The only teenager executed in the USSR. The only teenager sentenced to death in the USSR! Sole teen 15

His name was Arkady Neyland. He was born in 1949 in Leningrad, into a family of workers. His father was a mechanic, his mother was a nurse in a hospital. Apparently, he received a poor upbringing, suffered beatings from his mother and stepfather, and was malnourished. He ran away from home, from the age of 7 (in his own words) he was registered in the children's room of the police. At the age of 12, he was sent by his mother to a boarding school, from where he soon ran away due to conflicts with his peers. He left for Moscow, where he was detained by the police and taken back to Leningrad.
Until the end of 1963, he worked at the Lenpishmash enterprise, where he committed absenteeism and was caught stealing. He had several reports to the police on charges of petty theft and hooliganism, but the cases never went to trial. On January 24, 1964, he was once again detained for theft, but escaped from custody. According to Neyland, he then decided to “take revenge” by committing some “terrible murder.” At the same time, he wanted to get money to go to Sukhumi and “start a new life there.” He fulfilled his intention on January 27, having previously stolen an ax from his parents for this purpose.

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 the address: 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. Afterwards, the criminal searched the apartment and ate the food found from the owners. Neiland stole money and a camera from the apartment, with which he had previously taken pictures of the murdered woman in obscene poses (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.
Based on fingerprints left at the crime scene and the testimony of witnesses who saw Neiland that evening, he was detained in Sukhumi on January 30.

"The Neyland Case"

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.”

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 this norm was adopted just under Khrushchev in 1960: in the 1930-1950s, the death penalty for minors was allowed in accordance with the Decree of the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR dated April 7, 1935 No. 155 “On measures to combat crime among minors,” which prescribed “minors, starting from the age of 12, convicted of committing thefts, causing violence, bodily harm, mutilation, murder or attempted murder, be brought to criminal court with the application of all criminal penalties")
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.
There is a legend according to which L. I. Brezhnev petitioned N. S. Khrushchev to commute Arkady Neiland’s death sentence to prison, but received a harsh refusal. According to another legend, for a long time they could not find the executioner in Leningrad - no one undertook to shoot the teenager.
On August 11, 1964, Arkady Neyland was shot in Leningrad.

The only teenager sentenced to capital punishment in the USSR was 15-year-old Arkady Neyland

The only teenager sentenced to capital punishment in the USSR was 15-year-old Arkady Neyland, who grew up in a dysfunctional family in Leningrad. Arkady was born in 1949 into a working-class family, his mother was a nurse in a hospital, his father worked as a mechanic. Since childhood, the boy did not eat enough to eat and suffered beatings from his mother and stepfather. At the age of 7, he ran away from home for the first time, finding himself registered in the children's room of the police. At the age of 12, he ended up in a boarding school, soon ran away from there, after which he took the path of crime.

In 1963 he worked at the Lenpishmash enterprise. He was repeatedly taken to the police for theft and hooliganism. Having escaped from custody, he decided to take revenge on the police by committing a terrible crime, and at the same time get money to go to Sukhumi and start a new life there. On January 27, 1964, armed with an ax, Neiland went in search of a “rich apartment.” In house No. 3 on Sestroretskaya Street, he chose apartment 9, the front door of which was upholstered in leather. Posing as a postal worker, he ended up in the apartment of 37-year-old Larisa Kupreeva, who was here with her 3-year-old son. Neiland closed the front door and began beating the woman with an ax, turning on the radio at full volume to drown out the victim’s screams. Having dealt with his mother, the teenager killed her son in cold blood.

Then he ate food found in the apartment, stole money and a camera, with which he took several photos of the murdered woman. To hide traces of the crime, he set fire to the wooden floor and turned on the gas in the kitchen. However, firefighters who arrived on time quickly extinguished everything. The police arrived and found the murder weapon and Neyland's prints.

Witnesses said they saw the teenager. On January 30, Arkady Neyland was detained in Sukhumi. He immediately confessed to everything he had done and told how he killed the victims. He only pitied the child he had killed and thought that he would get away with everything because he was still a minor.

On March 23, 1964, by a court decision, Neyland was sentenced to death, which was contrary to the law of the RSFSR, according to which capital punishment was applied only to persons aged 18 to 60 years. Many approved of this decision, but the intelligentsia condemned the violation of the law. Despite various requests to commute the sentence, the sentence was carried out on August 11, 1964.

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.

On January 27, 1964, Leningraders were in a festive mood - the twentieth anniversary of the lifting of the blockade was celebrated. However, many firefighters who were on duty that day were not in the mood for a holiday - just like on weekdays, fires broke out here and there, and they had to be extinguished. Climb through windows, break doors if necessary, bring out people blinded by smoke, call an ambulance for someone.

But these were the usual difficulties. But a normal person will probably never be able to get used to what the combat crew that left at 12.45 to extinguish the 9th apartment of building No. 3 on Sestroretskaya Street had to face...

The doors were locked, and firefighters had to climb onto the balcony, and from there along a sliding staircase into the apartment. The fire had already engulfed the room by that time, but it was brought down quite quickly. And then the crew commander ordered to inspect other premises - suddenly there were people left there. Bending lower to the floor - there the smoke is thinner and better visible - two firefighters moved into another room, but a minute later they jumped out of there as if scalded:

There are two dead there: a woman and a child.
- Are you suffocated?
- No, there are pools of blood...

On this day, the head of the criminal investigation department, Nikolai Smirnov, was on duty in the city from the leadership of the UOP (GUVD). Following an alarm call, almost the entire staff of the “homicide” department, headed by its chief Vyacheslav Zimin, went to the scene. The case was immediately put under special control. Operational groups of all services of the UOP of Leningrad City Executive Committees were created.

Firefighters were still watering the smoldering floors and pulling charred furniture onto the balcony. The fireman who met the operatives, instead of greeting, immediately said:
- As expected, we tried not to touch anything with our hands. But the gas was on in the kitchen, and I turned it around - it could have exploded...

The second room was untouched by the fire. But there was a terrible mess: drawers were pulled out, things were scattered, furniture was overturned. And everywhere there is blood, blood, blood... On the floor, bed, chair, front door... Blood and on the face of a woman lying by the piano, next to a small child's shoe, a little further - the corpse of a little boy with a deep wound on his forehead.

Alas, no matter how hard the firefighters tried not to touch anything, the fire and the process of extinguishing it are not the best help in the work of criminologists. And the first trace that could lead to the killers of housewife Larisa Kupreeva and her 2.5-year-old son Georgy - and this was a palm print on the side surface of the piano, which did not belong to either the murdered persons, or Larisa’s husband, or their friends and acquaintances, or the firefighters. , - was discovered only on January 29.

The next day, under a pile of charred belongings on the balcony, they found the first piece of evidence: a hatchet blackened by soot with a completely burnt ax handle.

On March 23, 1964, by a court decision, Neyland was sentenced to death, which was contrary to the law of the RSFSR, according to which capital punishment was applied only to persons aged 18 to 60 years. Many approved of this decision, but the intelligentsia condemned the violation of the law. Despite various requests for a mitigation of the sentence, on August 11, 1964, the sentence was carried out.