Serhiy Tkach (Russian: Серге́й Фёдорович Ткач, born 12 September 1952 in Kiselyovsk, RSFSR) is a former Ukrainian police criminal investigator, originally from Russia, and a convicted serial killer who claimed to have killed 100 people. He suffocated girls aged between eight and 18 and performed sexual acts on their bodies after they were dead. Although Tkach admitted his crimes and demanded the death penalty, after a one year trial, a tribunal in Dnipropetrovsk sentenced him to life for the rape and murder of 36 women over more than two decades. Over the years, 9 people had been wrongly jailed for some of the murders of which Tkach was found guilty. One of the men wrongly accused killed himself. Wikipedia.org Killer who took lives of 29 girls and young women gets life France24.com December 24, 2008 A former Ukrainian police investigator has been jailed for life for the murder of 29 young women and girls as well as 11 attempted murders. Serhiy Tkach, 56, claims he murdered up to 100 people over several decades. Reuters - A Ukrainian court has jailed for life a former police investigator who killed at least 29 girls and young women over more than two decades. The appeals court in the central city of Dnipropetrovsk on Tuesday found Serhiy Tkach, 56, guilty of 29 murders and 11 attempted murders. Some of his victims had been raped. News reports of the final day of the trial said Tkach, who said during testimony that he had murdered up to 80 or even 100 people, was impassive when the sentence was read out. But he vowed to appeal. "No one has been able to determine the motives for his actions," judge Serhiy Voloshko said after the verdict, in comments reported by Ukrainian dailies. "He first said he wanted revenge on women as his wives had mistreated him. The explanation then became simple sexual pleasure. The fact is, we simply do not know what prompted him to commit these crimes." Tkach had worked for the police in Siberia and used his professional skills to confuse investigators, often making his escape along rail lines treated with tar to throw tracking dogs off the scent. After moving to Ukraine, he took on various jobs in coal mines and industrial plants and was married four times. He acknowledged in testimony that the murders, dating from 1980, had been "animal-like", but offered no explanation. News reports said at least six men were serving time for murders subsequently proven to have been committed by Tkach, captured by police in 2005. One man was reported to have committed suicide in detention while another, denied early release during an eight-year sentence, has since become destitute and homeless. Ukraine removed the death penalty from its laws in the years following independence from Soviet rule, a requirement for membership of the Council of Europe human rights body. A Ukrainian court convicted mass murderer Anatoly Onoprienko in 1996 of hacking to death and strangling 52 people while travelling across the country by train over a seven-year period. Mass murder trial opens Saturday, Dec 15, 2007 The trial of a Russian ex-convict accused of raping and killing dozens of young women and girls has opened in Ukraine, a court official said on Thursday. Sergey Tkach, a 55-year-old father of five who has been married three times, is accused of committing some 40 murders, the prosecutor's office said. Tkach is also suspected of 40 other murders currently under investigation, while another 60 crimes, some committed in Russia, have not been investigated yet, the office said. Tkach was arrested in southern Ukraine in 2005, where he had been living. He came to Ukraine in 1982 from Kemerovo in Siberia, Russia, where he had worked for the police. Tkach was judged sane and will stand trial, which is expected to last at least six months. Russian stands accused of 'killing 40 women' Friday Dec 14, 2007 The trial of a Russian ex-convict accused of raping and killing dozens of young women and girls has opened in Ukraine, a court official said today. Sergey Tkach, a 55-year-old father of five who has been married three times, is accused of committing some 40 murders in the east and south of the country, the regional prosecutor's office said. Tkach is also suspected of 40 other murders currently under investigation, while another 60 crimes, some committed in Russia, have not been investigated yet, the prosecutor's office said. "The trial of Sergey Tkach started Wednesday behind closed doors, to protect the rights of the relatives of the victims," a spokeswoman for the prosecutors, Svitlana Tchorna, told AFP. Tkach was arrested in southern Ukraine in 2005, where he had been living. He came to Ukraine in 1982 from Kemerovo in Siberia, Russia, where he had worked for the police. Young women and girls started disappearing in 1984 in the Dnipropetrovsk region where Tkach was living, the interior ministry said. His lawyer Yuri Syrotynko said he had confessed but did not specify exactly to what. Tkach was judged sane and will stand trial, which is expected to last at least six months. He faces a lifetime in solitary confinement if found guilty, as the death penalty in Ukraine was abolished in 2000. In 1999, serial killer Anatoli Onoprienko was condemned to death in Ukraine for killing 50 people, but the sentence was never carried out. 'Worst serial killer' charged in Ukraine The worst serial killer may have been caught in Ukraine, according to local police. Prosecutors claim a former forensic expert Sergey Tkach has confessed to killing 40 people, but 60 other deaths are unsolved. It’s alleged that Tkach went on a murder spree for the past 25 years, mainly targeting girls and young women. He is said to have looked for his victims near the roads and railways to make detectives think that the killer came from another city. He reportedly left no clues and used the tracks to escape. Tkach was arrested two years ago at home after allegedly strangling his friend’s daughter. He says he was finally caught when other children from the village recognised him at the funeral as the man who'd been seen with the girl before she died. When police arrived at his door, he surrendered and said that he had been waiting for them all these years. ”He told us that he was a military officer and that he was in Afghanistan, he even showed us his wounds. Other neighbours say that he was a very smart man, very quiet. No one could have thought that he was the man police were looking for,” said Viktoria Kozachukhno, Sergey Tkach’s neighbour. Tkach married three times and has four children. His co-workers and friends say he never treated or spoke about women badly. Meanwhile, detectives believe there was a sexual motive behind the attacks. ”Twenty or 25 years on he still remembers how tall the girls were, and where he hunted them down. I think that he’s even proud of it. Usually such people shut down but he is savouring every part of the story in front of a camera,” commented Viktor Olkhovsky, police colonel. But the accused man says he only did it to mock the incompetence of his former police colleagues. Police say Tkach has pleaded guilty to numerous crimes but refused to apologise for any of them. Psychologists have found him fit to stand trial. And it is not only the families of the victims who are anxiously waiting for a verdict. Up to ten men have been previously convicted for crimes, that Tkach now claims to have committed. The court hearings are held in private because most victims were underage girls.