Russia's Most EVIL Female Serial Killer: 'Satan in a Skirt'

Who speaks in this episode?

• Ellen O'Neal (Host)

What is discussed, and when

1. 0:00 – 5:00: Arena Gaidmachuk, Crash Newfimsk, Ellen O'Neal
2. 5:00 – 10:00: Peter Gammachuk
3. 15:00 – 20:00: Re-Engage
4. 20:00 – 25:00: Crash Newfimsk, Lydia Golovinkina
5. 25:00 – 30:00: Crash Newfimsk
6. 40:00 – 45:00: Alexandra Povertena

Notable quotes from "Russia's Most EVIL Female Serial Killer: 'Satan in a Skirt'"

• The killer known as the Crash Newfimsk maniac had claimed the lives of 17 people and even left taunting messages at some of the crime scenes. The whole nation was shocked when the killer was.

  about Crash Newfimsk · at 0:15

• Of today's case. It's a classic serial killer biography, baby. Who is Russia's worst female serial killer? Arena Victornner Gaidmachuk was born in 1972 in Yakatherinburgg…

  about Arena Gaidmachuk · at 4:08

• Years into this, when she was in her early 20s, Arena would meet a man while she was out drinking. Peter Gammachuk was 23 years older than Arena. She herself couldn't have been…

  about Peter Gammachuk · at 7:37

• Take a quick moment to highlight a really important charity here in the UK Re-Engage. They provide and facilitate social connection for older people at a time in their life…

  about Re-Engage · at 16:54

• When there's over a dozen victims, like in today's case, it's even harder. But one of her next victims, we think possibly her third, was a 68-year-old mother named Lydia…

  about Lydia Golovinkina · at 22:10

• Killing in her own town so brazenly as she had. Police were everywhere now. So instead, she began traveling to neighboring cities, driving for hours and hours or catching…

  about Achit · at 36:19

• Own homes. And though it's a horrible number, fortunately, it wouldn't climb much higher. Her very final victim would lose their life on May 22nd. It was 81-year-old Alexandra…

  about Alexandra Povertena · at 42:48

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

• Arena Gaidmachuk — Person · Primary subject (perpetrator in true-crime narrative) · 1 mention · first at 4:14
  Central figure of the episode: a Russian female serial killer described as the 'Krasnoufimsk maniac'/'Satan in a skirt', responsible for 17 murders (2002–2010).
• Ellen O'Neal — Person · Host / narrator · 1 mention · first at 0:00
  Introduces the episode and narrates the full case, including background, investigation, arrest, and trial details.
  Hello and welcome to Outlaw Podcast. I'm Ellen O'Neal and in today's episode we're in Russia in 2010 where one of the country's worst ever serial killers is finally being detained after an 8-year.
• Alexandra Povertena — Person · Referenced victim (final victim) · 1 mention · first at 42:58
  Described as Arena's last victim (May 22, 2010); the neighbor’s prior knowledge of the visit and sighting of Arena leaving helped directly identify and lead to Arena’s arrest.
• Lydia Golovinkina — Person · Referenced victim · 1 mention · first at 22:19
  Named victim (described as possibly the third); her resistance produced a key forensic clue (hair clutched in her hand) that influenced investigative theories.
• Peter Gammachuk — Person · Referenced person (ex-husband of primary subject) · 1 mention · first at 7:42
  Arena's earlier husband; their relationship, age gap, and his departure are presented as key events in her life trajectory.

Companies & orgs

• Re-Engage — Company · 3 mentions · first at 16:57

Places & events

• Crash Newfimsk — Place · 3 mentions · first at 0:15
• Achit — Place · 1 mention
• Yakatherinburg — Place · 1 mention

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 Hello and welcome to Outlaw Podcast. I'm Ellen O'Neal and in today's episode we're in Russia in 2010 where one of the country's worst ever serial killers is finally being detained after an 8-year long reign of terror over the region. The killer known as the Crash Newfimsk maniac had claimed the lives of 17 people and even left taunting messages at some of the crime scenes. The whole nation was shocked when the killer was exposed to be a local mother. Now she is known not by her name, but as Satan in a skirt, Russia's worst ever female serial killer.

0:42 Outlaw Ena Gaidmachuk started her days just like any other mother. She woke up, she helped her daughter get ready for school and saw her husband off to work. And then she would leave for work herself. Only Arena's whole life was one big lie. She didn't actually have a job. While her husband thought that she was off working in a bank, she was visiting the elderly in their local area, but not to offer help or to do anything good. She didn't get the name Satan in a skirt for no reason. What she spent her days doing for 8 years straight was a work of pure evil. Now, before I get any further, I do want to warn you that this episode will cover sensitive topics, including addiction, violence, rape, and murder so viewer discretion is always advised.

1:30 Now, before we get into the case, I do just want to very quickly thank our sponsor for making this video possible Paradise Paws. If you couldn't tell by my setup and my two cats, I am an animal girly through and through. Cats are my specialtity, and trust me, if I could have more than two of them, I would be running an animal sanctuary out of this little London flat. But seeing as though I can't live my animal sanctuary dream right now in real life, I have it in my phone instead. And of course, I'm a true crime girly. This isn't just any ordinary animal sanctuary. Paradise Paws is set on a mysterious island that once thrived with wildlife, but has since been left in a state of disarray. And now, the adorable animals that live there need your help. Yes, you. Your help specifically. In the game, you receive a letter from a mysterious character that only goes by FG. And this letter summons you to an island riddled

2:22 with secrets and mystery. You join Natalie and her besty Lizzy on an adventure as you try to uncover the clues left behind in cryptic notes all over the island. Your mission is simple. Rebuild the sanctuary, provide safe homes, and protect the little animals. Because every creature that you nurture from birth helps bring back new life to the island. We're populating here people. So, this is my little island. I'm going to tap and get some berries. And I'm going to feed one of my little animals. Look, he's running over.

