A Rampage in New York | Maksim Gelman Killing Spree | Real Crime

[Music] in 2011 a 28 hour killing spree unfolded in New York City the amount of mayhem and murder that he left behind it's truly amazing slashing his way through the streets there was a whole pool of blood near that tree over there maksim gelman was a man on a mission of murder it was almost as he was a robot and he was programmed to kill as the clock ticked the body count rose it seems to me was gonna kill anybody in his way and with it the question what caused this small-time crook to commit his killing spree he knew what he did was wrong but he simply didn't care [Music] New York the 12th of February 2011 9 a.m. the typical hustle and bustle of the city that never sleeps belied the fact that this was a day unlike any other a killing spree was underway there were hundreds of cops and detectives that were assigned to us we were pulling people from all over the place anybody who was was working at that point in the detective bureau was assigned to this case detectives were frantically searching for Maksim Gelman the man whoever the last 28 hours had left for dead and three critically injured in a string of vicious stabbings random carjackings and indiscriminate assaults he was being reckless he was committing crimes in public he was driving around at a high rate of speed concerns were mounting that the out-of-control killer would soon strike again not only you were trying to contain what's what's happening but you're trying to find this guy so that he doesn't hurt anybody else so there is a lot of pressure that's put on the police department in a situation like this he was it seems becoming more and more unhinged and perhaps becoming more and more dangerous at the same time the hunt for Maksim Gelman sprawled across the length and breadth of the city New York City is a big place you can hide just about anywhere this is a dynamic situation that we're dealing with we have enough resources in New York City to do this we have the dogs and the helicopters and the license plate readers and the cars and the number of cops but still he's all over the place and we don't know where he's gonna pop up next the indiscriminate nature of the crimes committed meant that even a chance encounter with New York's most wanted man could prove fatal [Music] there was a sense of danger because people were realizing their life could be threatened and it would not be because he hated them or because he had a grudge against them it was because he was a guy who was out on the streets in public with knives and who was willing apparently to attack and maybe even kill anybody who got in his way that same morning jota's Ito a box-office ticket seller from Philadelphia was taking his daily commute into Manhattan unaware of the drama that was unfolding I got up super early I didn't make the commute and everything that he had done the day before had not yet made it to the Philadelphia papers so I was going into the city blind I had no idea well his day had begun like any other Joe would make a seemingly innocent decision that would change his life when I arrived at Penn Station that day there was construction on the 1:00 train on the tracks when I got up to the platform I had to make a decision do I stay on this platform or do I go to the other platform for whatever reason this day I decided well let me go to the other platform it's double the trains I'll get to work a lot quicker a suspected sighting of the spree killer and investigators scouring the subway system he was known to be in one set of tunnels connected to one subway line in one section of Manhattan it was at this point that the cordon began tightening the thing that really sent up a red flag where two police officers got on the train and they went right into the motorman's compartment so the police are actually driving with the conductor's going southbound trains and northbound trains looking through the tunnels because there's where we believe he is what I noticed is when they got on their radios were blasting they were on full blast they were loud they were active and it was definitely different than the norm finally the doors closed and now we're moving at a snail's pace so then I was really like what's going on here as the train finally pulled away from Penn Station Joe was about to come face-to-face with maksim gelman the most wanted man in New York City [Music] this guy just walks right in front of me and starts banging on the door to the mortar Minsk apartment and he looked kind of dirty disheveled and he starts banging on the door and he says let me in I'm sitting here going what is going on with this guy and lo and behold max is on the train where the cops are riding with the conductor's looking for him max turns around and he focuses in on one of the passengers who happened to be probably the biggest guy on the trains guy Joel azita so the next thing I know he's about two feet from me about three feet from the door looks right down at me I look up at him we make eye contact he takes out this big knife looks me dead in the eye he says you're gonna die [Music] in 2011 New York City would be struck by a killing spree carrying out a series of stabbings carjackings and assaults maksim gelman would stalk the streets for 28 hours 1994 New York City 17 years before the deadly spree six-year-old Maksim Gelman and his mother Svetlana immigrated to the United States from Ukraine settling in the Sheepshead Bay neighborhood at Brooklyn's southern tip his father left him early on in life his mother