During the last arrest, the idea occurred to Neyland that next time he needed to rob and kill so that there would be no witnesses to the crime. Returning to the same apartment on Sestroretskaya Street on January 27, 1964, Arkady armed himself with a tourist hatchet. He knew that a woman and a child lived in the apartment, which meant it would not be difficult to deal with them. The main calculation of the criminal was that even if he was detained, the death penalty is not applied to minors, which means that the maximum he will face is prison.

In order to be allowed into the apartment, he decided to introduce himself as a postman. When the owner, Larisa Kupreeva, opened the door, he immediately attacked her. The woman began a desperate fight not only for her life, but also for the life of her child, but the criminal with the ax was stronger. After killing the woman, he calmly dealt with the child, after which he ate in the kitchen without a twinge of conscience. To hide traces of the crime, he set fire to the apartment, but thanks to the prompt work of firefighters and the vigilance of neighbors, the fire was extinguished in time. At the crime scene, investigators managed to find fingerprints, which became the main argument in court.

Every adult and capable person knows that the law of the state in which he lives must be observed. But in exceptional cases, the punishment provided for by law may not be enough. We are talking about private and very rare situations that invariably end up in world history. For example, in 1964, juvenile criminal Arkady Neyland was sentenced and executed in Leningrad. What did this teenager do and why did the highest officials of the state decide to violate the current legislation of the RSFSR for his sake?

Neyland Family History

In 1949, Arkady Neyland was born in Leningrad. The story of his family is typical of its time. The boy lived with his parents, brothers and sister in a very ordinary communal apartment. Mother and stepfather often drank and spent little time with their children. Physical punishment, often unreasonably cruel, was considered the norm in this family. My mother worked as a nurse, and my stepfather worked as a mechanic, so there was no talk of material wealth. As Arkady himself admitted (after his arrest), he and his brothers and sister were often malnourished, engaged in vagrancy, and began stealing from the very beginning. early childhood. From the age of 7, the boy was registered with the police for hooliganism and petty robbery. At the age of 12, he was expelled from secondary school, and his mother sent his unlucky son to a boarding school. But even in this institution, Arkady “didn’t fit in” - he often clashed with his peers and tried to run away. As soon as Neyland graduated from 6th grade, he was expelled. After which he was sent to work at the Lenpischemash production association. However, Arkady was not able to establish himself positively in this type of activity either. The guy was caught in petty thefts and truancy, but because of his age, he managed to avoid serious punishments and trials.

A big “deal” for the sake of a “new” life

Until 1964, Neyland's biggest crimes were the thefts from the Soyuzpechat kiosk and the hairdresser's. But all this seemed like a trifle to the ambitious teenager; in addition, most of the offenses ended in inevitable “visits” to the police station. In January 1964, Arkady Vladimirovich Neiland, together with a like-minded accomplice, decided to do something really “big” and take possession of a large amount of money at one time. Burglary seemed like the ideal crime for the teenagers. All that remained was to find a suitable object. The attackers took a liking to house No. 3 on Sestroretskaya Street. The villains began to prepare for the upcoming theft in advance. On January 24, 1964, they walked around the entire entrance of the selected building and talked with the residents under an innocent pretext. In one of the apartments, no one opened the door, and then the criminals picked up the key and unlocked it themselves. Having committed a burglary, Arkady and his accomplice calmly left the apartment, but immediately encountered its owner, who made a fuss when she recognized her belongings. As a result, the thieves were detained.

A crime that might not have happened

As per tradition, the teenagers were interrogated for yet another theft and left to wait in the office. It was during this pause that Arkady Neiland calmly stood up and left. What’s amazing is that none of the law enforcement officers paid attention to him or tried to detain him. The criminal came to his home and stole one that was distinguished by its light weight and size, as well as its high-quality sharpening. Arkady immediately realized that it was impossible to stay in his parents’ apartment. For several days he spent the night in basements and attics, never ceasing to monitor the chosen apartment. According to some versions, the idea of ​​committing a robbery and murder came to the teenager’s mind spontaneously, during his last arrest. But if we evaluate all the facts together, we can make the assumption that Arkady Neyland and his accomplice came up with and planned everything in advance. Be that as it may, on January 27, 1964, the criminal went “on the job.” And just think: if he had failed to escape from the station three days earlier, or if he had been placed in prison for earlier crimes, the tragedy could have been avoided.