2:52 It's adorable. Go on. You can have a watermelon as well. Oh, another one came over. That's my little squirrel. It's called Zoro. But it's not just the island's secrets and its animals that you're dealing with. There's greedy developers that are trying to claim the land. So whilst you restore, you got to fight, girl. The game is free to play. It is adree. And the best part, it works perfectly offline. No Wi-Fi necessary. I have found my new airplane game. Thank you, Paradise Paws. And of course, your future fur babies have a little gift for you. If you're one of the first 100 people to install the game using my link down below or the QR code on screen, you will unlock an exclusive baby penguin for your sanctuary that helps you to gather resources for the island even faster. And maybe you could call it Ellie, you know, after me. Just just a suggestion. So, just like me, you can save the animals and restore the

3:44 sanctuary. Download Paradise Paws now for free using the QR code or the link down below in the description. And once you've played the game a little bit don't be shy. Talk to me about it please. Let's solve the mysteries of the island together and figure out who the hell is FG. That's my little Paradise Paw. Thank you again to Paradise Paws for sponsoring this episode of Outlaw on YouTube. And now, with all that being said, let's start at the very beginning of today's case. It's a classic serial killer biography, baby. Who is Russia's worst female serial killer? Arena Victornner Gaidmachuk was born in 1972 in Yakatherinburgg, Russia. But at the time during the Soviet Union, it was called Sperlovsk. Arena's childhood honestly seemed quite lonely. All reports say that her parents were not very present. Some sources say that they were alcoholics and they couldn't meet their daughter's emotional needs. She

4:36 was also brought up during the final years of the Soviet Union, which was a very strict and strained time. Many families lived in cold, brutalist apartment buildings with not much money to their names. And in the years before Arena was born, huge numbers of citizens had died in the goolags, which were horrific work camps that people would be sent to for committing like even just petty crimes or being anti-establishment, the death toll was truly immense. And even though things had improved by the 70s when Arena was born, for example, jobs were more secure than ever, housing had improved, they were all still living under very strict authority and censorship. So eventually when the Soviet Union collapsed in her teen years, life would go a little bit crazy, but we're not there just yet.

5:22 While she was still very young, Arena's parents moved the family to a town called Niagan. Still in Russia, but it was like a 2-hour flight away from where they lived before. It was where Arena's mom's side of the family were from. So the move made sense, but Arena still really struggled with the change. She became a little bit out of control. There would be a lot of fallouts between her and her parents, especially her mom who was very strict. But the bad behavior wasn't just at home. Arena would act out in school. She got a name for herself as a bit of a troublemaker.

5:53 Nothing extreme, but she was known for having quite big like emotional or aggressive outbursts. And people had very little patience and understanding for that at the time. It's always really sad to hear things like this. When we dig into someone's backstory, chances are that there was something going on there that could have been helped with a psychiatrist. But back then, emotional outbursts like that were just seen as bad behavior and nothing more. Children were blamed for having those outbursts rather than listened to and understanding where those unmet needs were. Their other symptoms, traits, and experiences stayed unconnected to the outbursts as well. Like the fact that Arena really struggled to make friends and confidently talk to people. She always felt different. She was a very lonely child, but she was just always swept aside and considered just a bad seed. Despite her various struggles

6:44 Arena did okay for herself. Honestly she graduated high school in the '9s. She went on to university. But it was now, aged 18 years old, that things for Arena would start to wobble. She began drinking heavily. And I mean, take into consideration that she was a uni student. Famously, they could drink for an Olympic sport. But both of Arena's parents were supposedly alcoholics through her childhood, so she had never had a healthy relationship with drinking modeled for her. Frequent excessive alcohol consumption was very normalized.

7:16 So Arena never really felt the need to limit herself when it came to drinking. And it was here before she'd even reached her 20s that Arena would begin down the slippery slope of alcohol addiction. She partied her heart out. And then when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Arena was 19 and the partying only ramped up. And then a couple of years into this, when she was in her early 20s, Arena would meet a man while she was out drinking. Peter Gammachuk was 23 years older than Arena. She herself couldn't have been any older than 23. So this guy was double her age mid4s, trying it on with a spring chicken, but it worked on Arena. She fell for him and well, the rest was history. In a devastating turn of events, she completely derailed her life for this [ __ ] ass man. She dropped out of university. She married him. She fell pregnant. She ended up giving birth to a baby girl that they named Elina. But

8:18 this whole time, Arena was still struggling with her creeping alcohol addiction. I couldn't say for sure whether she was drinking through the pregnancy. I mean, you would hope not but it wouldn't be a complete shock if she was. And we can only imagine that when the baby was born, the struggles of parenthood exacerbated her drinking. In 1995, Arena was 23 years old when her 46year-old husband Peter left her and the baby all alone. A very tragic thing to happen for so many reasons. Frankly that baby was not safe under the solo care of such a severe alcoholic. Arena was bad, guys. Like, so bad, in fact that her parents actually made her give up her daughter Alina to an orphanage.

