detained and taken back to Leningrad.

Confessions of a juvenile fanat

The offender was surprised only by the fact that he was found and found four days later. At Arcadia there were several important clues, in particular, the camera "Sharp" with a few notable scratches, stolen from the robbed apartment, Kupreev's passport and his adopted daughter, in addition, on the clothes of the killer and some things there were dried blood stains. Neiland himself was in shock and did not even try to deny it. He quickly began to cooperate with the investigation. Arkady Neiland, whose biography includes a huge number of minor offenses and drives to the police, thought he knew what he could expect. The thing is that the current legislation in the country did not provide for the highest measure - the death penalty - for minors. Accordingly, deciding to steal from the murder, Arkady thought that the maximum that he was facing was a prison sentence in a colony for minors. During the interrogation, Neiland in all details told how he planned his crime and killed a woman and a child.

A prosperous apartment was ordinary

This crime has amazed the public of the whole country with its brutality and senselessness. In his confessions, the murderer repeated several times that he planned a robbery of a "rich" apartment with the subsequent murder of witnesses. However, the injured Kupreevs were the most usual family. It is difficult to say on which principle Arkady Neiland chose the object for the attack. 1964 - the year in which in Leningrad, in principle, there were not so many truly wealthy families. And to look for such in the most ordinary house was a mistake initially. However, what to expect from a young man who grew up in communal apartments on the social day? According to some versions, the guy lost his head when he saw the front door, color TV and a housewife, leading an "idle" way of life, dermatologically covered.

Inhuman cruelty and cynicism

During the interrogation, the suspect himself will tell that the first blows to his victim he inflicted on the hands and shoulders, and during the struggle he had time to change his mind and leave the woman alive. The battle between the victim and the assailant was really long and noisy, many neighbors heard suspicious sounds. Neiland himself realized that the sounds of the fight were loud enough, so at the first opportunity he turned on the master tape recorder to muffle them. A child who "got underfoot" while the criminal was killing his mother, Arkady hacked into several blows. However, in this act the murderer even repented, saying that he regrets that "it was necessary to do so". The case of Arkady Neiland received such a wide public response precisely because of the cynicism of the criminal. After the double murder, the attacker ransacked the whole apartment in search of valuable things, and then made a series of obscene images of the body of the murdered person on the stolen camera, planning in the future to sell them as pornography. After that, Arkady calmly washed himself in the master's bath, went to the kitchen and cooked his dinner, using the supplies of his victims. Neighborhood with two cooling bodies did not spoil his appetite. And only after refreshing, the murderer set fire to the apartment, opened the gas and hurried off. In his defense, the criminal will also say that Larissa herself is to blame for what happened. Like, if she did not defend herself, she probably would not have to be killed ...

Higher measure for a minor

When all the circumstances of this crime became known to the public, the reactions were mixed. Many argued that Arkady Neiland is a maniac, a fanatical and not worthy of life as such. The criminal himself exacerbated his situation, saying during the interrogations that he knew that he had nothing to fear. However, Arkady Neiland was shot in Leningrad in 1964 on the verdict of the court. Many residents of our country requested just such punishment for the murderer, they sent their letters and official petitions to the prosecutor's office and even personally to Leonid Brezhnev and Nikita Khrushchev. All these appeals of citizens were attached to the criminal case. After receiving such a verdict, Arkady Neiland, whose execution was contrary to all the laws of the country, entered world history. The intelligentsia and lawyers were somewhat dissatisfied with the fact that the verdict was not quite in line with the legal norms. But it can not be overlooked that this execution was not only indicative, but also rational. Under the law, Neiland was to receive a term of imprisonment and had a real opportunity (with good behavior in the colony) to be released after 5-6 years. Accordingly, the society would receive an adult and adult recidivist at the age of 20 years, on account of which not only robbery, hooliganism and theft, but also the murder of a woman and a child.

The name of Arkady Neiland in world history

The history of this juvenile offender ends on August 11, 1964. It was on this day that the verdict was carried out and the murderer was shot. There are legends that it was very difficult to find performers for execution. None of the civil servants wanted to shoot a teenager. It is worth noting that Arkady Neiland (photo of the criminal you can see in our article) had quite ordinary appearance. He sometimes looked sloppy and was poorly dressed, but the overall impression was neutral: the average teenager of his time. When the verdict was read out in the courtroom, Neiland was not only surprised, but also truly frightened. After that, he began to ask for pardon, wrote a cassation appeal, but his request was not granted. At the world level, these events have received a two-digit reaction. Civilized countries were amazed at the arrogance and cruelty of the criminal, but among the jurists there were also those who were outraged. This case and the verdict passed by the Western public perceived both the oppression of freedom and the rights of the individual by the socialist system. And yet, in order to bring the sentence into execution, it was required to somehow legalize such a decision. For this, a unique action was carried out: among the judges of Leningrad, a written survey was conducted in which it was necessary to answer whether it is possible to recognize the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the USSR having retroactive force? Consent to this thesis meant the admissibility of carrying out the death penalty of a minor. Of course, the judges who participated in the survey immediately realized what the authorities expect from them and voted in the affirmative almost unanimously. It is worth noting that this case is unique for the history of Russia and the world. That is why Arkady Neiland (1964 - the year of the crime and the murderer's death) became so "famous". Unfortunately, he became famous in a bloody way.