remarried lived with his mom and his stepfather he had no brothers and sisters he was an only child his early years would entail a succession of setbacks and personal struggles to find acceptance in his new surroundings max when he was young he was an outsider he definitely didn't have a lot of friends maybe felt shy or wasn't confident enough in himself I guess that's what kind of made him into a worst person Yeomans childhood was filled with trouble his potential for killing was something that developed early and remained with him until he was in his early 20s life at home was also turbulent for the young Maksim Max and his family he wasn't so great with them max expressed some just like in the way he stuck by the treated his mother you know love the respect his mother but his stepfather never respected him he would always refer to his father as [ __ ] in front of anyone you know I don't think that they ever had a normal relationship it turned out to be somewhat violent relationship Gilman's battles with his stepfather were repeated and the pair's obvious lack of affection for one another would prove an omen for the pointed altercation that was to come the 11th of February 2011 5:00 a.m. the now 23 year old maksim gelman was on the way to visit his mother it was to be for the last time maksim gelman went to his mother's house looking for his passport max thought he was being followed by the FBI and the DEA and the fate is called him the feds a lot of times and he was worried that the police were on to him because he was an alleged drug dealer and he wanted to flee the country he got there he knocked on the door he got in and this is where he runs into his stepfather of course at this point maxim appears to have been behaving in a pretty erratic fashion that could have been enough to to start tension with anybody believed to be under the influence of drugs gell-mann's curious behavior quickly began to arouse the suspicions of his parents max got into an argument with his mother and his stepfather regarding the car he wanted the keys because his feeling and one might call delusions about the DEA to get him his behavior was really unusual he was becoming more disturbing the tensions rising inside the Gelman house were about to erupt something in Max's head at that point snapped and you know he picked up the weapon of opportunity at that point which was the knife unleashing a display of savage violence Maxim's anger would boil over into murder he stabbed his stepfather over 50 times a knife is a much more personal weapon almost anybody can be trained to pull a trigger but to actually plunge a knife into the body of a victim until he's dead indicates a tremendous amount of anger the wounds were incredibly severe he couldn't have survived that there was very close range stab and that sort of gave me the impression that max was acting out of some sort of more than natural rage the other thing of course it can tell us about gentlemen is that Gelman was a very spontaneous individual and his rage was very quick to flourish and long-lasting after his mother called 9-1-1 elective Joe Giacalone would begin to coordinate a response to gell-mann's crime at that point it was just a domestic violence murder that's that's the way it was being handled it was a fight between the stepfather and the stepson and it ended in murder and that we were looking for this guy Maksim Gelman we knew his name at this point but we didn't understand the consequences of what else was happening with the information available in these early stages few could have foreseen the frenzy that was to come with the blood of his stepfather on his hands and authorities heading his way Gelman fled so he figures he needs to get out of town at this point so he takes everything any leads initially from what we know he was on his way out and then decided to come back in and figure it out now he wants to settle some scores while detectives began their investigation at the Gelman house Maksim would head back into the city and towards the home of 20 year old yelena bulchenko Yelena was a very pretty girl she was smart she was funny very sensitive very sweet girl we already made plans from Valentine's Day you know I bought her our heart necklace everything was set in place Yelena and Jerrod were no strangers to Maksim Gelman me Elena and him had drove driven to Long Island to visit someone and things went well I mean there was nothing out of the ordinary we were with each other basically for most of the morning Gilman however seemed to believe that he and Yelena were more than just friends she didn't feel that his attitude towards relationships with women was one scarred by a sordid early encounter he never really had a girlfriend and I think what really tore him from reality is his first sexual experience he had sex with a girl from the high school and I think after that he ended up getting serious STD how he told me was that he has lumps and that they weren't able to be even surgically removed he kind of knew that he wouldn't be able to have a normal life anymore him and Yelena would really never be able to be a couple he fixated on Yelena an individual who showed him some kindness in passing and that became so much more meaningful to him because he had nothing else in his life [Music] although his advances were rejected Gelman would continue to pursue Elena Elena changed her number because max kept on you know calling her over and over and over again to the point where she was you know she was she didn't want to have that you know she didn't want