The Killer Speaks (2012) s01e02 Episode Script
Mad Maks: Maksim Gelman
Every murder He was waving the knife, slashing at the neighbor's coat.
Holds secrets.
I can't tell you why he did it.
When you're stabbing somebody dozens of times, you're talking about overkill.
The victim can't speak These victims were no match for this guy.
And the killer won't What was on his mind, we're not sure of.
He is pure evil.
Until now.
Kicked the door, and she ran to the kitchen where she had, like, a wooden knife set.
She said, "I'll never tell you where my daughter is.
" At least she died in honor.
I'm all right.
I'm good.
My name's Maksim Gelman.
People call me Max.
The media called me Mad Max.
In February 2011, Maksim Gelman unleashed his madness on New York City.
He butchered four people And wounded four others.
What was so crazy about it was the 28-hour span.
This very personal violence inflicted with knives.
For 28 hours, he rampaged through the city, assaulting, carjacking, stabbing, killing in unpredictable spurts.
While eluding the NYPD tracking his gruesome trail.
The entire city held their breath in terror until the frenetic showdown deep under the streets of the city.
If the police had not finally found him, there's no telling how much more horror he could have inflicted on this city.
We have no reason that we can give you as to why he did this.
Now, for the first time, Gelman reveals the chilling details behind his brutal crimes.
As long as you don't get caught for it, there's nothing wrong with it.
You know, once you're in that life and you're in the streets, that's part of the game.
I'm just somebody that got caught for it.
That's it.
And I did it in a very reckless manner.
Forensic psychiatrist Dr.
Sasha Bardey examined Gelman in prison after his arrest in 2011.
You have a resentful person, and he was likely born lacking a certain amount of empathy to others.
You add drugs on top of that, you end up with this set of circumstances that, I think, led to the commission of these brutal murders.
Sheepshead bay, Brooklyn.
It's a neighborhood a large immigrant population of former Soviet union residents, be they Russians or Ukrainian, and a low crime rate.
You know, not known for homicides.
5:20 A.
M.
A 911 call comes in from an hysterical woman in a quiet residential block.
When NYPD responds, they find a bloodbath 54-year-old Alexander Kuznetsov dead on the floor from multiple stab wounds.
The number of stab wounds and their severity demonstrated there was no question that it was done with an intent to kill.
Investigators learned from the victim's wife that she witnessed the whole murder and that the killer is 23-year-old Maksim Gelman, her only son.
For Gelman, the shocking crime was a culmination of the anger and paranoia that had been building inside, fueled in part by his use of PCP.
Smoked angel dust once in a while.
Angel dust makes me calm and relaxed.
PCP is a drug A potent drug.
It gives you energy, makes you invincible or feel invincible It delays sensations of pain, and it can give you an incredible drive to just keep going on and on.
According to Gelman, he was a mid-level drug dealer working in South Brooklyn, moving tens of thousands of dollars of cocaine and oxycontin a week.
I had clientele that were, like, doctors, lawyers, pharmacists.
These people were paying $100 a gram for a gram of cocaine, and I could see 30, 40 people on a daily basis.
By his account, he became a successful drug dealer.
By other accounts, he was a user who did a little dealing to procure drugs.
Dr.
Bardey believes Gelman created an inflated self-image to elevate his low self-esteem.
To bolster his sense of himself, he needs to conjure up this grandiose sense of himself so that he can find a path in the world.
Even though Gelman had racked up six felony arrests for robbery, graffiti, and harassment, he'd never been arrested for dealing.
But in early February 2011, he becomes convinced the feds are on to him.
I went and purchased a kilo of cocaine, and when I was driving back on the Brooklyn bridge, every car that was around me had official plates.
All these cars were following me, and my cell phone was dying very fast the battery.
My text messages were messed up, and my cell phone was calling people by itself.
At that time, I kind of put it together.
The feds they tapped my cell phone, and they were following me.
I didn't want to get caught with a kilo, so I ended up ripping it open and throwing it in the water.
That night, Gelman claims he was paranoid and desperate.
He comes up with a plan.
It's best that I just lay low and don't do anything from now on, so that night, I ordered some tickets to Dominican Republic.
But first, he needs his passport and to say goodbye to the most important person in his life, the one woman he loved and trusted completely, his mother.
My real father died in Russia.
I never even seen him.
So at 5:00 in the morning, I ended up going to my mother's house to get my passport.
And I'm waking her up, "listen, I just need my passport.
