another young woman in November, but this with more violent methods - both used a noose to strangle her and then hit her on the head with a meat cleaver. While the pair were burning the body, they noticed that an elderly man had seen them do it, but quickly sped away in his KAMAZ truck. Kosterkin murders Unwilling to leave any witnesses behind, Lokhtachyov and Safonov scrambled to find any information on the truck driver. They eventually learned that the man was a 73-year-old pensioner by the name of Kosterkin, who lived in the nearby village of Novosavinka. After some consideration, Lokhtachyov got drunk, stole his grandfather's sawed-off shotgun and went to Novosavinka by himself in the middle of the night. After burgling into Kosterkin's house and locating him, he shot the pensioner twice in the chest, before going into an adjacent room and shooting dead the man's 43-year-old son, who was still sleeping. Lokhtachyov then returned to Magnitogorsk and told Safonov what had happened. Due to a lack of evidence and suspects, the double murder quickly became a cold case. Final victims Lokhtachyov and Safonov soon resumed committing crimes together, killing three additional victims in December alone. The first of these victims was killed sometime early into the month in a manner similar to the previous ones, while the latter two were killed within a week of each other near the end of the month. The sixth victim was picked up from Karl Marx Avenue on Christmas and driven to the cement plant, where the two men raped and strangled her before throwing the body into a nearby pit and setting it ablaze. Safonov even took her sheepskin coat with him, possibly as a trophy. The seventh victim was picked up a week later, but the car stalled on the way to the cement plant near Tsementsik, leading Lokhtachyov and Safonov to rape and kill on the roadside and then drag the body to the pit. They lit the body on fire again and left, but this victim's body was not as badly affected as the others'. The final victim was killed sometime in early February 2004. After being confronted by the two at the local cinema, she was driven to the outskirts of the village of Kirsa, where she was raped and strangled. Lokhtachyov and Safonov then took the body to a nearby forest reserve, where they