The only teenager sentenced to capital punishment in the USSR. Were there death sentences for minors in the USSR?

15-year-old Arkady Neyland became the only teenager sentenced to capital punishment in the USSR. He was born in 1949 in Leningrad, his family could not be called prosperous. Since childhood, Arkady was hungry and suffered beatings from his mother or stepfather. At the age of 7 he runs away from home for the first time, at 12 he ends up in a boarding school, but escapes from there too. After this, the teenager finally takes the criminal path.

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.

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.

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:
- We, as expected, 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 the mess was terrible: 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.

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

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.

The experts carried out 200 experimental cuts at different blade positions at possible impact angles - on soap, wax, plasticine, various types of wood - and finally found what they needed: the marks on the skull bones and on one of the samples coincided.

Larisa’s husband said that they lived modestly; his wife, a housewife, stayed at home with the child. There were no valuables in the apartment. Who would want to kill a woman and a small child? He could not name any suspicious persons among his acquaintances.

The examination also established that the woman let the killer in herself (the door was not broken into).
The operatives blocked distribution channels, dens, and began working with those previously convicted of murder and robbery, professional burglars who could act on a tip from friends, with the first husband of the murdered woman and his acquaintances. However, the killer himself was among the suspects by the evening of January 27. What helped them find him, as operatives say, was the total “excavation of the housing estate.”

Several neighbors testified that in the period from 10.00 to 11.00 they heard heartbreaking female screams and heartbreaking children crying from apartment 9. And the janitor Orlova spoke about an unfamiliar tall, thick-lipped, angular guy of about fifteen or sixteen years old, whom she saw on the landing around the same time. (In the past, janitors were attentive and conscientious about their work.)

Having looked through the reported signs from the files of those previously convicted and registered with the police, the operatives found a certain Arkady Neyland, who by the age of fifteen already had a fairly rich track record.

The following was known about him.
Arkady is the youngest in a large family: parents, sister, brothers and the wife of one of them. Lived in Zhdanovsky district.
A courtyard similar to all the courtyards of our Soviet childhood. June rain smells like wet leaves. The boys, smoking on the bench, see off the late girls with impudent whistles. As if forty years had not passed...

It was here that Arkashka Neyland, nicknamed Pyshka, lived. He was nicknamed so for his loose, “womanish” figure and weak-willed character. In the courtyard company, Arkashka was for the “six”, he was often beaten, and he accumulated anger within himself. He absolutely hated his own mother. “She’s a witch,” he snapped during interrogation. “He doesn’t love me, he sent me to a boarding school so that he wouldn’t get in the way.”

In fact, one could only feel sorry for Anna Neiland. Twice widow. The first husband, beloved, desired, died in the Finnish campaign. He left his son in his arms. Anna married again and had a second child. But the Great Patriotic War began, and the second husband died a heroic death.

She got together with the St. Petersburg hard worker Vladimir Vladimirovich Neiland rather out of desperation. Also, out of despair, she gave birth to children of the same age: a daughter, Lyubasha, and a son, Arkady. My husband worked at a beer factory and rarely came home sober at night. I hung locks on food cabinets to prevent children from eating too much. He drove his wife so hard that the neighbors in the communal apartment knocked on their wall. However, the neighbors did not wash other people's dirty laundry in public - they had enough of their own. They had nothing to do with Anya’s hungry and ill-mannered children.

Anna became sick with pain and resentment, meanwhile Arkashka completely got out of hand. He was perhaps her most difficult child. He disappeared all day long reading books, signed up for probably all the surrounding libraries, but did not keep up at school, although he was considered not without ability. “When I was little, I was often left at home alone. One day I wanted to eat and lit the gas without matches. My father came back and beat me badly. I firmly remembered that this could set the apartment on fire and someday it would be useful to me,” Arkady spoke about his childhood during interrogations.

Father Vladimir Neyland spoke differently about the same incident: “I beat him, and Arkashka left home. When he returned, he didn’t look in my direction for several weeks. From then on, I swore off hurting my son. I just don’t understand why he’s so evil and secretive? There were no murderers in our family.”

Thousands of boys whose fathers drink and whose stressed-out mothers fail to cope with their responsibilities nevertheless grow up to be decent people. But, apparently, a genetic failure occurred in the Neyland family - Arkady was rapidly turning into an uncontrollable wolf cub.

There were still 10 years left before the murder on Sestroretskaya. It was still possible to stop the guy, take him in the other direction, straighten him out like a sprout of a crooked tree... But no one cared about the boy.

