Yevgeny Nikolaevich Petrov was born on December 17, 1975, in Novouralsk, Sverdlovsk Oblast, Russia.

In 1998, a schoolgirl named Maria Polivtseva went missing while visiting relatives. Her disappearance marked the beginning of a troubling pattern. In 1999, another schoolgirl vanished shortly after leaving her grandmother's house. Other girls also disappeared during that year while walking with their families.

In 2000, a 14-year-old girl was kidnapped in front of her younger sister. The younger girl managed to escape, but the kidnapping raised alarm in the community. Investigators believed that these girls were being taken into sexual slavery, which offered some hope that they might still be alive. A local artist helped the police by sketching a suspicious man seen with a child, but investigations were slow.

Despite rising tensions, authorities were reluctant to admit there was a serial killer at work. Eventually, five half-burned and dismembered bodies of the missing girls were found in a forest. The girls had all been assaulted before being murdered. After this gruesome discovery, the killings stopped, leading investigators to suspect that the criminal had been arrested.

In 2003, the situation changed when a female volleyball player was kidnapped near a children's camp. Her body was later found in a river. Before her murder, a young man had been seen offering rides to local schoolgirls, and one mentioned that his name was Petrov. Yevgeny Petrov was arrested shortly after, and when faced with overwhelming evidence, he confessed to the murders of eleven girls.

Petrov admitted to luring girls into his car, taking them to isolated locations, and then sexually assaulting, killing, dismembering, and burning them. Although he confessed, he showed no remorse during interviews. A small number of his victims survived their encounters with him. In 2005, Petrov was sentenced to life in prison.

While incarcerated, he attempted suicide multiple times. The parents of his victims sought the death penalty, and one father even suggested extraditing Petrov to face justice from them directly.