9:02 And she did, which was the best thing for everyone involved, I think. But now that Arena was left without her husband without her baby, her parents would feel the need to disown her, too. And I don't know the details, but damn, [ __ ] must have been pretty shocking to lose the people that are supposed to support and love you unconditionally forever. And the fact that they had supported her for so many years of her addiction, I think that suggests that the breaking point must have been something big. But from this moment on, Arena hated her parents especially her mom since I think she had been the bigger of the force, the bigger force of the two of them when it came to the disownment. And now Arena had lost everything. Her husband, her baby, her own parents, a place to live, all of it gone in such quick succession due to her addiction and presumably very unpleasant behavior. I imagine that was quite a

9:58 rock bottom moment for Arena. But she never really accepted the blame for anything in life. She perpetually victimized herself and saw everyone else as evil and malicious towards her. I mean, it's understandable when someone's addiction clouds their judgment so much but the fact that she couldn't see that her drinking was the root of all of these problems is actually so sad. Two years later in 1997, Arena was 25 years old when she met an outoftowner called Yuri who was in Niagan on work. She very quickly fell for this man in a whirlwind romance and decided to move away with him back to his hometown when his work in Niagan was over. The place that he actually lived and was going back to was a whole day long train away from where Arena had been living. But she didn't really have much to leave behind. She picked up and moved to Crash Newfims with Yuri, leaving practically everything she owned behind. And that

10:58 actually included all forms of government ID, her passport, all official documents that she'd ever been issued were left behind. They were still in her parents' home and Arena didn't want to see them. She didn't want to go back there to pick them up. So, she just, I don't know, left without them. And because she didn't have any of these official documents, that meant that when she, you know, the relationship progressed with Yuri, they couldn't actually get legally married because well, she technically like didn't exist in Crash Newfinsk where they lived. But I mean, Yuri and Arena still kind of thought of themselves as a married couple. Like they had that dynamic. Soon Arena fell pregnant once again with Yuri's baby, and she would go on to have another daughter that they named Anastasia. And this time around, by all accounts, Arena was a much better parent. She was actually completely sober at this point in her life. An

11:52 amazing feat from her because it truly sounded like she was in the pits with her addiction. But unfortunately, it wouldn't last long. In 2002, she relapsed and began drinking heavily again. And Yuri actually had to cut her off financially. if she wanted to buy something, she would have to ask him and he would buy it for her because she couldn't be trusted to have her own bank card and access to their shared money because she would just spend it all on excessive amounts of liquor. And because she knew that her husband wouldn't give her a lot of money, she began asking her friends. She began borrowing money from them, and then she would disappear for days on end on a bender, and then she would return home hung over and penniles once again. She would insist to Yuri that she hadn't been out drinking. She hadn't been on a bender. She was actually visiting her parents, the parents that disowned her. And

12:45 truthfully, she hadn't seen them in years. I'm not sure if Yuri believed her when she said that she was going to visit her parents, but you know, they could all tell that she was drinking very heavily. And Yuri's family, his mother and father, were very concerned about Arena's addiction and her behavior. her relationship with her mother-in-law, Yuri's mom, actually began to mirror the relationship that Arena had had with her own mother. The two of them clashed a lot, and Yuri's mom wasn't afraid to confront Arena about her drinking. She believed that it was affecting her ability to be a good wife to her son and a good mother to her granddaughter. Arena was having a rough time in general. She felt nagged by everyone around her to cut off her drinking, but her alcoholism felt more consuming than ever. She grew more and more desperate by the day to feed her addiction. Her friends had stopped

13:35 lending her money because they knew what she was doing with it, and she was running out of ways to find a bit of cash. She was sinking to a more immoral place every day until eventually leaning on her reputation as a dedicated mother involved in her daughter's schooling. Arena began to raise funds for the school only to pocket all of those charitable donations for herself. Although it's hardly pocketing the money when it goes straight into the till at the liquor store within an hour of receiving it. She wasn't really stealing money because she wanted to steal because she wanted the money. It's because she was sick with addiction. It really is sad. She'd become a compulsive liar. She was untrustworthy irresponsible. People could no longer treat her like a fully autonomous adult because she was a danger to herself when left to her own devices. Around this time, Arena was lying to everyone that

14:29 she knew, saying that she worked in a bank. She didn't work in a bank. She even had her husband believing that though. She would leave the house every day for work, but she wouldn't go to a bank. Instead, Arena would go and carry out odd jobs like decorating, gardening maybe even a bit of handiwork if she felt capable. The jobs were cash in hand. So, immediately as soon as she would be paid, she would go and buy alcohol at the liquor store after completing the task, and she would drink out of the sight of her husband. It is a bit strange to me that she had to lie to her husband and well everyone that she knew about working in a bank instead of just saying that she does odd jobs for a living. It's honest work. Like there's nothing to be embarrassed about. But I don't know. She wasn't in her right mind, so I probably couldn't even try to understand. Or maybe it's because she already had an evil plan brewing. 0 to

15:24 100. I know. But hear me out for a second. I don't know if this serial killer case is one of those where they kill for the first time. They get a taste for it and then they continue to kill or if Arena actually put a plan in place well in advance to become a successful, serial, killer, or, at least, a serial burglar. Think about it. Everyone she knows thinks that she has a job at a bank. So chances are if she was committing crimes during the day while she was supposed to be at work, it has less chance of being connected back to her. And she was very strategic about who she offered her services to right from the beginning. She didn't work for just anyone, only people that she deemed to be easy targets to rob, exclusively elderly women. She would figure out where these women lived, maybe by following them home or stalking their houses, and then she would show up on their doorstep advertising her services

16:20 handiwork decorating gardening practically anything that they could possibly need. And these elderly women would almost always feel immediately trusting of this warm, charismatic young woman on their doorstep. She seemed very genuine. She was a mother to a young girl. She didn't give off the vibe that she was going to kill them, but that is exactly what she was going to do. Now before we get too far into this case because it does get especially sad due to the victim type of exclusively vulnerable elderly women, I do want to take a quick moment to highlight a really important charity here in the UK Re-Engage. They provide and facilitate social connection for older people at a time in their life where their social circle is diminishing. It's an incredibly lonely time. Imagine everyone, you know, everyone around you is dying. I think about it often and it just breaks my heart. Especially for

