Conviction Western occult and esoteric movements Yaroslavl, Russia · 2010

Russia: seven convicted over the ritual killings of four teenagers at group gatherings

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Record class

Context only

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

ringleader of a self-styled satanist group in Yaroslavl

Organization

No organization assigned

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

The victims were teenagers drawn into the group's own gatherings, which places this closer to the corpus's core pattern than a stranger-killing; it is classed as religious-terror pending clearer evidence of formal membership.

Violent occult ideology or sacrifice
Ritual, oath, or initiation

Evidence structure

Proceedings

2010-07-01 · convictions and sentences

Yaroslavl Regional Court, Russia. In July 2010 the Yaroslavl Regional Court convicted seven people over the June–July 2008 ritual killings of four teenagers at the gatherings of a self-styled satanist group: ringleader Nikolai Ogolobyak received twenty years for murder, robbery and desecration of corpses, five accomplices eight to ten years, and one two years; an eighth defendant was found insane and committed. In 2023 Ogolobyak was released by pardon after military service in Ukraine — the conviction stands, the sentence commuted.

Documented coercion mechanisms

killings carried out at the group's ritual gatherings
ritualised stabbing and mutilation of the bodies

Cited record

Sources

national newspaper court reporting verdict and sentencing report The Moscow Times: 'Satanists jailed for ritual murders', 26 Jul. 2010.: Court report of the convictions and sentences.
national newspaper court reporting disposition update Meduza: reporting on the 2023 pardon and release.: Documents the commutation.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2010/07/26/satanists-jailed-for-ritual-murders-a131 Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-and-sentencing-report. SHA-256 c19e91086a9a1e09b7f3d9d164bba0133fbfcdf9d5609f5292cc36ea75c97632
Retrieval: 2026-07-20 · Preserved; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis: https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/11/21 Corpus classification: national-newspaper-court-reporting; evidentiary role: disposition-update.
Retrieval: 2026-07-27 · Retrieval failed; Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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