I’m not convinced this isn’t a hoax or viral marketing campaign, since “strange news blackout” can also mean “didn’t actually happen.” Even if it’s fictional internet lore, it’s notable as such. (Appears to be real). An anonymous friend of BB says,
There seems to be a strange news blackout around the horrifying story of the “Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs”, three Ukranian teens who apparently recently performed a series of staggeringly violent serial killings and recorded them on cellphone video and then attended the victims’ funerals. Supposedly this is some of the first actual video of this kind of crime that has made it into the wild of the internet – the perspective of the deranged killer.
If you Google-news “Dnepropetrovsk Maniacs,” little if anything comes up, but the video and story is all over the gore/shock sites, putting them ahead of the news organizations here in the US.
I can’t watch the video, and only came across the story by cruising Encyclopedia Dramatica for teh (non-violent, tsk-tsking) lulz, but I glimpsed some stills and felt a little more heartsick about humankind because of it.
Purported Translation of cellphone video dialogue. See also dnepropetrovskmaniacs.com. [warning: links include graphic violence]. Link to video of teens in Ukranian court [does not include video footage of the attacks, thanks leriseux]
A NOTE FROM THE MODERATOR: I don’t want to see any more comments from people who read Xeni’s description, watched the video anyway, and are complaining about how horrifying it is. Yes! It’s horrifying! If you don’t want to see that, don’t watch the video. Furthermore, those of you who feel that stuff like this should not be given attention are hereby invited to (1.) not watch the video, and (2.) not post comments about it, either. (Ignoring: ur doin it rong.) Thank you.
p.s.: There’s a large stash of unicorn chasers further down the thread. Use as needed.
–Teresa Nielsen Hayden
UPDATE: An anonymous commenter in the discussion thread for this post writes:
Hello all. I am from Ukraine, I live in Kiev, but at that time i worked with a girl whose family lived in the same entrance of the multistoried building as one of those teenagers. I remember the horror when she was speaking about what was going on and the shock when she knew it was her neighbor. What we know from the news is… they were 3. One of them was likely an initiator (his surname was Supruniuk) and second one supported him. The third one was kinda acting under the pressure. Nobody knows what moved them, because they rarely robbed. They just liked to kill, those who were weaker than they. It is totally sick, totally criminal. Some newspapers wrote that they might have been under the cover of the dad of this Supruniuk…that he kinda was selling those videos online. N tht he was trying to hide the evindece (smb threw mobile phones in the lavatory)… Some say that they got more pending crimes imposed upon them by police. They are very calm during interrogation, etc. Their parents can not believe. In the phone of one of them police found some nazi images… What can i say… I dont want to ever watch anything about that or know anything more than i know. Their souls are sick. May God do something to that.. Regards, Margaret