Brutal murder on Sestroretskaya street

The juvenile criminal watched the chosen “rich” apartment for several days. By the time of the attack, he already knew for sure that during the day only a middle-aged housewife and her little son were inside. As Arkady Vladimirovich Neyland later confessed during interrogation, he committed the crime, having decided in advance that he would kill the owner and, most likely, the child too. The moral side of this issue did not bother him, and as for the possible punishment, the attacker experienced personally more than once that the judicial system of the RSFSR treats teenagers loyally. Arkady rang the doorbell of the chosen apartment, and it was immediately opened for him. The owner, Larisa Kupreeva, recognized the gloomy young man who had come in a few days ago and became wary. The criminal himself also hesitated and uttered some completely unconvincing excuse for the visit, in response to which the door was closed in front of his nose. Then Arkady waited for a while, called again, introduced himself as a postman, changing his voice, and when the door opened, he immediately attacked the owner of the apartment with an ax. A struggle ensued; the woman understood that she was responsible for the life of her own son, and desperately resisted. At one point, she even almost managed to snatch the ax from the criminal’s hands. But then Arkady threw Larisa into a chair and dealt a series of blows to the head. After the owner of the apartment fell silent, the criminal dealt with her son in cold blood. Then he walked around the rooms and collected valuables, after which he did not disdain to have a snack in the kitchen. Before leaving the apartment, Arkady committed arson, hoping that the fire would destroy all traces of his atrocities. However, this expectation was not realized. The fire brigade arrived quickly enough: the neighbors suspected something was wrong when they smelled something burning in the entrance. The fire was put out fairly quickly. But when firefighters entered the apartment, they were shocked. Dead bodies, traces of blood and general chaos in the rooms were clearly evident. In addition, it was even possible to find the fingerprints of the unknown person, which later became important evidence against the main suspect.

To the sea, for a new life!

15-year-old Arkady Neyland is not a maniac, but simply an unfortunate child who grew up in terrible conditions and with a complete lack of concepts of morality and conscience. In their official statements, he himself and his would-be accomplice said that they wanted to commit a big theft in order to use the proceeds to go to the sea (to Sukhumi or Tbilisi, according to various sources) and relax there, and then start a new one, law-abiding life. Of course, these plans were not destined to come true. Immediately after committing the crime, Arkady handed over the stolen items to the storage room at the station. And after walking around a bit, I started looking for tickets. There was no way to take the train in Leningrad that day long distance in a southerly direction, so the criminal purchased a ticket to Moscow, hoping to make a transfer there. And he succeeded, but when leaving the train on the platform of the southern city of Sukhumi, Neyland Arkady was detained and taken back to Leningrad.

Confessions of a minor fanatic

The criminal was only surprised that he was identified and found 4 days later. Arkady had several important pieces of evidence, in particular, a Zorkiy camera with several noticeable scratches, stolen from a robbed apartment, the passports of Kupreev and his adopted daughter, in addition, there were dried blood stains on the killer’s clothes and some things. Neyland himself was in shock and did not even try to deny it. Quite quickly he began to cooperate with the investigation. Arkady Neyland, whose biography includes a huge number of minor offenses and arrests with the police, thought he knew what could await him. The whole point is that the legislation in force in the country did not provide for capital punishment - the death penalty - for minors. Accordingly, when deciding to commit theft with murder, Arkady thought that the maximum he would face was a prison sentence. During interrogations, Neiland told in detail how he planned his crime and killed a woman and child.

The wealthy apartment turned out to be ordinary

This crime shocked the public throughout the country with its brutality and senselessness. In his confessions, the killer repeated several times that he planned the robbery of a “rich” apartment with the subsequent murder of witnesses. However, the injured Kupreevs were the most ordinary family. It is difficult to say on what exact principle Arkady Neyland himself chose the target for attack. 1964 was a year in which, in principle, there were not so many truly wealthy families in Leningrad. And looking for something like this in the most ordinary house was a mistake from the very beginning. However, what to expect from a young man who grew up in communal apartments at the very social level? According to some versions, the guy lost his head when he saw the leatherette upholstered front door, color TV and a housewife leading an “idle” lifestyle.