him to be bothered you know she was in a relationship with me she didn't want to you know be stalked I think Helena's rejection really caused him to kind of become a stalker he had showed up at her house one time he was looking for her he started banging on the door going crazy saying you know I'll kill you if you don't open the door and all these different types of things she had really little interest in speaking with him but his the way he was reacting to her made some people say in retrospect that there were warning signs that he could become very dangerous the 11th of February 2011 10:00 a.m. 5 hours since the spree began Sheepshead Bay New York located merely a few blocks from the scene of his previous crime Gelman would arrive at the bulchenko residence he drove to Yelena's mother's house and confronted her while she was on the phone the person that was on the phone was able to overhear the conversation that was going on and from what the the caller stated was that you could tell it was an argument right off the bat max wanted a no way Yelena was and Elena's mom didn't want to give it up [Music] Anna's refusal to divulge the details of her daughter's whereabouts meant she would face the sharp end of Maxim's violent temper max grabs the knife you know he just puncturing you know the mother like torturing her kind of thing where he's trying to get information out of her where your Lane is I think that max probably knew that he was not going to get away with his crimes and that it would more satisfy him to do what he had to do and you know in terms of the consequences let him you know he didn't care and eventually I think max just gets tired of the of the game that he's playing with her and he finally plunged the knife into her and kills him the injuries were similar to the injuries to his stepfather pretty much violent multiple stab wounds Anna is protecting her daughter at all cost and she makes the ultimate sacrifice oblivious to the horrors unfolding at her home Yelena would get wind of gell-mann's earlier crimes Yelena got a phone call letting her know that you know Max had killed his father in the morning now this is about three o'clock you know the 3:30 I see Lena's walking home max got back in his car and he was driving up and down the blocks and just looking for any sign of her and during this time period Yelena comes home on her arrival Yelena would be confronted by a scene of cruel violence she discovered her mother's body and you know freaked out as anybody would it was a terribly horrendous bloody scene and she is now outside of her house crying and she's calling on the cell phone calling the police calling anybody who will uh you know come and help her I get a phone call I have nowhere from Yelena's friend and she tells me oh you mean his mom has been stabbed and I'm like what what are you talking about when you're talking at first I thought you know this was a super a stupid prank call I was like you know stop playing with me you know it's not cool she's like no I'm serious you Elena just got off the phone with me so I was like all right I'm on my way yet unbeknownst to Gerard he was not the only one heading in Alana's direction at this time max arrives back at the house after failing to find her at work or out in the street to see him there she probably put two and two together pretty quickly so she runs to a neighbor Jared's concerned for the safety of his girlfriend would quickly develop we were just driving as fast and fast as possible running red lights doing whatever we needed to do to get there I kept on calling and call it the more I kept on trying the more nervous I became and I started going crazy in the backseat of the car you know this can't be real this can't be happening I started crying going crazy yelling screaming get there get there you gotta be there we gotta get there we gotta know what's going on as an argument ensued outside the bulchenko home Gelman was determined to take revenge against Yelena for her rejection of him max basically overpowers a neighbor and just goes to kill him and he stabs her and he walks away he gets in the car and I guess he figures that you know what happens if she's still alive so he gets back out of the car and basically in front of people he stabs her again he really wanted her dead 11 hours into his spree Maksim Gelman was now responsible for the death of a third innocent victim my friends and I parked right near the police barricade and I just jumped over the barricade and those cops all in front of our house and I ran over near her house and then I guess they couldn't see me at first so the police grabbed me who are you who you guys like I'm my boyfriend where is she and she wasn't there and there was a whole pool of blood on that near that tree over there [Music] and you could just see that this is something something that doesn't normally happen something outrageous I've been crazy [Music] on examining the evidence at their disposal the reality of the danger they were facing began to dawn on detectives after this incident we're starting to the police starting to put two and two together that there is a link between all of these murders and if we don't stop this guy he's going to kill more people there's no question about it the most dangerous person to deal with in the world is that person who has nothing to lose the 11th of February 2011 4:30 p.m. a killing spree was underway in New York the normally quiet neighborhood of Sheepshead Bay was at its epicenter having murdered his stepfather at 5:00 a.m. that morning maksim