Serhiy Tkach

Serhiy  Fedorovich Tkach, a.k.a. "The Pologovsky Maniac", is a prolific Russian serial killer.

History
Tkach was born on September 12, 1952, in the city of Kiselyovsk. He served in the Soviet army; Tkach would claim to his neighbors that he was veteran of the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. After being discharged from the army, Tkach became a criminal investigator, being considered an excellent worker by his department, to the point of receiveing a recommendation for admission to an intelligence agency school. However, his career soon fell apart when he was caught falsifying evidence, which lead to his resignment. Afterwards, Tkach moved to Ukraine and took a number of menial jobs, but ended up working again as an investigator in the region of Dnepropetrovsk. Following his dismissal from the ministry, Tkach became interested in heavy athletics, eventually becoming a local champion. Tkach married thrice and had four children. Tkach committed his first murder in 1980, when he raped and murdered a young woman before calling the police department to report the crime. Tkach proceeded to kill many more people in the next several years. His crimes would not be noticed until 1984, when numerous children and young women began disappearing across Ukraine, near where Tkach lived and worked.

In August 2005, Tkach attended to the funeral of a friend's daughter, Katya, who he had previously murdered. However, multiple children began claiming to have seen him in the company of Katya shortly before her death. With this information, police arrested Tkach at his house and he confessed to not only Katya's murder, but to more than a hundred murders in a serial killing that lasted for two decades; further investigation confirmed that at least 37 of these murders were attributed to Tkach. Before his arrest, police had wrongly jailed up to ten men for some of Tkach's murders, one of them committed suicide in 2000 before his trial could begin. Tkach demanded the death penalty, but received a life sentenced instead, as the death penalty had been abolished in Ukraine. Tkach's motivations for committing the murders are unclear, referring to them as "animal like". Initially, Tkach claimed that he felt an intense hatred for women because of the way his wives had treated him; however, several acquaintences told investigators that he never showed any signs of misoginy. Later, he admitted that he committed the murders to mock his former colleagues and to show how incompetent the police department really was. Ultimately, detectives concluded that Tkach perpetrated the serial killings for sheer pleasure.

Modus Operandi
Using the knowledge he gained during his time as a criminal investigator, Tkach was an highly efficient serial killer. He targeted female children and young women aged between eight and eighteen, Tkach would skillfully press their carotid artery until they died and occasionally raped them, both before and after the murder had occured. After satisfying himself, Tkach would clean the crime scene by removing semen and erasing footprints; Tkach would also take his victims' clothing to destroy fingerprint evidence and take trophies from his victims, such as jewelry and makeup accessories. To dispose of the bodies, Tkach would leave them in wooded areas near highways to make it look like the killer came from another city, essentially putting the blame on truckers and travellers. Alternatively, the bodies would be left near railway lines recently treated with tar, making it difficult for police dogs to smell his scent. In some cases, Tkach would pin the murders on other people, some even relatives of the victim, which resulted in them being falsely accused of the murder and arrested.

Profile
Tkach was profiled as being an organized, meticulous and most importantly, a merciless narcissist with strong egocentrism, cold heartness, resentment, an inability to mantain long-term relationships and eager for revenge. According to the psychologist, Tkach also had severe anger problems, suffered from an intense irritability and was extremely aggressive. To the detectives investigating his case, Tkach was a sexually-motivated psychopath who savoured the fame he was receiveing from his serial killings.

Known Victims

 * Unspecified dates from 1980 to 2005: Numerous unnamed victims
 * Unspecified date, Zaporizhia, Ukraine: Unnamed victim
 * Unspecified date in 1980, Simferopol, Crimea: Unnamed young woman
 * Unspecified date in 1989: Olga Svetlichny, 9
 * Unspecified date in 1997: Unnamed victim
 * September 23, 2002, Zaporizhia, Ukraine: Jana Popovich, 9
 * Unspecified date in 2004: Svetlana Starostina, 17
 * August 2005, Zaporizhia, Ukraine: Katya, 9

On Criminal Minds
Tkach may have indirectly provided inspiration for serial killer John Curtis. Both were extremely organized and sophisticated serial killers who worked as investigators, being considered highly competent in their jobs by their respective departments; Tkach was even was recommended for admission to an intelligence agency school. Additionally, both had their careers destroyed, despite their fame as brilliant investigators, but continued to serve in a law enforcement position. Tkach once claimed that his primary motive for committing the murders was to mock his former coworkers, similar to how Curtis taunted the team during his killings. Also, both indirectly killed suspects in their murders via suicide.