Inhuman cruelty and cynicism

During interrogations, the suspect himself will tell you that he struck the first blows to his victim on the arms and shoulders, and during the struggle he had time to change his mind and leave the woman alive. The fight between the victim and the attacker was indeed long and noisy; many neighbors heard suspicious sounds. Neyland himself realized that the sounds of the struggle were quite loud, so at the first opportunity he turned on the owner’s tape recorder in order to muffle them. The child, who was “getting underfoot” while the criminal was killing his mother, was hacked to death by Arkady in several blows. However, the killer even repented of this act, saying that he regretted that “he had to do this.” The case of Arkady Neyland received such a wide public response precisely because of the cynicism of the criminal. After the double murder, the attacker searched the entire apartment for valuables, and then took a series of obscene photographs of the murdered woman’s body using a stolen camera, planning to sell them as pornography in the future. After that, Arkady calmly washed himself in the master bath, went to the kitchen and prepared lunch for himself, using the supplies of his victims. The proximity of two cooling bodies did not spoil his appetite at all. And only after refreshing himself, the killer set fire to the apartment, turned on the gas and hurried to leave. In his defense, the criminal will also say that Larisa herself is to blame for what happened. Like, if she had not defended herself, perhaps she would not have had to be killed...

Capital punishment for a minor

When the full circumstances of this crime became known to the public, reactions were mixed. Many argued that Arkady Neyland was a maniac, a fanatic and not worthy of life as such. The criminal himself aggravated his situation by saying during interrogations that he knew that he had nothing to fear. However, Arkady Neyland was shot in Leningrad in 1964 by court verdict. Many residents of our country asked for just such a punishment for the killer; they sent their letters and official petitions to the prosecutor's office and even personally to L. I. Brezhnev and N. S. Khrushchev. All these citizens' appeals were attached to the criminal case. After receiving such a sentence, Arkady Neyland, whose execution was contrary to all current laws of the country, went down in world history. The intelligentsia and lawyers were somewhat dissatisfied that the verdict did not quite fit into legal norms. But one cannot help but notice that this execution was not only demonstrative, but also rational. According to the law, Neyland should have received a prison term and had a real opportunity (with good behavior in the colony) to be released after 5-6 years. Accordingly, society would receive an adult and recidivist criminal at the age of 20, who has a record of not only robbery, hooliganism and theft, but also the murder of a woman and a child.

The name of Arkady Neiland in world history

The story of this juvenile delinquent ends on August 11, 1964. It was on this day that the sentence was carried out and the killer was shot. There are legends that it was very difficult to find performers to carry out the execution. None of the government officials wanted to shoot the teenager. It is worth noting that Arkady Neyland (you can see the photo of the criminal in our article) had a completely ordinary appearance. He sometimes looked sloppy and was poorly dressed, but the overall impression he made was neutral: an average teenager of his time. When the verdict was read in the courtroom, Neiland was not only surprised, but also truly scared. After that, he began to ask for pardon, wrote a cassation appeal, but his request was not granted. At the global level, these events received a two-digit reaction. Civilized countries were amazed at the impudence and cruelty of the criminal, but among jurists there were those who were outraged. The Western public perceived this case and the verdict as oppression of freedom and individual rights by the socialist system. And yet, in order to carry out the sentence, it was necessary to somehow legitimize such a decision. For this purpose, a unique action was carried out: a written survey was conducted among the judges of Leningrad, in which it was necessary to answer whether it was possible to recognize the Resolution of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Court as having retroactive force? Agreement with this thesis meant the permissibility of carrying out the death penalty on a minor. Of course, the judges who participated in the survey immediately understood what the authorities expected from them and voted in the affirmative almost unanimously. It is worth noting that this case unique for the history of Russia and the whole world. This is why Arkady Neyland (1964 - the year the crime was committed and the murderer was executed) became so “famous”. Unfortunately, he managed to become famous in a bloody manner.

Law enforcement agencies were twice able to isolate the vicious and dangerous teenager from society, but he remained neglected and committed a savage murder Photo from the site murders.ru

Arkady Neyland committed a double murder in Leningrad the day before his 15th birthday - January 27, 1964. He celebrated his birthday on the way to Moscow, where he left by train a few hours after the brutal massacre of a woman and her young son. In the capital, he bought a train ticket to Sukhumi, and while waiting for the train to depart, he toured the city on a tour bus. In a word, he behaved like a Soviet schoolboy from the provinces who was heading through Moscow to the All-Union Pioneer Camp "Artek".

On January 30, on the platform of the Sukhumi railway station, Neyland was detained by local operatives, who identified him from a reference received from Leningrad. It took four days to uncover the bloody crime, rumors of which instantly spread throughout the northern capital...