gelman had now claimed the lives of three in little over 11 hours as investigators descended on the scene of his latest double crime the slayings of mother and daughter Ana and Jelena bulchenko and increasingly out-of-control Gelman would attempt to evade their attentions max fled in a hurry after killing Yelena [Music] max just was enraged and determined to kill in making his getaway Gelman would again demonstrate his apparent disregard for anyone who might stand in his way as he's fleeing he runs over Stephen Tannenbaum who was an older gentleman he was actually a coin collector and dealer and he was in the crosswalk and and Max just ran him down and he was he was pretty much dead at the scene he just kept on driving didn't stop didn't flinch he just kept on going now the detectives understood they were dealing with a spree of connected killings their efforts to apprehend the culprit would intensify however finding one man amongst a city of millions posed police with a significant problem you have to learn how to play chess as the police where you have to think sometimes two or three moves ahead of the bad guy one of the first steps when you're what we call hunting for a known perpetrator is you try to find out where they've been in the past where they've lived who their friends are if he's ever been arrested anywhere else because these are the places that you'd likely show up again leaving no stone unturned detectives would enlist known associates of Gelman to assist with the search we got a you know strong knock on our door and I opened it and there were probably around eight detectives asking me about max and they said you know max murdered someone but they asked me to maybe help them to look for him I was basically driving with the police and it was really insane I couldn't believe the amount of police that they were outside Gellman however was able to stay one step ahead of his pursuers turning his knowledge of the city's abandoned train tracks to his advantage the train tracks that maksim gelman apparently used as a getaway route are in a really desolate area they run along a sunken bed that cuts through neighborhoods his understanding of this underground network had developed during his years as a graffiti writer when we would write together we only wrote like in uh in places where it was kind of abandoned where nobody would be around us Maksim would use his artistic outlet to express his attitudes on the way he viewed the world he would write things like nothing to lose you know just these like hopeless kind of quotes I guess he was looking for help but they don't know how to find it his reputation as an eccentric would also develop amongst those that moved in the same circles he would make you know voices a gangster or what you see on TV you know a mobster when he would start an altercation with somebody he would talk to him in his voice and people just thought like what's wrong with this guy he was just I guess a sick person gell-mann's affectations towards the gangster lifestyle would eventually be reflected in his reality what I know he was selling cocaine he was selling heroin he was selling pills and all types of different things he was involved in terms of his drug use with angel dust or PCP it's a drug that's not common among drug users because of the ill effects that it has it takes over a person's whole mind it can lead to aggressive violent behavior years before the spree began friends would come face-to-face with maxims violent unpredictability I'm just walking down the street and Mack sees me in his car and he pulls over and he jumps out with a knife and he definitely wanted to you know cause harm to me and he was you know basically jabbing a knife at me Max was very unpredictable and it was very dangerous you know this was somebody who you can't imagine is actually out on the streets the 12th of February 2011 1:00 a.m. Crown Heights Brooklyn five miles away and eight hours on from his last confirmed sighting maksim gelman would begin the second stage of his ever escalating spree maksim gelman had not been seen for several hours but around 1:00 a.m. he showed up in Crown Heights some distance away from Midwood where the police were looking for him mac shows back up on on the grid and he decides that he needs another car he needs to still get away so he comes across a livery cab that's parked on the side of the road for the driver of the cab fits Fullerton it would be a fare he would never forget maxim got into the backseat then as they were driving along he attempted to commandeer the cab he tried to take it over and the taxi crashed and Maxim fled he estab he had left so you know fortunately he survived now Max is still on the hunt for another car and now he probably realizes once this gets notified to the police that the police are gonna have a bead on him where he's showing up next Gelman however was not to be deterred in his quest to commandeer a car a matter of minutes later and little more than a mile away from the Fitz Fullerton scene he would strike again he comes across Sheldon partager who was outside of a church waiting for his family to come out he jumps into the car and he takes off in the car he stabs Sheldon and he tells him as he's driving 6070 miles an hour he tells him to get out and can you imagine being in this position where you've just been stabbed you're carjacked and now you're driving 60 70 80 miles an hour wherever it may be and he tells you your best bet is to jump out of a car to survive well Sheldon jumps out of the car he miraculously