17:15 those who never had children and like I think that's going to be me. So if I think about lonely elderly people for too long, I'm actually going to cry. I adore charities like Re-Engage who do amazing things to uplift and connect the elderly. For example, through arranging phone calls with a buddy or support groups and in-person events. So although this charity might not be for you right now, it might be one day. So, please think about donating or telling someone about it if you think that it could be of help. I know that this sort of thing is close to all of our hearts. So re-engage will be linked down below in the description of this episode along with our link tree if you need any other support. But anyway, back to Arena, who is slipping quickly into insanity. So she starts visiting old women's houses to complete various household tasks for them. But Arena never actually planned on doing an honest job. Of course, it

18:11 was all just an excuse to be invited into these women's homes so that she could rob them blind. She would sneak around the house while their back was turned looking for cash in cupboards or in bags or under the mattress. I'm not sure if she was actually planning on killing anyone yet or if she was just planning to rob these women and leave. But very quickly, one of her clients caught her red-handed, and things would go horrifically wrong. In 2002, Arena was round at an older woman's house on a DIY job to paint her ceiling when she snuck off to the bedroom to scavenge for cash. She hit a very small jackpot when she discovered £5,000 rubles under the mattress, which is like £46.

18:56 barely worth it, but especially not worth it when the client walked in and caught her in the act. This woman confronted Arena, of course. In fact she was really [ __ ] angry, as she should be. She was yelling at Arena, and Arena started to panic. This woman was probably going to get her arrested. Her family would not only find out that she had been lying about working at a bank but her family would also find out that she was a thief. So, Arena was panicking. This woman just kept yelling. Everything is whirling around Arena's mind. And then the fact that the neighbors were going to hear what was going on, she panicked to a point where she spotted a hammer in her toolkit out of the corner of her eye. And without much thought, she grabbed it and began to whack this elderly woman over the head with it 11 times, crushing her skull in and murdering her. I wonder if Arena was drunk in that moment because

19:53 what an insane overreaction, an incredibly irrational decision. She didn't even try to apologize or deescalate the situation or even lie. Do a little lie or something. She just picked up a hammer and [ __ ] murdered a, woman., And, you, know what?, Those, aren't even the only options. She could have literally like ran out of the house. Chances are that the 40 robbery would never be traced back to Arena anyway. But no, now she has a dead body laying before her. Arena is a murderer. Was there much point in doing anything at the crime scene at this point? Well, no not really. Arena pocketed the 5,000 rubles that she found and headed straight to the liquor store for a bottle of vodka. When this woman's body was eventually found, the police looked into the case, of course, but with no witnesses and the fingerprints at the crime scene coming up with no match in the existing criminal database, the case

20:44 quickly went cold. Unfortunately, crimes of this kind were actually a bit common in Russia at the time. Targeting the elderly for their coffin money, you know, saved up for their funeral or simply just because it was a known fact that the elderly got a stable pension every month. It was like guaranteed that there would be something to steal from the elderly. But Arena had gotten away with her very first murder. And she wasn't exactly racked with guilt about it. Her husband, Yuri, couldn't even tell. He didn't know a thing. She was acting as normal as ever, confident, in fact, because she had just discovered a way to make a quick chunk of cash whenever she needed it. A very dangerous realization for Arena to come to because she was about to become a menace on the streets of Crash Newf Finsk. Over the coming months, Arena proceeded to rob kill, drink, and repeat. A harrowing cycle that ended with the senseless

21:41 murder of so many people. So many that we've actually been unable to find out every single victim's name and properly place them in a confirmed timeline. Trust me, I hate when that happens. You guys know that we always want to give as much time as we possibly can to the victims that we speak about, but sometimes the information just isn't there for us to find. Especially with international cases that we have to translate into English, it's much harder to dig stuff out when you can't speak the language of most of the sources. And when there's over a dozen victims, like in today's case, it's even harder. But one of her next victims, we think possibly her third, was a 68-year-old mother named Lydia Golovinkina. Arena had gained her trust and made her way into Lydia's apartment. But now that she knew exactly how this would play out Arena had stopped wasting time pretending to do a handiwork job or a

22:33 DIY, she simply waited until Lydia had her back turned. And then she grabbed a statue that was sitting on the victim's own mantelpiece and she struck her over the head with it. But Lydia fought back. A struggle broke out between the two of them, although ultimately Arena was able to overpower the older woman, and she continued to hit her over the head with her own statue until she died. But in her final moments, Lydia had managed to capture a clue for the police that would soon investigate her case. She had pulled out a clump of Arena's hair. It was still wrapped up in her fist when police found her dead body. The hair was long, indicating that the killer is likely a woman, right? I mean, I know some men have long hair, but let's be realistic about the chances now. But police were not realistic about the chances now. Police were pretty sure that the killer that they were investigating was a man. By now, they

23:28 had begun to connect some of these murders, and they had theorized up until this point that it was probably a man doing it. Why? Because the killings were so brutal. 11 hits over the head with a hammer could well be considered overkill. And that's usually quite characteristic of male killers rather than female killers. I don't know. Apparently, according to the police, all signs were pointing to a male killer. Apart from the first real physical clue that they had, this clump of long hair but the police actually floated the theory that if the male killer didn't have long hair, then he was probably wearing a wig. Wearing a wig. Right.

24:05 Right. Couldn't possibly be a woman though, could it? Other than those theories, police were no closer to suspecting Arena, but she probably felt that that last one was quite a close call. There's no evidence to suggest that any of her victims up until that point had fought back. So, it probably shook her and Arena actually began to switch up her methods. Between 2002 and 2003, Arena would kill seven or even more elderly women in Crash Newfimsk the very town that she lived in with her husband and her daughter. Her death toll sits at nine at this stage and somehow she is going completely undetected while murdering someone practically every month. I'm not entirely sure if all nine murder cases were connected to each other at this stage, but enough of them had been matched up to the same perpetrator, a serial killer that the town began calling the crash newfinsk maniac. The whole time it was a local

25:00 mother who had a little girl at home. Arena was the last person anyone was suspecting of such horrific crimes. But best believe she would follow women home, knocking on their door under the guise of being a social worker, a gas service worker, or just offering her services as a handywoman. She gained their trust easily. She was very well practiced in it at this point. She knew all the right things to say, the things that worked. The women would invite her inside. And she learned that a good way to get them distracted was to ask them for a glass of water or a cup of tea.