The future killer was registered in the children's room of the police when he was not yet 12 years old

Family - mother younger sister Arkadia, her stepfather and his two sons from his first marriage, huddled in one room of a communal apartment. The head of the Neyland family worked as a mechanic at an enterprise, his wife worked as a hospital nurse. Their more than modest earnings did not provide enough income in the house. In addition, both spouses drank.

The conditions and lifestyle of the Neylands were not something exceptional for the USSR in the 60s. In Leningrad, too, tens of thousands of people lived in densely populated communal apartments, counting pennies until they got paid or “snatched” advances from friends. Many families with children were single-parent or consisted of a mother and stepfather or father and stepmother. The image of a dysfunctional family usually ended with drinking parents who were not involved in raising children.

Arkady grew up without parental supervision, and by the age of 12, the young thief and hooligan was registered in the children's room of the police department of the Zhdanovsky (now Primorsky) district of the city.

A slight digression here suggests itself...

Juvenile technologies in Soviet style

In the summer of 2010, projects were submitted to the State Duma of the Russian Federation Federal laws, which allow, in particular, to deprive parental rights or limit them due to “poverty” or “inappropriate” upbringing. The bills were received ambiguously in society. There were many supporters of taking repressive measures against “negligent” parents. Opponents of total state intervention in the internal life of the family objected - if the family is dysfunctional, it is necessary not to destroy it, but, first of all, to help get out of it. difficult situation. (“Pravo.Ru” conducted a survey on this matter, which can be found ).

Returning to the Neyland family, we can trace how forty years ago the state, represented by the executive authorities and law enforcement agencies of the Zhdanovsky district, the school where Arkady Neyland studied, responded to the situation in a dysfunctional family.

Let's start with the housing issue. For many years, not only was it not resolved, but it finally reached a dead end - in 1963, one of Arkady’s half-brothers got married and brought his wife under his father’s roof. Thus, two coexisted in one room married couples and three different-sex teenagers. And there was no hope for improvement in living conditions in the foreseeable future.

As they say, the secondary school, from which Arkady was expelled after the 5th grade for chronic poor performance, theft and hooliganism, also washed its hands of it. The authorities sent him to a boarding school in the city of Pushkin. But even in this government institution for “difficult teenagers,” Neyland, as they say, did not fit in. Several times his fellow students gave him a “dark” punishment for stealing from others. In addition, Arkady suffered from enuresis, for which he was subjected to ridicule and bullying from others. Here is what the management of boarding school No. 67 provided to the court against Arkady Neiman in 1964: “... showed himself to be a poorly trained student, although he was not a stupid and capable child... The students did not like him and beat him. He was caught in thefts more than once boarding school students have money and things."

According to some sources, a teenager ran away from the boarding school and was detained by the police in Moscow, according to others, the boarding school management insisted that the parents take Arkady. It is only known that after this the authorities employed Neyland as an auxiliary worker at the Lenpischemash Production Association, where he somehow held out until the end of 1963.

During this period, Arkady twice attempted robbery on lonely passers-by for the purpose of robbery, and committed thefts from the Soyuzpechat kiosk, a bathhouse, a service center and several hairdressing salons. All of them were revealed, and the district prosecutor's office opened a criminal case against the teenager. However, it did not reach the court: the prosecutor’s office took into account the “sincere repentance and age” of the defendant, and the case was closed.

But less than a month has passed since Arkady Neyland again became a defendant in a criminal case - this time for residential theft.

How Neiland escaped from the district prosecutor's office

On January 24, 1964, Neiland and his friend Kubarev, under the pretext of collecting waste paper, called apartments in one of the entrances of building No. 3 on Sestroretskaya Street. Having made sure that there were no residents in one of them, they picked up the keys and hastily tied up the things that seemed most valuable to them. However, when they went outside, the janitor, seeing unfamiliar teenagers with bundles, raised the alarm. The novice burglars were detained by passers-by.

They were interrogated at the Zhdanovsky district prosecutor's office. Due to the obvious oversight of the assistant prosecutor, who sent Neumann into the corridor during Kubarev’s interrogation, the latter managed to leave the prosecutor’s office building without hindrance.

There were three days left before the bloody crime that shook the city was committed.

Breakfast on Sestroretskaya with corpses in the background

All this time, Arkady Neyland was hiding in the basements. Early in the morning of January 27, he appeared at home for a few minutes, where he took an ax. This indicated that the 14-year-old was ready to cross the final line.

