Background:
Shums'k is a small agricultural town with a population of 5,000 people in Ternopil, Ukraine. The religious town is home to 4 churches; 2 Orthodox, 1 Roman Catholic, and 1 Christian Evangelical.
In 1989, the Lautenberg Amendment was enacted to allow refugee status to immigrants fleeing religious persecution. Specifically, Ukrainian and Russian immigrants were granted permission to enter the U.S. after the fall of the Soviet Union.
In a small village, two people fell in love and started a romance in 1997 that would end in tragedy just 5 years later. In the Ukraine, an outgoing and friendly Lyubov (which is the Ukrainian word for love) fell in love with a quiet 23 year-old shoemaker named Nikolay, and despite her parents' disapproval, she went ahead and married him in 1997 at the age of 17. She became pregnant soon after their marriage and gave birth to their son Sergey in the Ukraine.
In 1998, Nikolay Soltys moved from the Ukraine to Binghamton, New York to be with his mother and ailing father while leaving behind his wife Lyubov and newborn son Sergey. Nikolay had no criminal record in Ukraine, and was able to easily immigrate to the United States. After Nikolay’s father passed, and unable to find work, Nikolay and his mother moved from New York to Sacramento, CA to be closer to extended family.
To help become more acclimated to the community, Nikolay applied for a membership to the Bethany Slavic Missionary Church, but his request was pending because when asked if he had left the church in the Ukraine peacefully, Nikolay was unable to answer the question by pastors. Shortly after moving, Nikolay was able to convince Lyubov to immigrate with their son to join him in Sacramento.
It was reported by Lyubov, and her relatives, that Nikolay was extremely abusive to her in the Ukraine, and her family hesitated on letting her go to the U.S. with Nikolay. Her accounts of the abuse describe how Nikolay would beat her until she was unconscious, splash water on her face to wake her up, and continue beating her. Lyubov’s brother, Petro said that even though he considered his brother-in-law family, that Nikolay had an unbalanced temper and abused Lyubov while she was pregnant with Sergey. His violence escalated by Nikolay pushing her out of a moving car while pregnant and even threatened her, and her brothers, with an ax when they tried to take Lyubov back to her parent’s home for safety.
In Sacramento, David Galloway was a neighbor to the Soltys and got a tense vibe from Nikolay when he approached him to move his car. David expressed how, “there was just something about his manner that made me want to move my car”. Nikolay’s cousin Inna Yasinsky, later told police that “He had mental problems”.
Based on the accounts from family, neighbors, and the horrible events following, Nikolay was unhinged and unpredictable.
Despite Lyubov’s family’s attempts to dissuade her out of her marriage, she decided to move her and Sergey to California to live with Nikolay.
There was another side to Nikolay that neighbors saw, a side that was helpful and giving. In Bringhampton, Nikolay’s close friend Ananly recalls him being a real Christian kind of guy who recited bible verses and did not take part in drugs or alcohol. Ananly recalls that Nikolay was in a car accident and had back pain afterwards, which required frequent chiropractor visits and made finding work difficult. Nikolay was obsessed with his reputation and outward appearances.
I am going to break down the next events in the order in which they happened. This next part does contain some graphic content involving children so please be warned.
On August 20th, 2001,
Before 10 am, Lyubov was getting ready for her first day of work at the Good Neighbor store, in North Highlands, when she argued with Nikolay about her new job. In a fit of rage, he stabbed her and Lyubov was able to make it outside to a neighbor's house shouting for help. As the neighborhood watched and listened, Nikolay continued to stab his wife and slit her throat until she was dead. He fled the scene in a ’95 silver Nissan Altima and headed to Rancho Cordova, which is 20 miles from his house. Blood smeared on the outside walls of the duplex was photographed by media as her body was removed from the scene by officials. She was known to be pregnant and in the later part of her 1st trimester.
