Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - The Russian Female Serial Killer - The Irina Gaidamachuk Story

Episode Date: December 27, 2025

Irina Gaidamachuk was a Russian serial killer who spent nearly a decade preying on elderly women across the Sverdlovsk region, posing as a social-services worker to slip into their apartments before bludgeoning them to death and stealing small amounts of cash to fuel her alcoholism. Her crimes stretched from 2002 to 2010 and baffled investigators, partly because police assumed the killer was a man.

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She specifically loves herself vodka. And one day in 2002, the worst thing happens to her. because it's around this time that her husband realizes that not only is she drunk all the time, but that she's also blowing all their money on vodka. So he decides to cut her off, like, I'm not giving you any more money for drinks. And this really pisses Arena off. So she decides that if her husband won't give her any money, that she'll find a way to get it herself. And that's what she does.

She comes up with a scheme to get some cash. She decides that she's going to target vulnerable elderly women, specifically women who are living alone, often widows, and then she's going to murder them and take whatever cash they have. So Arena goes out and she spots a random elderly woman struggling with her shopping bags. So she goes over to her and she offers to help her across the street, thinking that offering to help her will get her to let her guard down. So she helps this old lady and it works. This woman is so grateful that she invites Arena inside her apartment. So they're inside the apartment and at some point the woman turns her back and Arena sees this as her opportunity to strike.

So she picks up a vase and pow, she smashes the lady on the head and the woman eventually dies from this. Then Arena goes looking around the place for any loose cash and she eventually finds some rubles, which she finds the equivalent of about 20 bucks, which isn't much, but but it's still enough to buy some vodka, so she grabs the money and she flees the scene. And at some point, police are called and they start investigating this murder, but nothing they find really leads them anywhere and the case ends up going cold. But now, Arina knows her plan worked.

These elderly women are trusting, and they'll open the door for her if she's friendly enough. So she decides to do it again. But from here, her plan is way more thought out. She'll go out looking for any random old woman who seems like an easy target. And once she finds one, she'll low-key watch the woman for a couple of days, trying to figure out her routine and making sure she lives alone. And after that, she'll approach them posing as a social worker or posing as someone who's just there to help run errands for them.

That way, they'll have no problem inviting her in. Once they invite her in, she'll wait until the right moment, and she'll pull out a hammer or an axe that she carries in her bed. or sometimes she'll just find a blunt object in their apartment and then boom, she beats them to death. Then she'll search all over their place and steal whatever cash that she can find, which usually isn't much. Usually it's just a few thousand rubles, which is only like $65 US dollars during this time. But again, this is enough for her because all she's trying to do is buy vodka. Plus, before she leaves these places, she'll always try to cover her tracks.

Often she'll leave an iron on some newspaper or she'll turn on the gas stove or she'll light a candle and let it burn, all hoping that it will start a house fire and destroy the evidence. However, most of the time that doesn't really work and the fire just fizzles out. But whatever, she continues on with her plan. She kills woman after woman after woman and she'll steal their money and then she'll go buy alcohol with it. And clearly Arena is not the cleanest serial killer we've ever talked about. I mean, she's all kinds of sloppy. She makes mistakes, like she leaves her fingerprints all over the crime scene.

One time she's in an old woman's apartment and she realizes that she forgot her own murder weapon, but it doesn't really matter to her because she keeps getting away with it. And this goes on for years. Year after year, Arena keeps murdering elderly women across the region. Meanwhile, police, they have no idea that she's the one committing these crimes. I mean, they obviously know that there's a serial killer on the loose, but because the murders are so violent, they believe the suspect must be a man. So they spend all their time looking for a man. They even start getting reports that during several of these murders, a woman had been seen near the scene of the crime.

Yet, police still refuse to believe that the killer could be a woman. In fact, they come up with the theory that the killer is probably just a man who is disguising himself as a woman in order to trick these older women into letting him in their apartments. It is insane how off-base they are. Anyway, eight years pass, and it's now 2010. An arena is still out there murdering people. And one day, she finds yet another target. And she goes and she knocks on the door, and this elderly woman lets her in. Then, pow, Arena attacks her.

But this woman actually puts up a good fight, and she screams so loud that Arena panics and she flees the scene. And this elderly woman that she attacked actually survives. And when police interview her, she tells them that her attacker was definitely a female. Plus, she's able to describe the suspect and local police are able to create a composite sketch. And so they put this sketch up all over town. So now everyone is looking for a killer, a killer who looks like Arena. And so now, of course, police are calming through every record of any woman in town who ever had their fingerprints taken.

But they can't find a match. Because lucky for Arena, she had never had her fingerprints taken for anything. So it looks like that she might actually get away with all this. Until... Until. Until she starts getting even more sloppy. That same year in 2010, in one week, she murders three women who live on the same street. So now she's murdered in total 16 elderly ladies. But then I guess it's still not enough for her, or I guess she still needs more money because she's going to do it again. So she ends up targeting this elderly woman, her name's Alexandra.

And the difference between Alexandra and all the other women that Arena has targeted is that Arena actually knows Alexandra personally. And because she knows her, she can't use her normal, I'm a social worker routine. So instead, Arena approaches her one day and she offers to do some decorating for her. And Alexandra's like, sure. So later, Arena goes over to her house and then suddenly, bam, bam, she hits her with a blunt object, and then she drowns her in the bathtub. Then she grabs any money that she can find, and she leaves.

Here's the thing, though. Alexandra was smart. Earlier that day, she had told her neighbor that a woman she knows, named Arena, would be coming over to her house to do some decorating. So when police show up and start questioning everyone in the area, that neighbor ends up giving this information to them. So now they have a name to match the description of the suspect. And so they go and they find Arena and bam,

They arrest her. Here's a picture of her in real life. And so ultimately, she confesses to all these murders that she did, and she goes to trial, and she's found guilty, and she's sentenced to only about 20 years in prison. Because here's the crazy thing. From what I read, the maximum prison sentence that they can give a woman in Russia is only 25 years. They're not legally allowed to give them any more than that. Men, on the other hand, can get life in prison, but women cannot, no matter how many,

people they murder. I guess that's just the law there.