Andrei Ivanovich Barausov was born on August 5, 1961, in the Yakut ASSR, a region in Russia. He grew up in the city of Lensk, where he completed his education. After finishing high school, he trained as a professional driver. In 1978, at the age of 17, he joined the Soviet Army and served until 1980.

Once he completed his military service, he returned to Lensk. He married a local woman, and together they had two children: a daughter born in 1981 and a son a few years later. From the mid-1980s until 1997, Barausov worked as a driver for the Udachny Mining and Processing Combine. During this time, he received positive feedback from both his employers and co-workers. He was known for being polite, especially towards women, and he did not consume alcohol.

However, beneath this surface, Barausov was engaged in troubling behavior. He was accused of sexually abusing his daughter, but no legal actions were taken against him as the daughter did not testify. In early 1997, his wife passed away from cancer, leaving him to care for their two children alone.

In early August 1997, Andrei Barausov went to the woods in Lensk during mushroom season. He encountered two young girls, aged 9 and 12, who were picking mushrooms. He threatened them with a small-calibre TOZ-16 rifle. Barausov shot one girl and stabbed the other. After committing these acts, he engaged in necrophilia with their bodies and covered them with leaves and moss before leaving the scene.

On his way out, Barausov came across a group of mushroom pickers whose car was stuck. He helped them, which allowed them to remember his appearance. Once the bodies of the girls were discovered, authorities interviewed the mushroom pickers and ruled them out as suspects after they provided details about Barausov. A sketch of him was created and he became the prime suspect in the murders.

Shortly after, a young woman reported to police that she had been raped by an unknown man in a park. She remembered he pointed to a GAZ-66 truck parked nearby and claimed it was his. Investigators looked into Barausov, who lived in the same building where the truck was parked, especially since he had a previous arrest for indecent exposure.

At the end of August 1997, police invited Barausov for questioning. He admitted to being in the woods the day the girls were killed but denied involvement. Under pressure from witness accounts, he eventually confessed to the murders. He was escorted to the crime scene to demonstrate how he killed the girls.

Barausov admitted to at least five additional murders during his detention but later retracted those confessions. In 1998, he was convicted of the murders of the two girls and sentenced to death, which was later reduced to 18 years due to a moratorium on capital punishment. He was held at a prison colony in Altai Krai, where he did not face hostility from other inmates.

After serving his sentence, Barausov was released in 2015. He moved to a village in Altai Krai to live with his daughter. Concerned about his presence, a former investigator wrote letters to authorities expressing the need for strict supervision over Barausov.

Later, he moved to Novosibirsk Oblast, where he was involved in the sexual assault of six underage girls in the late 2010s. He was arrested in 2020 and found guilty in a secret trial, receiving another 18-year sentence. Following this conviction, investigators began looking into his past confessions about other murders. After some negotiations, he agreed to a plea deal, admitting guilt for five murders and leading authorities to burial sites where these victims were located.

He claimed his first murder occurred in February 1983, followed by multiple others, including attacks on young girls. His trial for the five murders began in March 2023. As part of the plea deal, he received a 21-year sentence, believed to be sufficient for him to die in prison. After the verdict, he claimed he was pressured to confess by investigators.