He had identified the apartment that Neiland intended to rob on the day when he and Kubarev were “collecting waste paper” in a house on Sestroretskaya and were caught stealing. First of all, he was attracted then by the entrance door, upholstered in leather. When the hostess, 37-year-old Larisa Kupriyanova, let the teenagers into the hallway, Arkady managed to see a color TV turned on in the room, which he had only heard about before. Neyland also noticed that the hostess had a gold crown. He also saw a three-year-old child. But this did not affect his plan in any way...

On the morning of January 27, Arkady Neyland introduced himself as a postman through the closed door to the Kupriyanovs’ apartment. And right from the doorway he attacked the hostess with an ax.

Seeing an ax in the teenager’s hands, Kupriyanova tried to take it away. Therefore, the first blows fell on the woman’s arms and shoulders. In total, the forensic medical examination counted about 15 wounds, 5 of which were fatal. He struck little Georgiy 6 times “to keep him from spinning under his feet,” as he will explain during the investigation.

After searching the apartment, Neiland found a wallet with 54 rubles, three-percent loan bonds, gold women's jewelry, and a Zorkiy camera. For some reason I took the passport of the murdered woman’s husband and her daughter from her first marriage. The camera turned out to be loaded with film, and Neiland, exposing the legs of his victim, took several obscene photographs, which, according to his explanation, he intended to sell under the guise of pornography.

After that, Neyland washed his hands in the bathroom, fried some eggs in the kitchen, and calmly had breakfast. Before leaving, he set the apartment on fire and turned on the gas, hoping that the fire and gas explosion would destroy all traces of the crime. However, neighbors on the landing, sensing the smell of burning, called the firefighters. The crew arrived promptly, and the crime scene was almost unaffected by fire.

Thanks to this, the investigative team found bloody fingerprints on the wardrobe, and the murder weapon - an ax with a burnt ax. After interviewing dozens of residents of the house about the appearance of unfamiliar faces here, a verbal portrait of Neyland was compiled.

The description of the residents - "a lanky, big-lipped teenager of about 15-16 years old" - was all too familiar to both the district police department and the prosecutor's office. So Neiland came under suspicion. When investigators established that he had taken an ax from his apartment, this version became the main one. Kubarev, Neiland's accomplice in the theft from an apartment in the same building, was immediately interrogated. He said that his friend planned to return to Sestroretskaya to “make money” in apartment No. 9, and leave for Sukhumi or Tbilisi.

Orientations were urgently sent to these cities, as well as to Moscow...

The voice of the people, which demanded the execution of a minor from below, was clearly organized from above

As soon as Neyland was detained in Sukhumi, several operatives from Leningrad flew there. On the spot, it turned out that their Abkhaz colleagues searched the detainee poorly, and he managed to hide several important pieces of evidence in the cell - a wallet, the passport of the murdered woman’s husband, the keys to the Kupreevs’ apartment and a bunch of thieves’ master keys. The investigation also found a camera stolen from the apartment. Dried blood stains were found on Neyland's clothing, which were later identified as Kupriyanova's blood type.

During interrogations in Leningrad, Arkady Neyland calmly, without a trace of remorse, spoke about the details of the crime he committed. It was obvious: Neiland had already been enlightened by the inmates of the pre-trial detention center that his age would reliably protect him from severe punishment.

Meanwhile, a brutal double murder committed by a teenager received wide publicity. Letters from citizens and organizations began to arrive from all over the country, addressed to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Leonid Brezhnev, with requests to adopt a law on the application of capital punishment to minors who have committed particularly serious crimes. And the initiative group of Leningraders, in turn, began collecting signatures for a petition demanding “to destroy the degenerate.”

The voice of the people was heard above. Although subsequent events indicate that, most likely, the letters and petitions were organized on orders from above: the increase in crime, including juvenile crime, which began in the 60s of the last century, worried the party and Soviet leadership, and Neyland was elected as a "whipping boy".

On February 17, 1964, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, contrary to legal rules and customs, adopted a resolution allowing the use of capital punishment - execution - against minors. But what to do with the fact that the law is not retroactive?

The final punishment is death. The sentence was carried out 5 months after the trial

In Leningrad, a written survey was conducted among the city's judges - can the resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Council be considered retroactive? The organizers of the action had planned a positive response in advance.

The consideration of the case on the merits took place on March 23, 1964 in a closed trial. Considering the great public danger of the crime committed - murder under aggravating circumstances, as well as the personality of Neyland and "guided by the resolution of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of February 17, 1964 No. 2234", the court, based on the totality of the crimes committed, made a final decision: sentenced to death - to shot.

