A man reportedly killed seven people with a rifle in Zhytomyr Oblast in the early hours of May 22, according to the police.
The shooting happened near a pond in the village of Novoselytsia in the Popelniatskyi district where nine men were on a fishing trip, the National Police in Zhytomyr Oblast reported on May 22.
The men were drinking. Then, six of them went to sleep in a nearby shed, while the suspect and two others continued fishing. But at about 1 a.m., the suspect, a professional hunter, allegedly shot the two men next to him and then went on to shoot the other six who were sleeping.
One man managed to escape after hearing the shots. He ran into a forest, reached the village and called the police.
Deputy Interior Minister Anton Gerashchenko says the killing was motivated by “sudden hostile relations.”
“The court will have no other decision than life imprisonment for a person who took the lives of seven,” Gerashchenko wrote on Facebook on May 22.
The crime scene, near a pond in the village of Novoselytsia, Zhytomyr Oblast, where a man killed seven people with a rifle in the early hours of May 22. One man managed to escape. (Anton Gerashchenko / Facebook)
The suspect, born in 1962, has been detained by the police and remains in custody. The murder weapon, a slug-gun rifle, has been seized.
The suspect will undergo a forensic psychiatric examination, following which the court will decide on his sanity, Gerashchenko says.
The investigators launched criminal proceedings on “premeditated murder of two or more persons.” The suspect may face 15 years in prison or life imprisonment.