25:35 And once their back was turned, she would either grab a weapon that she had spotted in the victim's own home, or she would reach into her bag and pull out a hammer that she had brought from home. Sometimes she proceeded to hold a pillow over the women's heads to make sure that they were dead. Arena was so incredibly cold and calculated about the whole thing. After she killed her victims, she would then search the home for money. She would pocket everything that she could, sometimes even jewelry, and leave. Well, it actually got to a point where she began ransacking the houses that she would visit, making it look like a a robbery gone wrong, which I guess it was, but it seemed like she was trying to send police in a different direction by like knocking [ __ ] over, I guess. I don't know. She would also try to set fire inside some of her victim's houses, probably to like burn the evidence and whatever, but these fires

26:27 very rarely caught. Like they would burn out by themselves quite quickly. It seems like there was only ever half a thought behind everything that Arena did. I guess we have to remember throughout this whole case that Arena was not in a sound mind at any point. Half of her decisions and behaviors don't make sense because we are not in her position. And I don't even mean that in a sympathy way necessarily, just genuinely. Our brains will not work in the same way that hers was when she was in the pits of her addiction. She was in such a tight grip of alcoholism. Her family didn't trust her. She was so very desperate to get her fix when it was made virtually impossible for her to do so. That's going to feel torturous to an addict. And I totally understand that a situation like that will send you to unforeseen places. Like for God's sake when Arena was committing these literal murders, she was only pocketing as much

27:18 as 2030 a time, these elderly women didn't have much cash in their homes. But Arena was deeming it worthwhile to kill human beings in order to get just enough money to buy a bottle of vodka. There was even one night where she slept over at her victim's house for some reason. It's unclear what motivation she had to do that, especially considering that she had a husband and a daughter at home that would notice her absence, but you know, she was getting daring at this point. In fact, speaking of daring, I didn't tell you this earlier, but Arena had begun leaving boastful signatures at the scene of each of her murders. She was numbering them for police or for the sick challenge of it. It all started with victim number five. When the victim was discovered, there was a number five scrolled on the wall by their apartment door, seemingly like with the end of a cigarette. But when police asked neighbors if they had noticed this five

28:15 drawn on the wall, they said, "Yeah, it had actually appeared 3 days before the victim was murdered." Was Arena warning her victims ahead of time? She did the same thing at the home of her sixth victim. And then when it came to her seventh, she chose an elderly woman because she lived in building number seven. Arena's eighth victim lived in building 8. Her ninth victim lived in apartment number nine. But it was this one, crime scene number nine, that Arena would make a vital error. She dropped her hammer and left it behind. A confirmed murder weapon with fingerprints on it. police had her fingerprints, although they didn't have an immediate match cuz they didn't have Arena's prints on file. She wasn't a criminal before all of this, which is mad in itself, by the way. But if they were to get her prints at any point in time, say that she became a suspect later on in the investigation, police

29:10 would be able to test Arena's prints against the one ones on the hammer, and they would have her in handcuffs. Easy. So they sent this hammer off for DNA testing and the results showed up several different DNA profiles. This was a murder weapon that had been used on multiple different victims. If they needed any more confirmation that a serial killer was terrorizing the elderly of Crash Newfimsk, this was it for sure. And not just any serial killer either. Clearly a rather sadistic one taunting the town with their ritualistic numbering game, leaving messages at some of the crime scenes, and she was about to strike again. Arena would be humbled by her very first surviving victim in February 2003. This lady's name was Bilbaver.

29:56 Arena had been watching her for a little while and determined that she was an ideal victim. So, one day she knocked on Bil Ber's door and called out, "Open up. I'm from social services. I've brought you some groceries. So, Bilbino believed it and as soon as she opened the door Arena didn't even wait to gain her trust or to ask for a cup of tea or anything. She forced her way into this elderly woman's home and straight up just attacked her then and there. But Bilbar fought back, screaming so loudly that her upstairs neighbor actually heard and called out for her. And with that, Arena panicked and ran away, leaving Bilbina shaken and injured, but alive and able to tell police everything. She described Arena in as much detail as possible, and she worked with sketch artists to create an image of her that would soon be plastered all over town. One even ended up outside of Arena's own house. The

30:52 poster read, "Never in the history of Crash Newfinsk has there been such a series of brutal murders. The time has come when all of us, residents of the city and the region, must unite against the killer, just as the Americans did against the sniper killer. If someone unknown to you rings your doorbell, you must agree with your neighbors in advance on a set of signals. Only by working together can we stop and detain the killer. Alongside that message was the police sketch. For audio listeners it's a woman with longish brown hair.

31:22 The fringe is clipped back. She's standing in high heels. She has a blouse tucked into her trousers. She's wearing a neck scarf. She looks like a professional lady. And hey, maybe it does look a little bit like Arena, but it is also just a drawing of a lady. Like, it could look like a lot of different ladies. So, it wasn't like people were seeing this image and going "Oh my god, it's Arena." But still everyone was becoming more vigilant in the town. Elderly people were having iron doors fitted. People stopped answering their doors if they weren't informed of visitors ahead of time.

