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Siberian policeman Mikhail Popkov appears to be the worst-ever serial killer in former USSR https://t.co/HR77v0otdh pic.twitter.com/9Ddhhs4W1n — The Siberian Times (@siberian_times) January 11, 2017

Popkov, a former police officer, was convicted for the murders of the initial 22 women in January 2015.

The victims — all believed to be aged between 17 and 38 — were thought to have been killed between 1992 and 2000 that Popkov was active. Popkov only stopped raping and killing women, police believed, because he became “impotent” after contracting a sexually transmitted disease during one of the murders.

But investigators have now revealed that the murders continued for another 10 years.

“He was killing women from 1992 to 2010, so he did not stop in 2000,” Irkutsk Investigative Committee spokeswoman Karina Golovacheva said. “There are 59 new murders.”

I had no right to evaluate people, their behaviour… this is my repentance

When Popkov was detained in 2012 for the 22 murders, he said he was acting to “cleanse” the streets of “prostitutes.” Working as a police officer, Popkov would offer young women outside nightclubs or restaurants a ride home in his police cruiser. He would then drive them to remote locations where the rapes and murders took place. The bodies were often found naked and dismembered after Popkov used axes, knives and screwdrivers to kill his victims. In one case, Popkov beheaded a victim. He gouged the heart out of another.

The serial killer blamed suspicions of his wife’s infidelity for being the “impetus for my future.” Popkov reportedly found used condoms in his home and incorrectly suspected his wife was having an affair. He decided to take revenge on women. His victims were selected after developing a particular hatred for women who enjoyed their social lives in nightclubs, bars and restaurants without men to accompany them.