Mikhail Popkov, the “Werewolf”: Archiving the December 2015 True-Crime Cryptid Peg

Original reporting date: December 9, 2015.

Russia’s true-crime ledger already held Andrei Chikatilo — the “Butcher of Rostov” — and Alexander Pichushkin — the “Chessboard Killer” — when English-language weird-news desks reached for a newer moniker: the Werewolf. That nickname belonged to Mikhail Popkov, a former Siberian policeman whose cruelty, according to press shorthand, outpaced ordinary adjectives.

On December 9, 2015, Monstrum Athenaeum published a short profile pegged to Popkov’s then-current conviction tally and the promise of more cases still moving through the system. This 2026 article is a brand-new archival feature: it keeps the cryptid-desk angle (why media reach for lycanthrope language) while updating the public timeline with later, widely reported court outcomes — carefully, without inventing membership numbers, secret confessions, or a live trial you can crash.

What the 2015 Athenaeum snapshot said

According to the original copy, Popkov had been convicted that year of murdering 22 people, with dozens more under investigation and additional proceedings expected “next year.” The desk floated a possible total around 61+, enough — if proven — to eclipse Chikatilo’s infamous count in the popular imagination. Popkov, the piece said, had been a well-liked officer who offered rides; some of those rides, prosecutors and reporters alleged, were last rides. Motive folklore in the 2015 article centered on suspected spousal betrayal and a hunt for women he deemed unfaithful — a narrative his wife, per the same piece, disputed.

The original also claimed he said he quit killing around 2000, years before arrest. Grisly details — heart removal, beheading — were included as “visual poetry of a madman,” the sort of line a horror desk writes when it is flirting with exploitation. In 2026 we can name that flirtation without reenacting it for shock SEO.

Why “Werewolf”?

Here is the cryptid hook, and the salt.

Media nicknames do work. “Werewolf” sells papers and playlist titles. It also smuggles folklore into a human crime wave: as if fangs explain what a badge, a car, and a private hatred already explain too well. Conspiracy-curious readers sometimes want a literal therianthrope. Skeptical readers hear tabloid branding. This desk’s lane is the third path — folklore of naming: how societies animalize human evil when ordinary words feel too small, and how that naming can accidentally recruit cryptid audiences into true-crime tourism.

Grain of salt the size of a Lada tire: a nickname is not a species ID. Popkov’s horror is human. The fur is metaphorical ink.

What later public reporting adds (verified cautiously)

WebSearch for this refresh (2026-09-13) turns up consistent major-outlet and encyclopedia summaries:

• January 2015: life sentence after conviction for 22 murders (and related attempted-murder counts in some writeups) — the spine the December 2015 Athenaeum piece was already treating as news.
• December 10, 2018: Irkutsk regional court convicts him of 56 further murders and imposes a second life sentence, per CBS News and matching wire accounts; some alleged additional killings were not proven to the court’s satisfaction, according to those reports.
• 2020–2021: further confessions and an additional term reported (TASS and others describe roughly 9 years 8 months added on top of the life framework for two more killings).
• Later years bring still more charging/sentencing chatter in Russian and English secondary sources (2023–2025 items appear in search results). Counts in headlines vary by what has been proven vs. confessed vs. charged.

Editorial rule: we do not freeze a single “final body count” as Athenaeum gospel when sources disagree on the edges. We say he is, in widely reported terms, among the most prolific convicted serial killers in modern Russian history, serving life-based sentences, with the case file continuing to accrete in public view over a decade. We do not state a pending trial as if it were still “next year 2016.” The 2015 “set to go to trial next year” line is expired present tense.

Capital punishment calls appear in some coverage; Russia’s moratorium reality is a legal-context note in secondary sources, not a prediction we will make.

Chikatilo and Pichushkin as measuring sticks

The 2015 piece used those earlier killers as yardsticks. That comparison is cultural, not mathematical purity. Popular tallies get fuzzy; courts deal in proven counts. When Athenaeum said Popkov might “surpass” Chikatilo, it was participating in a grim leaderboard tradition that true-crime media should handle with shamefaced care. Victims are not points.

What this archive is not

Not a gore gallery. Not a roadmap to crime scenes. Not legal advice. Not a claim that Popkov was supernaturally lycanthropic. Not a 2015 article pretending it was written yesterday.

Arrest folklore the 2015 piece mostly skipped

Later English-language explainers commonly describe a long investigative arc: similar victim patterns in the Irkutsk region across the 1990s–2000s, vehicle-track clues associated with a type of police-used off-road car, and a large DNA-comparison effort among current and former officers that helped pinpoint Popkov around 2012. The December 2015 Athenaeum article did not dwell on that procedural spine; it preferred the monster nickname and the betrayal motive. For archival balance, note the procedural story exists in public sources — still without turning this page into a detective how-to.

Cryptid desk ethics on human monsters

When a killer’s press nickname overlaps our beat, the temptation is to wink forever. Resist the forever wink. Lycanthrope folklore is a lens for culture, not a costume for the perpetrator. If readers leave this page curious about werewolf myths in Slavic storytelling, good. If they leave hungry for crime-scene coordinates, we failed.

Bottom line

On December 9, 2015, Monstrum Athenaeum filed Popkov under a werewolf headline because the press already had, and because cryptid desks notice when animal metaphors stick to human monsters. In 2026 we keep the nickname as media folklore, date the original hard, and note that subsequent widely reported convictions (notably the 2018 second life sentence for dozens more murders, plus later add-on proceedings in public sources) moved the case far beyond the “pending next year” cliffhanger of the original. Salt the moniker. Respect the dead. Leave the fur to metaphor.

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Sources

• Claim element: Original Dec 9, 2015 Popkov “Werewolf” profile; 22-conviction snapshot; pending further cases; motive folklore; nickname speculation — Attribution: Monstrum Athenaeum historical predecessor — Link: Mikhail Popkov: The Werewolf Serial Killer
• Claim element: Biographical / conviction overview; 2015 life sentence; 2018 second life for 56; later confessions — Attribution: Wikipedia (summary pointer; verify against wires) — Link: Mikhail Popkov
• Claim element: Dec 2018 conviction for 56 murders; second life sentence — Attribution: CBS News — Link: Popkov guilty of 56 more murders
• Claim element: 2021 additional term reporting — Attribution: TASS — Link: Ex-Siberian cop … 10 years added…

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About this article

Archival historical / true-crime folklore commentary only — not live court reporting, not legal advice, and not an accusation beyond what public judgments and major-outlet summaries have already reported. Nickname “Werewolf” is media branding, not a zoological or supernatural diagnosis. Victim identities and private addresses are omitted on purpose. Case details may continue to evolve in foreign courts; treat tallies as reported, not as Athenaeum-invented totals. The 2015 URL is a historical predecessor, not a prior publication of this 2026 wording. Mature audiences; grain of salt required.