The next stop Nikolay made was at his Aunt and Uncle’s house, Petr & Galina Kukharskiy, where he lived with them a few months prior. It was a 20 minute drive from their house to Nikolay’s new house. Nikolay’s 2 sets of adult cousins lived in the neighborhood close by with their children as well. Inna Yasinky, whole gave information on the events that day, was mother to 9 year-old twin daughters Tatyana & Galina, and a younger daughter Victoria. When the attack started, Dimitriy’s mother witnessed the attack and saw Tatyana trying to help him from Nikolay. During her heroic efforts; her sisters were able to run away to safety. His mother A 911 call around 11 am called officers to a horrific scene of the 2 young children lay bleeding outside, and 2 senior adults lying dead inside of the house on the 2nd floor. Dimitriy died in his mother’s arms and Tatyana died on the way to the hospital. All were stabbed and had their throats cut. This bloody scene was a stark contrast to neighbors in the area who saw Nikolay frequently giving gifts to his cousins when he lived there and seemed to adore all the children.
Nikolay fled the scene to drive to his mother’s house in Citrus Heights and arrived an hour later. His 3 year-old son, Sergey, was being cared for by his mother that day and when he arrived, his mother initially said she saw nothing wrong or unusual about Nikolay, but later her story was questioned due to the fact that Nikolay would have been covered in some amounts of blood after stabbing 5 people. Whatever the circumstances, his mother let him leave with Sergey in his silver Nissan Altima, which he later left and switched into a ’98 dark green Ford Explorer. He was last seen at 8pm by a mechanic who he had picked up the Ford Explorer from.
On August 21st,
Police found the Nissan Altima abandoned with 2 family photos, one of which was Sergey on his mother Lyubov’s lap, in the glove compartment. There were handwritten notes in Russian on the backs of the photos that Nikolay’s mother translated for police. Police were hopeful to retrieve Sergey safely, but one of the notes had directions on where to find Sergey’s body in a field in Placer County near a tower. The other note loosely translated that his murderous spree was caused by relatives speaking out on his private matters and poisoning him with their words. Nikolay was furious that Lyubov’s family accused him of repeated domestic abuse back in Ukraine and considered Lyubov disrespectful towards him. Nikolay became upset when his pregnant wife started working at a local grocery store and this caused a lot of their fights leading up to the day of the murder spree. There was no mention of why he was upset with her working, but I can only speculate that his anger was deeply rooted in his fragile ego and need to control his wife. Any independence that Lyubov gained would be a threat to his reputation.
Police immediately went to search for Sergey and found his body which was brutally stabbed in the same was the others were. His body showed sign of bruising consistent to physical abuse according to the coroner's office. He was found in a cardboard box large enough for a 36 inch TV with toys that were most likely used to coax him into the box before being attacked. The box was found near a trash pile under a microwave tower. Detective Ron Garverick described how two sets of footprints, one adults and one a child's sandal, led towards the scene and only one adult footprint left the scene.
August 22nd,
Surveillance was put on his mother, Varvara’s home while police searched surrounding areas in Sacramento, as well as cities like San Francisco, Seattle, and North Carolina. 14 members of the Soltys family were put into protective custody by police in an undisclosed hotel nearby and later returned to their home in Citrus Heights.
August 23rd,
Nikolay was now on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List with a $70,000 reward for his capture.
August 26th,
Galina Kukharskaya 74, Petr Kukharskiy 75, Tatyana Kukharskaya 9, Dimitriy Kukharskiy 9, were buried in Sacramento CA. 5,000 members of the Russian and Ukrainian community attended the funeral at Bethany Slavic Missionary Church on Sunday Aug 26, 2001. 5 white caskets and a small white casket
August 30th,
On the 10th day of his escape and surveillance of Nikolay’s mother’s house, the garage door to the house opened and several people piled into a Mazda and sped off to an Aaron Brother’s framing store, just as they were opening, to make a frantic phone call to police. It was his brother, Stepan, who made the phone call a little after 6:30 am. He recounted to police that he and his mother spotted Nikolay hiding under a desk in their backyard when they feared for their safety and fled the house. Police gave the members of the house a panic button and a phone to call if Nikolay showed up, but neither attempts to notify police worked so the family was forced to flee the house to find a phone. When captured, Nikolay confessed to the murders and showed no signs of remorse. He was found with a backpack containing a potato peeler and knife that police suspected were used in the murders. He had been hiding in an abandoned house nearby and his appearance was described to be barefoot and disheveled.