31:56 Literally, everyone was talking about this case. And with the city under such strict watch, Arena was forced to put a pause on her killing spree before people started catching on. Pressure was on for police to catch their suspect. They were speaking to as many potential witnesses as humanly possible. They would interview all of the neighbors that surrounded each crime scene. And soon, a pattern emerged. Neighbors of some of the crime scenes claimed that they had seen a blonde woman loitering around outside, possibly watching the victims before she acted. Now, blonde is interesting because, well, Arena never really had a stable permanent hair color throughout this case. We're talking 8 years worth of case. And she knew what she was doing. She would dye her hair often to throw the scent off herself make sure she's always looking different. Sometimes she was blonde sometimes she had red hair, sometimes

32:50 she had brown hair. So now police are setting their sights on a blonde woman as their suspect. Meanwhile, Arena probably wasn't even still blonde by the time this information would be made so important to the investigation. But you know who was panicking? Practically every other blonde woman in town. They feared how corrupt police could be. And it wasn't out of the question that a false arrest or a false confession could be squeezed out of someone. So completely innocent blonde women were flocking to the hair salons to get their luscious locks dyed a dark brown. Little did they know, they probably got their hair dyed the exact same shade as the serial killer who self herself, who was also avoiding being one of the blonde suspects. The whole hair situation had really confused where the police were looking. Half of the blonde women in town were no longer blonde. So, what the hell do they do now? Instead, they went

33:43 down to the passport office and grabbed records of all of the women in the city who had had their fingerprints taken at some point in their life. There were 15,000 sets of fingerprints to comb through but they were going to try and compare all of them to the fingerprints that were found on the hammer at the crime scene, and hopefully they would get their killer that way. As they painstakingly compared each set of prints, of course, none of them would be a match. Arena had never given her fingerprints over, especially not in Crash Newfinsk. Remember, there is literally no record of her living there at all. And that is probably one of the reasons that she got away with her crimes for so damn long. Police were on a wild goose chase, following random leads that would have them traveling out thousands of miles out of town to interview and investigate people. The whole time it was all futile. Their

34:32 killer was right under their nose, and they had no idea that she was about to strike, again., After, at least, a, good, few months off, Arena was ready to get back to killing. By now, it was 2006, 4 years after she had committed her very first murder. She would commit her 11th. You might be thinking, 11 murders in 4 years, and no one around her suspected a thing. You want me to believe that? Well, yeah. Like, I kind of do. It seems that no matter how deep we dig literally no one suspected anything untoward was happening in Arena's life.

35:05 She wasn't an absent parent. She was very involved in her daughter's life and her schooling as well. Her husband didn't suspect a thing. This whole time his wife is living a serial killer double life. She's like evil Hannah Montana. Although her alcoholism has been running strong in the background and Arena was doing more than just murdering elderly women to be able to fund it. She would steal the family savings that were supposed to be for a holiday. she would steal money that her parents had sent because they'd actually gotten back in touch now that she'd had another daughter and they wanted to send money to their granddaughter, but Arena just took it for herself. And again, I do want to clarify that Arena is hardly like pocketing the money because she's greedy and she wants money. It would immediately be spent on vodka as soon as she got it. She was doing this just to get her fix. She was very unwell with

35:55 addiction, although that is nowhere near an excuse for the heinous things that she did. Every time she killed one of these innocent, vulnerable, elderly women, Arena would find no more than £40 worth of cash in their homes max. She was snuffing out lives for chump change. That's what these people were worth to her. But like I said, by 2006, Arena is back at it. Only now, she couldn't keep killing in her own town so brazenly as she had. Police were everywhere now. So instead, she began traveling to neighboring cities, driving for hours and hours or catching trains just to commit murder. She was now terrorizing the whole entire region. She would claim her next victim in the neighboring town of Achit. Adia Shabina was a 71-year-old retired pediatrician who now lived all alone, the perfect target for Arena. She attacked and killed this lady in the same very formulaic way that she had practiced many times. She continued to

36:53 kill and fly under the radar until February of 2008 when Arena picked the wrong victim. She'd hopped on a train and traveled 2 hours away and killed what she assumed to be just another easy target. This time it was 8-year-old Antonyina Makushina. She knocked on the door and pretended to be from Antonyina's gas company. Of course, she believed Arena and invited her inside where she proceeded to murder her, but in a slightly different way to usual. Arena hit Antonyina over the head with an object, which presumably knocked her out. But instead of continuing to hit her over the head until she was dead like she had in previous cases. This time, Arena got down on her hands and knees and strangled Antonyina to death with her bare hands. Now that is a step up even for Arena. A bare hand strangulation is very intense, even more so than bludgeoning. I think you are literally face to face with your victim

37:53 hands on them, squeezing the life out of them. But when Arena was sure that Antonyina was dead, she scavenged around the house, stole some money, some jewelry. She even snatched the gold necklace from Antonyina's dead body. And as she left the house, Arena grabbed the keys and locked the door behind her probably trying to stall the body being discovered. But little did she know, she had just killed a police deputy's mother. The search for the granny killer was more serious and intense than ever now. An arrest would be made. It It actually would. An arrest would be made 6 days later. But it wasn't Arena. A woman who looked, I guess, a bit like the sketch of the killer was spotted at a train station. Police were called down where they met 20-year-old Marina Valiva. I'm not sure if she was acting suspiciously at all that day or if someone genuinely just thought she looked that much like this [ __ ]

38:51 pencil sketch, but when police spoke with her, they realized that this woman was actually a petty criminal as well. And that was all it took to arrest her and have her down at the police station for an interrogation. Probably actually one of the most harsh and horrific interrogations ever done. The [ __ ] police actually threatened to rape Marina as part of this interrogation to you know, squeeze a confession out of her. They threatened to rape her. They showed her a wooden bat with a metal hook attached to it and a condom on it and threatened to commit violent sexual acts against her using it.