survives this guy was driving fast and I pushed myself for the car hold a knife and I'm hoping and do I push myself on and I fell on the floor I get up when I start running I run back down to the church Gelman would however leave behind a clue that would prove crucial in his undoing he abandoned the Nissan nearest subway station in Queens and what he did for the next few hours is unclear when he found out about Sheldon pottinger's car that that license plate mmediately transmitted to every police officer in the city that's working and a couple of patrol cops in Queens double stumbled upon the car near the subway station so the police thought put two and two together that he probably hopped on a train with detectives now alerted to gell-mann's most recent movements the elusive killer would once again go to ground he was next seen hours later around 8:30 a.m. in the subway system in Manhattan as the spree entered its 28 hour news of Gilman's exploits have made the front page max is on the downtown tree and as he's walking through the cars he sees his face on the front of one of the newspapers he pretty much you know knocks the paper out of a woman's hand she became very frightened and upset she got off the subway she found police officers on the subway platform and told them that she was pretty sure she had just encountered maksim gelman the irrationality of Gellman clearly shows that he wasn't acting on thought or cognition Galman of course is a spontaneous reactor he's not a planner he's not a thinker he's just enjoying the high and living it while he can with reports regarding gell-mann's whereabouts reaching police the focus of the citywide search would narrow centering in on the network of tunnels running beneath the streets there are very few ways to get out of the subway system in order for him to get out of that subway system now it would take I gotta act a Houdini to get out Gelman it seemed had backed himself into a corner the police set up a checkpoint at Penn Station Max's train was coming their way yet even with the odds of escape stacked against him Gelman would make another move that kept him a step ahead of the pursuing police he got off the train and left not via the platform but jumped onto the subway tracks crossed several tracks and then pulled himself into a train going the opposite direction and he is actually heading towards the busiest transit hub probably in the world Times Square with nowhere left to run Maksim Gelman would make one last desperate play and in doing so thrust unsuspecting commuter Jolla's Ito to the center of the story max decides that he's going to to hijack the train so he's banging on the door to the conductor he was banging on the door he was announcing that he was an official visitor and at this point max turns around and he grabs ahold of Joel azita I looked in his eyes he looked at my eyes there was nothing there it was the whole lights are on but nobody's home I mean it was almost as he was a robot and he was programmed to kill the part where he takes the knife out really happened in slow motion the initial stab almost seemed matter-of-factly he took out the knife it was huge and it was filthy and he plunges the knife right into my face right here I said okay we're in a fight now there's no thought process it's like you're in a savage mode it's just survival I kind of propelled myself from the seat now he has free rein of the back of my head and obviously at that point I can't see what he looks like when he was stabbing me when he was slicing me it was just a sense of urgency trying to get the knife away from the first time he swung up at me I tried to catch his wrist and I missed and he sliced me in the thumb the second time he sliced up at me I missed again and he sliced my tricep finally the third time flood he sliced his arm up I caught it with my hand I slammed his hand down the knife came out that's how I disarmed him after 28 hours Gilman's cruel killing spree have been brought to an end by the bravery of just one man after I disarmed him that's when the police came out of the mortar man's compartment and tapped me on the shoulder and said you can get up we got him yet despite Joe's aerobics the injuries he had sustained was severe while this was going on I am sitting on the subway see I just looked at Gelman and I said you better hope I die because if I don't I'm gonna come back and kill you [Music] in February 2011 New York City was subject to a 28 hour killing spree beginning in Brooklyn maksim gelman would take the lives of four and injure four more in a series of stabbings carjackings and assaults the spree would finally come to a close in the center of the Manhattan subway system after passenger Joe de Zito disarmed New York's most wanted man in hand-to-hand combat by 9 o'clock in the morning the this this finally came to a conclusion when the officer is able to handcuff him and get an ambulance get some help for the passenger that had been stabbed I mean this this poor guy was very fortunate to be alive in the aftermath of the altercation Joe was now left fighting for survival while I was sitting there and watching my life pour out of me I'm screaming we have to get this train moving I'm gonna die I can't die on this train when they lifted me from the seat I passed out and when they put me down I snapped out of it and I was up again and that that moment that was the first time I had felt any pain it was the worst pain I've ever felt Joe would soon begin to learn just how lucky he was to be alive I heard one of the officers call me