September 5th,
He was arraigned at the Sacramento County Superior Court where he was read the charges through an interpreter by Sacramento County District Attorney Jan Scully, of seven counts of first-degree murder – including one count for the unborn child. When Nikolay was first booked into jail, he was put on a suicide watch and later spent 3 days in the psychiatric unit in October after he tried to tattoo himself with a pencil. In late November, he was again admitted to the psychiatric unit for 17 days after jumping from the second tier of the jail housing unit, ultimately breaking his heel. He denied any psychiatric medication and was later evaluated by UC Davis Medical Center professionals concluding that he was not suicidal at that time.
Lawyer, Tommy Clickenbeard was going to try and seek an insanity plea on the basis that Nikolay had breathing problems at birth and suffered debilitating headaches as a youth. He grew up in a part of Ukraine that was not far from the Chernobyl nuclear plant that accidentally failed on April 26th 1986. Clickenbeard goes on to describe that the area Nikolay lived was laced by heavily polluted rivers, raising the possibility that he suffered some mental illness caused by the environment. I looked at the distance between Shums'k and Chernobyl and the two are about 235 miles apart. There is also no major river or body of water that runs from Chernobyl to Shums'k. In 2018, UNSCEAR United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation reported that 20,000 documented cases of people under the age of 18 at the time of the Chernobyl meltdown, developed thyroid cancer. These included people in 3 countries, Belarus, Ukraine, and the Russian Federation. This was caused by high levels of radioactive Iodine-131 which entered grazing cattle by pastures and then the cattle’s milk had concentrated levels of iodine that was consumed by the people in these countries. The radiation is not directly caused to any mental health issues, but the psychological effects of the event are still relevant. I am not ruling this out as a possibility for his psychosis, but It also doesn’t seem like a strong enough defense for the insanity plea.
September 8th,
Shums'k, Ukraine-, Lyubov and Sergey’s coffins arrived on at Kyiv’s Boryspil airport and were taken by family members to be prepared for the funeral the following day. On September 9th 2001 there were 3,000 attendees for the funeral which was held at the town’s Baptist church. Her parents, Ihor & Maria Nakonechnvi, and brothers buried them in a beautiful service.
“He (Mr. Soltys) was an unruly person, there were many problems since
childhood: in the family, in school and in
church,” said the Rev. Borys Kovalchuk.
“To bring such grief, trauma ... such a
scar will never heal.”
When Nikolay was a child, his teacher Polina Harbonis described that he had “a certain sadness, or indifference, or even evil in his eyes” "This child had such a character that you never knew what to expect from him in the next moment."
February 10th, 2002
Nikolay appeared in court in a wheelchair after jumping from the 2nd floor jail balcony in December.
February 13th,
While awaiting trial, Nikolay committed suicide by hanging in his cell. He was able to do so between the 6 am breakfast check and the 7 am check using a makeshift rope from bits of cloth bedding and plastic from a bag. He used bar soap to cloud the small window to his cell and hung himself on a light fixture in his 6 foot tall cell out view of the security camera. No suicide note was left. Criticism came from his lawyer, Tommy Clickenbeard but I think Sheriff Capt. Jim Cooper said it best, “If someone is bent on killing themselves, they’re going to do it. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
Information sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Soltys
Dixon, Robyn. Glionna, John. "A Lifetime Punctuated by Violence". (Aug 31, 2001). Los Angeles Times.
Brown, Mareva. Martineau, Pamela. Stanton, Sam. "Rampage's roots remain a mystery". (Aug 26, 2001). Sacramento Bee.
Martin, Mark. "Some Say he was a bully, but others saw 'a good man'". (Aug 31, 2001). SF Gate
Makhnonos, Maryna. "Residents of Ternopil region town mourn victims of Sacramento murders". (Sept 16, 2001). The Ukrainian Weekly.
"California 'knife man' charged". (Sept 5, 2001). BBC News.
Bailey, Eric. "Accused Mass Killer Found Dead in Cell". (Feb 14, 2002). Los Angeles Times.
The Associated Press. "Murder suspect's 3-year-old son discovered dead". (Aug 22, 2001). The Berkeley Daily Planet.
Internet Crime Archives by Antonio Mendoza