“I started stealing at four, smoking at six, and at seven I was registered in the police nursery,” said Arkady. “I dreamed of growing up and going to work at the post office to steal money orders. With this money I would go traveling...”

At night, the nervous Arkashka wet his bed. At the age of 12, his exhausted mother sent him to a boarding school. There they found out about enuresis, and Arkady immediately became an outcast among his peers. But they kicked him out not for this, but for theft.

This is the description he was given at boarding school No. 67 in the city of Pushkin: “... showed himself to be a poorly trained student, although he was not a stupid and capable child... he often played truant. The students did not like him and beat him. He was repeatedly caught stealing money and things from boarding school students.”

At the age of 13, he first ran away to Moscow. I wanted to find my aunt and celebrate the New Year with her, and then rush to the Far East as a researcher. He was caught and returned home.
A year later he made another escape. He was already 14.

“When Arkashka was caught again in Moscow, I didn’t want to take him back,” said Vladimir Neyland. “And the police answer me: “Where are we going to take him?” He hasn’t done anything yet.”

At this time, Arkady Neyland already had two robberies in the workshop of the Lenpishmash plant, several cases of hooliganism - he molested girls, beat passers-by on the street with brass knuckles, burglaries...

All these “feats” forced the Zhdanovsky district prosecutor’s office to open a criminal case against Arkady Neyland. However, he cried, “repented”, and taking into account his age, the case was dropped...

On January 24, 1964, Neiland and his friend Kubarev, under the pretext of collecting waste paper, called apartments in one of the entrances of building No. 3 on Sestroretskaya Street. Having made sure that there were no residents in one of them, they picked up the keys and hastily tied up the things that seemed most valuable to them. However, when they went outside, the janitor, seeing unfamiliar teenagers with bundles, raised the alarm. The novice burglars were detained by passers-by.

They were interrogated at the Zhdanovsky district prosecutor's office. Due to the obvious oversight of the assistant prosecutor, who sent Neumann into the corridor during Kubarev’s interrogation, the latter managed to leave the prosecutor’s office building without hindrance.
There were three days left before the bloody crime that shook the city was committed.

As soon as information about Neiland appeared, the group immediately intensified its work, since the signs of a young man whom the janitor identified coincided.

However, there were always enough such “difficult teenagers” in Leningrad. But along with the testimony of the janitor Orlova, there were also circumstances that contributed to the assignment of Arkady Neiland to the status of the main suspect.

Firstly, on January 27, a tourist hatchet with a nine-centimeter blade disappeared from the Neilands’ apartment. Secondly, three days before the murder, Arkady Neyland, together with his friend Kubarev, had already been detained near that same house No. 3 on Sestroretskaya Street for theft from apartment 7. They got in there by picking the keys, grabbed the first thing they could get their hands on, stuffed it into a shopping bag hanging in the hallway and... ran into the apartment owner near the entrance, who recognized her bag in the hands of the teenagers and raised a cry about it.

Both were then taken to the Zhdanovskaya paradise by the prosecutor's office, a criminal case was opened... But Neiland, due to the investigator's oversight, somehow miraculously managed to escape from there. And before escaping, he told Kubarev about his cherished dream: to “take” one of the rich apartments that are abundant in Leningrad, set it on fire to destroy all traces, and move on to the Caucasus - the sea, mountains, sun, various fruits...

It remains unclear why Neiland decided that the apartment he chose belonged to the wealthy. But, nevertheless, they began to “graze” it a long time ago. Three days before the murder, he and Arkady collected waste paper from apartments. But in fact, they were looking closely at where they could raid later. A beautiful woman opened the door of one of the apartments. Neiland was attracted by her gold tooth and the color television in the room.

Yes, this is probably all of the valuables that were in the apartment. But Neiland, skilled in criminal matters, managed to notice the absence of the owner during working hours - only a woman and a small child who rode out into the corridor on a tricycle. The woman, to her misfortune, then said: “Go to your room, Grisha, you always disobey while your father is at work.”

...Moscow put a lot of pressure on the criminal investigation department. And then the leadership of the Leningrad police, whose entire personnel had already been raised to their feet, took an unprecedented action at that time - they ensured that Neiland’s photograph with the corresponding accompanying text was shown on all-Union television. A detailed description of his signs was sent throughout the country, and St. Petersburg task forces urgently flew to Moscow and Tbilisi.

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.