likely and I didn't know what that meant and later on at the hospital my sister who was also a New York City police officer she knows Joseph do you know what that means I said no no she goes that means likely to die befitting the events of this unimaginable story its end would come in one of New York's most iconic locations ironically this all occurs above 42nd Street in Times Square that crossroads of the world he's walked out of the subway into the back of a police car in front of thousands of people watching what's going on but when the word goes out that he was he was finally under police control and everybody it was just a sigh of relief I remember sitting in the office and going you know you know who thank god that's over without the actions of Jonah's Ito that morning the number of victims claimed by Gelman could have been far higher I've been called a hero and I'm so appreciative for but that's not me I'm not I'm not a hero or that just I did what had to be done that day in court Gelman would show little contrition instead he would glory in the notoriety he had gained I would call his sentence a performance rather than a sentence his actions in Brooklyn Court that they were like every other thing he's ever done they're deplorable he kept them looking over to me smiling you know saying stupid things under his breath towards me looking at me I had to take measures to stop him from talking and but he always wanted to get it out I I don't know if he was trying to create that gangster persona because he knew that he was gonna spend the rest of his life in jail however despite his despicable behavior the victims of his crimes would be given a chance to have the last word I tried my best you know to keep my cool but he kept there looking at me and he kept on giving me a smirk and laughing or smiling and that's what got me I mean in my mind I was thinking you know tonight can I kill him in the courtroom this is like looking in the face of evil and I told I was like you're gonna you're gonna burn in hell I played out the scenario in my head about a thousand times I visualized what I wanted to say to him it was a little nerve-wracking to be honest but I looked at Max and I told him I had waited over a year to look into those eyes again I told him that you know I hope he enjoyed life in prison and that he had held to look forward to maksim gelman would plead guilty to each of his 13 charges including the murders of his stepfather Alexander Kuznetsov Anna and Jelena bulchenko and Stephen Tannenbaum he would be sentenced to a total of 225 years behind bars with the facts of this entirely unprecedented case established a crucial question still burned brightly what could have caused Maksim Gelman to conduct his killing spree was his plan that day to do all these things or was it just he snapped and and went off on the deep end because of the father in the morning you know we'll never know at best he had some form of paranoid element to his personality where his ways of interpreting the world and understanding what the world means he's seriously disordered the only motivation I could think that max would try to do this is me you know he had a long history of drug use maybe the drugs you know affected his brain in a certain way and just made him snap while there was never a determination that max was legally insane he would certainly exhibit exhibiting evidence of psychosis and sociopathic and psychopathic behavior so that that's the place they're in they're in a different place than a normal human being upbringing probably has a lot to do with it but there are productive members of society who had terrible upbringing and they were able to overcome it you know we know that he was not suffering from some severe mental illness he knew what he did was wrong but he simply didn't care he chose to do it and he was able to kill with moral impunity I think Gelman could represent a new different type of spree killer that we haven't really seen much of before he's an incidental spree killer he's trying to escape he's desperate to get away and he will kill people if he has to there is little doubt that the lives of those who lost loved ones will never be the same again Alena was a beautiful girl smart had a enormous future in front of her that was taken you know her brother lost the sister her brother lost her mother her father lost everybody he's in the house alone now I just hope that Maksim is suffering I sit here before you today knowing how lucky I am because I have no business being here I should be dead I should have been his fifth victim for gerard of all the difficult questions posed by the events of that day the hardest one to ask is what if I drive around this neighborhood a lot and I never come up the block it just brings me back to that day Fez like was yesterday you keep on thinking in your head if I was here I would I didn't go to work that day or if I was here 20 minutes 30 minutes earlier could I have stopped them get the hell out a little much [Music] you

Channel: Real Crime

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Keywords: real crime, crime documentary, true crime, killing spree hungerford massacre, killing spree episodes, killing spree full episodes, real stories, serial killer documentary, true crime documentaries, serial killer, true crime daily, most wanted, full length documentaries, documentary movies - topic, Maksim Gelman, new york stabbing news, new york stabbing spree

Id: o3WvJGO6zHM

Length: 45min 11sec (2711 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 22 2020