Yuri Valentinovich Sparikhin was born on March 14, 1963, in Batumi, then part of the Adjarian ASSR of the Georgian SSR in the Soviet Union. His family relocated to Novorossiysk in 1973, where his parents were known to be responsible and law-abiding citizens. However, Yuri began displaying disturbing behavior from a young age. He tortured animals for fun, showed no interest in school, and spent most of his time with criminals on the streets. He dropped out of school after the seventh grade due to constant disciplinary issues and repeated clashes with local authorities. There were later unproven claims from family members suggesting that Yuri had been sexually and physically abused by his older brother, Boris, though Yuri denied this.

At just 14 years old, Yuri was first arrested and imprisoned for theft in 1977. That early prison time did not deter him, instead, it marked the beginning of a life filled with violent crimes, reoffending, and escalating brutality. His inability to integrate into society and his increasingly violent tendencies would eventually span over four decades, making him one of the most dangerous recidivists in Russian criminal history.

In 1980, just weeks after his release from prison for theft, 17-year-old Yuri Sparikhin committed his first murder. His victim was a teenage girl named Nadezhda, whom he raped and viciously beat to death. Her face was so badly disfigured that she could only be identified by her clothing. The brutality of the crime shocked the community, and he was swiftly arrested. However, due to his age, he was not eligible for the death penalty and instead received a 10-year sentence, the maximum allowed for a minor at the time.

While serving this sentence, Sparikhin committed another crime: robbing a prison stall in 1986, which earned him six more years. He was released in 1996 but didn’t stay out long. That same year, while intoxicated, he raped a woman in Leninsky Park and assaulted the responding officer. He was sentenced to four years in prison.

After being released in 2000, he returned to live with his mother in Novorossiysk. That summer, while vacationing in Abrau-Dyurso, where his brother worked, he raped and murdered two underage girls. He blamed his brother Boris for the crime, but the court rejected the claim and sentenced Yuri to 20 years in prison in 2001.

He served that sentence until June 19, 2020, when he was released once again. Now in his late 50s, he moved in with a cousin and found work as a pallet assembler. But within weeks, on August 14, he abducted a 34-year-old woman at knifepoint, forced her to drive him out of town, and raped her multiple times before fleeing. The victim cleverly broke traffic laws to attract police attention, leading to Yuri’s arrest on August 15.

Shockingly, just three days later, on August 18, Sparikhin escaped from court custody. He fled to Krasnodar, where on August 20, he committed his final known murder. He forced a 40-year-old woman to drive him to the Apsheronsky District, raped her, and then stabbed her to death. He stole her car but was arrested three days later, on August 23, after crashing during a police chase.

In March 2021, the Krasnodar Krai Court convicted him of all charges, including rape, murder, kidnapping, and theft, sentencing him to life imprisonment. While awaiting transfer to a high-security colony in June 2021, he assaulted two guards with a piece of wire. He was convicted again on May 27, 2022, and given an additional nine years to be served concurrently. Sparikhin is currently incarcerated in a Russian prison under a special regime.