Vladimir Piniov (; 1957 – April 2001), known as The Bat Yam Homeless Killer, was a suspected Russian-Israeli serial killer thought to be responsible for the murders of at least three homeless people in Bat Yam between 1999 and 2000. Piniov killed himself shortly before his trial was due, and after his death, the bodies of two more potential victims were uncovered, leaving investigators to believe that he could've potentially had even more undiscovered victims.
Early life
Born in 1957, Piniov, who worked as a chemist in his native Russian SFSR, immigrated to Israel with his wife and three children in 1993, settling in Bat Yam's Ramat Hanassi neighborhood. Within a few months of arriving, however, his wife fled to a hostel for abused women, claiming that Piniov was abusive and had threatened to kill her on multiple occasions. As a result of this, Piniov severed all connections with his family in the following years and became homeless, developing an addiction to alcohol in the process. Eventually, he built himself a makeshift shack among the bushes in the sandy dunes of the city's industrial area, complete with mattresses and even an improvised Jacuzzi, crafted from an old bathtub with pipes connected to a nearby propeller. His new home eventually became a congregation for other homeless people to drink alcohol and use drugs. In 1998, Piniov underwent a psychiatric examination at the Abarbanel Hospital, where he was diagnosed with psychopathic schizophrenia. Despite the doctors' efforts, he refused any treatment, and since they couldn't detain him by force, he was released.
Murders
After returning to his hut where he resided with his girlfriend, Svetlana, Piniov started to get into arguments with other vagrants from time to time, accusing them of trying to encroach on his property. As a result, he would go on to kill at least three men during such arguments. His first victim was Ukrainian tourist Nikolai Grasimov, whom he strangled to death during the winter of 1999, burying his body in Bat Yam's sand dunes with another homeless man, Alexei Artmanov. Mere months later, Artmanov himself would be killed by Piniov, burying him with the assistance of an unidentified accomplice known only by the name "Buratino" (a Russian fictional character based on Pinocchio).
In July 2000, Piniov, got into an argument with Viatslav "Slava" Shwartz, who had recently moved in to live with Piniov and his girlfriend. Both men had been drinking heavily, and in his intoxicated state, Piniov hit Shwartz on the head with a blunt instrument before strangling him to death. After beating all over his deceased companion's body, he dragged it to a nearby tree, where he proceeded to bury it.
Arrest, confessions and suicide
At this time, police officers were investigating a separate homicide case when they randomly stumbled upon the body of a deceased homeless person. Superintendent Yitzhak Gatnio ordered that the case be treated as murder, since the man had peculiar marks around his neck, likely the result of strangulation, despite pathologists determining that it had been from natural causes. Coincidentally, a recently detaining juvenile offender reinforced his suspicions, when he claimed during his interrogation that the "dead should stay dead and you can't do anything about it." When pressed to elaborate further, the boy claimed that the people he was referring to had been buried in the sand dunes. Those claims were finally cemented when a sobered-up Svetlana came to the police station and announced that her boyfriend, a vagrant named Vladimir Piniov, openly confessed to her that he had killed several people and buried them in the dunes. On November 2, 2000, Piniov was arrested on suspicion of murder.
In his interviews, Piniov admitted to killing either four or five people, but struggled to remember the exact count because he had been drunk on each occasion. Despite this, he accurately described where the burial sites were, adding that he would sometimes excavate and even rebury the corpses as he saw fit. His rationale for killing them were either personal arguments or attempts to trespass on his territory. In his testimony, Piniov also mentioned that he had seen another set of human bones, likely that of a female, having been buried in the dunes, but was unable to recall whether he had killed her or not. When asked what happened to his accomplice, "Buratino", Piniov claimed that he had fled to Eilat, but his claims were dismissed by police, who believed that the latter had been killed as well. Due to the sheer brutality of his crimes, Piniov was given the nickname "Hannibal" by the investigating officers.