Isabella Mueller (crime writer) 
A cannibalistic serial killer who, between September 2009 and January 2012, brutally slaughtered at least nine people like livestock was the then 23-year-old Russian Alexander Bychkov. The reason why he killed innocent homeless people in remote locations in the Penza region sounds utterly bizarre. Alexander wanted to use the murders to prove to his girlfriend Svetlana that he was no wimp, but a lone wolf. Alexander grew up in a broken home with his single mother. He had little self-confidence. His only source of support was his girlfriend Svetlana, who, however, repeatedly mocked him as a wimp and treated him like a doormat. To impress her, he committed an incredibly depraved series of murders. He lured homeless people and alcoholics – whom he regarded as the dregs of society – to isolated spots, where he literally slaughtered them with a kitchen knife. He then dismembered the bodies, removed their entrails to eat them, before burying them in the back garden of his house. After the murders, Alexander – who liked to call himself ‘Rambo’, the hero of the action film series of the same name starring Sylvester Stallone – finally had enough self-confidence to stand up to Svetlana like a man of steel. The series of murders would probably not have come to light so quickly had Alexander not been caught breaking into a DIY store in January 2012. He had stolen money, kitchen knives and other items with a total value of 10,000 roubles. During questioning, he confessed, to everyone’s surprise, that he had buried six bodies in the garden. During the subsequent house search, the police found Alexander’s diary, in which he had described the murders in detail. According to his diary entries, he had committed a total of 11 murders. However, the remains of two victims were never found. Alexander had planned the crimes meticulously, having devoured crime novels and crime series. He was driven by a compulsion to kill and then to eat their dead bodies. Alexander was sentenced to life imprisonment by the court in the Penza region for nine murders.