The verdict was generally received with satisfaction in the country. However, it caused a negative reaction among lawyers and part of the intelligentsia. Abroad, the Neyland case was unequivocally commented on as an example of the Soviet Union's non-compliance with international law and relevant agreements.

Arkady Neiland's cassation appeal was left unsatisfied, and the Supreme Soviet of the USSR rejected the petition for pardon. On August 11, 1964, the sentence was carried out.

In preparing the publication, materials and photographs from the site murders.ru were partially used

) - a juvenile criminal who in January 1964 committed a double murder in Leningrad and was sentenced to death by the court for this, which was contrary to the current legislation, since at the time of the execution of the sentence Arkady was 15 full years old.

The “Neyland case” caused a public outcry and gave rise to statements about the violation of international law in the USSR.

Biography

Double murder

The picture of the crime was recreated according to the testimony of A. Neiland, interviewed witnesses, criminologists and firefighters. The crime was committed at Sestroretskaya Street, building 3, apartment 9. Neiland chose the victim by chance. He wanted to rob a rich apartment, and the criterion of “wealth” for him was the leather-covered front door. In the apartment there was a 37-year-old housewife Larisa Mikhailovna Kupreeva and her three-year-old son. Neiland rang the doorbell and introduced himself as a postal worker, after which Kupreeva let him into the apartment. Having made sure that there was no one in the apartment except the woman and child, the criminal locked the front door and began beating Kupreeva with an ax. To prevent the neighbors from hearing the screams, he turned on the tape recorder in the room at full volume. After Kupreeva stopped showing signs of life, Neiland killed her son with an ax. After the murder, the criminal searched the apartment and ate food found from the owners. Neiland stole money and a camera from the apartment, with which he previously filmed the murdered woman in obscene poses. According to the killer, he planned to sell these photographs later. In order to cover his tracks, before leaving, Arkady Neyland turned on the gas on the kitchen stove and set fire to the wooden floor in the room. He left the murder weapon - an ax - at the crime scene.

Neighbors smelled burning and called the fire department. Thanks to the fact that firefighters arrived promptly, the crime scene remained virtually untouched by fire.

Consequence

Arkady Neyland fully confessed to what he had done during the first interrogations and actively assisted the investigation. According to investigators, he behaved confidently and was flattered by the attention to his person. He talked about the murder calmly, without remorse. He only pitied the child, but justified his murder by the fact that there was no other way out after the murder of the woman. He was not afraid of punishment, he said that, as a minor, “everything would be forgiven.”

Neyland's case received widespread publicity. In the USSR at this time there was an increase in crime, including among minors. Arkady Neyland in these conditions was an ideal example of an anti-hero.

The court decision in the Neyland case, made on March 23, 1964, was unexpected for everyone: a 15-year-old teenager was sentenced to death, which was contrary to the legislation of the RSFSR, according to which persons from 18 to 60 years old could be sentenced to capital punishment, and the use of the death penalty executions of minors were prohibited in the USSR).

The verdict caused a mixed reaction in society. On the one hand, ordinary people, shocked by the cruelty of the crime, were waiting for the most severe sentence for Neyland. On the other hand, the verdict caused an extremely negative reaction from the intelligentsia and professional lawyers, who pointed out the inconsistency of the verdict with current legislation and international agreements.

The “Neyland Case” became known abroad, where it was cited as an example of disregard for the law under the socialist system.

There is a legend according to which L.I. Brezhnev petitioned

During the last arrest, the idea occurred to Neyland that next time he needed to rob and kill so that there would be no witnesses to the crime. Returning to the same apartment on Sestroretskaya Street on January 27, 1964, Arkady armed himself with a tourist hatchet. He knew that a woman and a child lived in the apartment, which meant it would not be difficult to deal with them. The main calculation of the criminal was that even if he was detained, the death penalty is not applied to minors, which means that the maximum he will face is prison.

In order to be allowed into the apartment, he decided to introduce himself as a postman. When the owner, Larisa Kupreeva, opened the door, he immediately attacked her. The woman began a desperate fight not only for her life, but also for the life of her child, but the criminal with the ax was stronger. After killing the woman, he calmly dealt with the child, after which he ate in the kitchen without a twinge of conscience. To hide traces of the crime, he set fire to the apartment, but thanks to the prompt work of firefighters and the vigilance of neighbors, the fire was extinguished in time. At the crime scene, investigators managed to find fingerprints, which became the main argument in court.