39:30 What the [ __ ] I'm going to need all of those officers dead immediately. That is some of the sickest [ __ ] I've ever heard. And sadly, the officer's tactics actually worked to wear Marina down. She was about to make a written admission that she was in fact a serial killer responsible for over a dozen deaths when that couldn't have been further from the truth. But police didn't care. They were buzzing. The case was solved. Well, hey they finally had someone to blame for these crimes. After years of looking incompetent and being unable to solve this active serial killer case, they were desperate just to get someone in handcuffs. But days after she actually made that confession, Marina recounted it all. She had never believed that she was a killer. But she had been pressured, literally tortured, and threatened into giving a false confession to make the abusive interrogation stop. Of course, when she

40:27 did recount her confession, barely anyone believed her, especially not the same police that had tortured the damn confession out of her. But eventually when they managed to test Marina's fingerprints against the prints that were found on the crime scene hammer, it wasn't a match. So police had to very reluctantly let her go. It was bruising for them to have to admit that they had been barking up the wrong tree while the real killer had been at large this whole time. And in fact, if any more proof was needed that Marina was not their killer it seems that Satan in a skirt had struck again while Marina had been in police custody. I do want to let you know here that Miss Marina did see some justice for what the police had put her through. The torture, the false confession. All three officers that were involved were found guilty and convicted for abuse of office and official forgery. Two of them faced actual prison

41:18 time. The third was just suspended from the force. For the next two years, Arena kept up her killing and remained undetected. But 2010 would be her last year of freedom. They were about to catch this serial killer once and for all. After Arena had killed about a dozen elderly women, she had begun to get sloppy. We see this in serial killers a lot. They develop this feeling of invincibility. They get more and more daring and they end up doing themselves in. Arena's sloppiness showed up in a few different ways. Probably the most shocking is that she committed three murders in one week all on the same street. And this is back in Crash Newfims where Arena herself lives. She'd gotten lazy. She didn't want to get twohour train rides or whatever she'd done in past years. She just wanted to kill and get her money. She had also begun essentially like pre-ordering her victims. She would send handwritten

42:14 notes through their door that said something to the effect of, "A social worker will be round at 12:00. Please be home." so that she could guarantee that her victims would be sitting ducks and willingly invite her into their homes. Now, notice I said that the notes that she was posting through the doors were handwritten. The police very quickly got a hold of Arena's own handwriting, just another clue to her identity that would be checked one day when she becomes a suspect. By May of 2010, Arena had murdered 16 innocent old women in their own homes. And though it's a horrible number, fortunately, it wouldn't climb much higher. Her very final victim would lose their life on May 22nd. It was 81-year-old Alexandra Povertena, another woman who had fallen for Arena's fake decorating job. And this was probably one of Arena's most violent murders yet.

43:09 She hit this poor woman across the head with a weapon 18 times, but somehow that didn't kill her. When Arena noticed that her victim was still breathing, she dragged her over to the bathroom, filled the tub with water, and then proceeded to hold her head under the water until she drowned to death. Not only is it [ __ ] up to think that Arena could do any of this in general, but repeatedly terrifying and murdering old women in their own homes 17 times over, that is a different kind of evil. Arena quickly escaped the scene of the crime after robbing the home. Little did she know she wouldn't be getting away with this one. The victim had actually told her neighbor earlier that day that this woman, Arena, would be coming over to her house to do some decorating. So when police found the blood bath in her home and they found this woman's dead body and her neighbor is questioned, she said, "Oh my god, find this woman

44:10 Arena. That'll be who's done it." The neighbor had even spotted a woman leaving the home of the victim probably after she had just murdered her. This neighbor had seen Arena with her own two eyes. So she was able to identify her and soon an arrest would be made. Satan in a skirt, the crash newf maniac, had finally been caught. By now she had attempted murder 18 times and been successful 17. She had evaded capture for almost eight whole years. Arena was handcuffed and taken to the police station while a search of her home was underway. Could you imagine being her husband in this situation? He maintains that he never even had as much of a suspicion that something weird was going on. And now all of a sudden, you're being told that your wife is a serial killer 17 victims deep. And now your home must be ransacked to find the evidence of her killings. This is someone that he had slept next to every

45:10 night. Someone that he had had a baby with. It's the mother of his child. I truly think if I was ever in that situation where I was being told that someone that I love is not the person I thought that they were and they were in fact a serial [ __ ] killer, I think I would just black out. Like surely you wouldn't be able to comprehend such a thing. Such a betrayal in such an unbelievable way. And bear in mind, they have a 12year-old daughter who is finding all of this out as well. 12. Imagine being told that your mom is a literal serial killer and she's been doing it for most of your life. In the search, police recovered a hammer, a knife, and examples of Arena's handwriting that were analyzed and found to be a match to the handwriting on the notes at the victim's homes. And now that police had Arena herself, they were also able to match up her fingerprints to the fingerprints on the hammer that

46:02 they had recovered years ago. Throughout her interrogation, some sources say that Arena was trying to flirt with the officers that were questioning her. Quite mental. We couldn't find out exactly what was being said. Trust me, I wanted to know. But the point is, she tried to turn on the charm, thinking that it could save her, but it couldn't. Officers soon got a confession out of Arena. I'm not sure if they used the same methods on her as they used on their false suspect, Marina, but hey maybe Arena deserves some roughing up after literally murdering 17 innocent people. She eventually admitted that she had lost count of her kills after she reached her 10th victim. She just kept going and going because she needed the money for vodka and she didn't know where else to get it. She told police "I just wanted to be a normal mom, but I had a craving for drink. My husband wouldn't give me money for vodka." When

46:52 the officers asked her why she would particularly target the elderly, she told them, "I hate old women." And she was deadly serious. Arena hated her own mother for disowning her all those years ago. It had scarred her deeply. And she had never really come to terms with what had happened. And then when she met her mother-in-law, who was also very concerned about her drinking, Arena had another elderly woman to project on and hit in lie of her mother. But I do think the biggest factor in her choosing elderly women is nothing more than the fact that she thought that they would make easy targets. And sadly, they had.