" You know, "I got into some things and I have the feds on me, and I have to lay low.
" And she thought I was drunk.
Gelman and his mother have always protected each other, ever since emigrating from the Ukraine when he was just seven.
So she takes my keys.
"You can't be driving.
You've been drinking.
" I'm like, "mom, listen, this is serious.
I got to get out of here.
" And then my stepfather comes in.
Gelman despised his stepfather, Alexander Kuznetsov, who married Gelman's mother when Gelman was a teen.
I developed a disgust for him 'cause he would get drunk, and he wouldn't be respectful, certain times, to my mother, and I didn't like that.
He became angry and resentful at his stepfather for stealing his mother from him, and he has to compete with to get his mother's attention and his mother's love, so that set up a hostile dynamic.
So this guy comes in stinking.
This fat, ugly Russian with some dirty briefs and a gut, talking all kind of obscenities in Russian.
I was paranoid, and I was angry.
I don't want to hear his [bleep.]
.
Gelman's paranoia turns to rage, and his rage turns to something worse, something evil.
Mad Max is about to come out.
So I stabbed him with one of the kitchen knives.
He's begging for help, screaming for my mother.
"Sveta, Sveta, pozvonit politsiya.
" "Call the police.
Call the police.
He's killing me.
He's killing me.
" When the kitchen knife breaks during the attack, Gelman turns to a carving fork.
Mad Max stabs his stepfather a total of 55 times.
It was a deluge of anger and rage and resentment that came pouring out.
The act is no longer so much about disabling the individual.
It's about letting go of rage.
It becomes a pleasurable activity.
My mother She picked up the phone, and I looked at her.
I'm like, "she's not gonna call the police," and I kept stabbing him.
I didn't think nothing of it.
She picked up the phone, and she called the police, and I was shocked.
I was like, "my own mother called the police on me.
" I love my mother.
I would never hurt my mother.
Took the keys, and I left.
NYPD learns from Gelman's mother that he is driving a 2004 silver Lexus.
They issue a B.
O.
L.
O.
alert to patrol units in sheepshead bay and throughout the city.
And so now Gelman was the target of a police pursuit and manhunt.
Three hours after the killing, Gelman has already fled the city.
Once he killed his stepfather, he had a choice: He could either stop there, but if he stops, he has to face the horrible nature of what he's done.
As Gelman drives on, a twisted logic takes hold of him.
I realized I got the feds on me, and now I just caught a body, and I'm probably not gonna come home anytime soon.
If he's going down, he's not going down alone.
The people that were snitching on me, they're working with the feds.
They're people who've done things to me All these people, in Gelman's sick mind, must die.
- 'Cause they were rats.
- The floodgates are open.
He is full of adrenaline, making him feel very strong, maybe making him feel powerful for the first time in his life.
Gelman turns his car around.
He heads back to Brooklyn, his first destination: the home of his former friend 20-year-old Yelena Bulchenko.
She set me up to get robbed, you know.
You know, she pretty much marked herself for death over there.
Rage is a potent emotion, kind of like when you push yourself off the top of a ski slope there's that rush that becomes intoxicating, and you don't want to stop.
Mad Max is out for his own deranged brand of justice.
I mean, when you're in the streets, there's certain things you don't do.
For every action, there's a reaction, you know? Karma's a bitch.
In the early morning hours of February 11, 2011, Maksim Gelman murdered Alexander Kuznetsov, stabbing him 55 times in his mother's Brooklyn home.
It would be human for him to feel remorse for what he did But he doesn't.
People, like they can't understand that.
[Bleep.]
happens.
I didn't plan for it to happen.
You know, sometimes things happen in life.
9:00 A.
M.
Brooklyn, New York City.
Gelman moves with a singular purpose.
There was about four or five more people that I wanted to kill.
All the people who've betrayed him He's gonna right all those wrongs, and that's a self-deception.
In all likelihood, none of that ever happened.
20-year-old Yelena Bulchenko, a former friend who lives only four blocks from his mother's house.
Renata Sandra shlai and Yelena were as close as sisters.
Yelena came from a really good family.
You know, I lost both my parents, so Yelena was really there for me.
Her and her mother were like family to me.
Yelena was a beautiful girl.
She was a straight "A" student through high school.
Soon after they met, her boyfriend, Gerard Honig, noticed a change in Yelena.
She was doing things that she shouldn't be doing.
You know, there were drugs in the picture.
She started to slip in school.
I do blame the influences that were around her at the time.
Maksim Gelman, who went by his street name, "Wes," was one of those influences.