47:30 She had stolen from them and murdered them easily. And now here she was, aged 39, confessing to her serial killings while her family were left with their whole world crashing down around them. Her 12-year-old daughter gave a statement that said, "She was always good to me and helped me do my homework and even write poetry. I don't believe what people are saying about her can be true. So [ __ ] heartbreaking. I think I would be in denial, too, if people if I was 12 years old and people were trying to tell me that my mom, who I love and had genuinely been there for me throughout my whole childhood, if they were trying to tell me she was a serial killer, I don't think I would believe it either. Breaks my heart so much that there's a kid involved in this, man. But at this point, Arena's case had become a media circus. There were so many serial killer nicknames. Obviously, we already know about the crash newfinsk maniac

48:21 but that was back when they believed the killer to be a man. Now that everyone knew that Arena was a woman and they knew what she looked like, she would acquire new nicknames like Shewolf and most famously Satan in a skirt. Her trial would take place 2 years after her arrest in 2012. It was going to be a big one. There were 443 volumes of evidence to go through, 3,000 witness statements or recordings from over the years. A mental health assessment was done on Arena that concluded that she was actually of completely sound mind as she committed each of her 17 murders. I mean, despite the obvious influence of her alcoholism but she knew right from wrong and she knew that she was doing the wrong thing but she continued to do it. And I think we see proof of this in her behavior throughout the trial as well. For example, when the prosecution were talking and telling the facts to the court, if they got anything even

49:15 slightly wrong, like timings or locations, Arena would jump in and interrupt to correct them. Towards the end of her trial, Arena said that she sincerely repents for what she has done. And that might be the first and only real speck of regret that we've seen her show. Because truly, this woman was remorseless. I've been reminding you of her alcoholism all throughout this case because I think it's important to remember where the desperation and the irrational behavior is coming from, but you would hope that a person in that situation that has done awful, awful things at a really, really low point in their life would, I don't know, say sorry, show remorse, cry, say how bad that they feel now. But not Arena. She was very cold after she was caught.

50:01 Maybe she truly did hate elderly women and that's how she could be so switched off to it all. And when it came to how Arena had managed to get away with 17 murders and evaded capture for so long there was obviously only one answer. That was her lack of documentation. She was never a person of interest in this investigation because as far as police were concerned, she did not exist in Crash Newf Finsk. She was never going to be a suspect unless an actual witness came forward that could point police to her specifically, which is what eventually ended up happening, although way too late. When her trial came to a close, and Arena was found guilty of everything. Apparently, her daughter who was now 14 years old, screamed out in the stand, "How can I live now?"

50:49 So [ __ ] sad to think how many different people were affected by Arena's actions in so many different ways. Dozens of people were left grieving dead family members. Arena's own family is left grieving the person that they thought she was and the family that they thought they had. Her daughter was without a mother. Arena was sentenced to 20 years in prison. It could have actually been 25 years, but the judge decided to knock 5 years off. And get this, because the killer was a mother. Are you [ __ ] kidding me? That little girl would be well better off without Arena's influence in her life surely. And in 20 years time, 5 years won't make a [ __ ] difference. She'll be all grown up. She won't need her mom to raise her. The fact that Arena is a mom shouldn't have even come into this trial in my opinion. I don't know. I feel like that could possibly be a hot take, but I reckon slam them extra 5

51:42 years on her cuz [ __ ] that. Like 20 years for 17 murders is literally just over a year for each individual life that she snuffed out in the most horrific of ways. In America, she would get like [ __ ] like 300 years plus another 50 on top of that. In Britain she would get a whole life tariff, but in Russia, 20 years for 17 serial killings. Like, I don't know. It's an interesting way to do things. Let's say that Arena will be officially up for release around 2030. But there's actually talk of her being released early, as early as like now, cuz she's served twothirds of her sentence. At that point, she hasn't even done a full year for each victim that she has murdered. And that is insane to me personally. Eventually, when she is allowed out of prison, she'll have two years of restricted movement, which is basically parole. She has to keep checking in. Um, and that's it. I in my humble opinion I think she got off

52:37 [ __ ] lightly. Arena Gammachuk is like the fourth biggest female serial killer in the world. The biggest female serial killer of all time is rumored to be Elizabeth Baurie, a 16th century Hungarian countess who was accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women and bathing in their blood to keep herself young. I mean, there's a whole conspiracy theory behind that which I would love to get into one day, low key. Let me know if that's something that you would want us to cover on the Outlaw podcast. But all that being said, thank you so so much for tuning in to this episode of Outlaw Podcast. And thanks again to Paradise Paws for sponsoring this video. Remember, if you're one of the first 100 people to install the game using my link or my QR code, you'll unlock an exclusive baby penguin for your sanctuary that helps you gather resources faster. So join me in saving the animals and restoring our

53:28 sanctuaries. You can download Paradise Paws for free again using the QR code or the link down below. If you're watching this episode on YouTube, don't forget to subscribe, leave a like, leave us a comment so that we can continue the conversation after upload. If you're listening on a podcast platform, please rate us five stars and I will see you in the next one. Bye.

Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Russia's Most EVIL Female Serial Killer: 'Satan in a Skirt'"?

Ellen O'Neal (Host).

What is discussed in "Russia's Most EVIL Female Serial Killer: 'Satan in a Skirt'"?

In order: 0:00 Arena Gaidmachuk, Crash Newfimsk, Ellen O'Neal; 5:00 Peter Gammachuk; 15:00 Re-Engage; 20:00 Crash Newfimsk, Lydia Golovinkina; 25:00 Crash Newfimsk; 40:00 Alexandra Povertena.

What is mentioned in this OUTLORE with Eleanor Neale episode?

9 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Arena Gaidmachuk, Crash Newfimsk, Ellen O'Neal, Alexandra Povertena, Lydia Golovinkina, Achit. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Russia's Most EVIL Female Serial Killer: 'Satan in a Skirt'"?

The episode runs 54 min; the transcript is about 9,842 words in 65 timestamped sections.

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