She had told me a few times, "you know, I think Wes likes me.
" She never had a thing for him at all.
Wes was scary to her.
Well, when I met her, you know, she was very easygoing, and, you know, she was cool and stuff, you know? She was attracted to me, and we flirted and whatnot.
I thought she was, you know she was all right.
Gelman claims he paid Yelena to help him with his drug runs.
I told her, "I'll pay you, you know, "a couple hundred dollars a day if you drive me around and be my driver.
" But their friendship unraveled, upsetting Gelman, so when his stash house was allegedly burglarized, he convinced himself Yelena was involved.
She set me up to get robbed, you know? She fooled me.
Now, only four hours after he killed his stepfather, Gelman wouldn't be satisfied until he got to Yelena as well.
I went to McDonald's, got a strawberry milkshake, some chicken nuggets.
Then I went by Yelena's house.
At Yelena's house, it's the start of a usual day for her mother, Anna, who works out of her home as a travel agent.
She is home alone.
She was on the phone with a customer when Max rang the doorbell.
The customer was able to hear Why was Max here and what was he doing here and that she didn't have time for any of his nonsense, and the next thing he knows is, he heard a scream, and the phone went dead.
No one knows what really happened in the house.
Except Gelman.
Her mother opened the door.
She invited me in, and I was like, "where's Yelena?" Anna knows at a friend's house two blocks away.
I was like, "where's Yelena?" She's like, "she's at work.
" I'm like, "where does she work?" And she wouldn't tell me.
She was like, "why are you asking all these questions?" Gelman will stop at nothing to get Anna to talk.
He stabs her repeatedly with a small knife.
It's just him essentially torturing this woman to kind of up the ante.
It's how he sees himself, living this kind of fantasy as a gangster, of taking these lives.
She told me She's like, "okay, okay.
I'll tell you where she is.
" And she tried to trick me, and then she ran for the door.
She opened the door, and there was a neighbor outside.
I ended up kicking the door closed so he didn't see it.
Then she ran to the kitchen, where she had, like, a wooden knife set, and I found the big knife.
And I'm thinking, "I can't get Yelena "'cause she's not here.
"Might as well get her mother 'cause she's the closest person to her.
" Gelman stabs Anna with the big kitchen knife a dozen times.
While I was stabbing her, she said, you know, "I'll never tell you where my daughter is.
" I mean, she died in honor.
She didn't die like a coward, you know.
I drove by kings highway.
I was looking for Yelena's job.
She worked as a dental assistant on kings highway.
When he has no luck finding Yelena, Gelman claims he went after others he believed had betrayed him.
I went by this kid [bleep.]
's house, and he wasn't there.
Then I went to [bleep.]
's house two times.
He's the one who set me up with the feds.
Ten hours into Gelman's rampage, completely unaware of the horrors of the day, Yelena leaves her friend's house and starts walking home.
Meanwhile, Yelena's best friend, Renata, gets word the police are looking for Gelman.
I was at work.
I got a message from a friend of mine, and it was a "wanted" picture with Wes's face on it.
Renata immediately calls Yelena.
I was like, "listen, when's the last time you spoke to Wes?" And she said, "I haven't spoken to him "in about six, seven months.
Why? What's going on?" I just kept telling her, "I'm really worried about you.
" And then she was like, "don't worry, I'll be fine.
" She said, "I'm actually putting the key "into the door as we speak.
I'll call you back.
" What Yelena finds inside is unimaginable.
Yelena found her mother's body, called 911, and was on the phone in a quite hysterical tone.
The same time Yelena is calling 911, Gelman decides to drive by Yelena's house one last time.
At Yelena's house, she waits outside for police and fire rescue to arrive.
She then calls a girlfriend who, in turn, breaks the news to Yelena's boyfriend, Gerard.
She's like, "oh, my God.
Oh, my God! "Yelena's mother's been stabbed.
She can't get ahold of you.
" So off the bat, I'm thinking, "Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Let's go.
" Trying to get there as fast as possible because I'm calling Yelena's phone the entire time, and I'm not getting anything.
I'm not getting her.
But while Gerard is frantically racing to Yelena's house, Gelman arrives.
And I seen she was outside on the telephone.
I pulled up in her driveway, and I have the knife tucked in my sleeve, so When I walked up to her, she just said, "Wes?" February 11, 2011.
Brooklyn, New York.
Maksim Gelman is in the 11th hour of his 28-hour killing spree that began with the brutal murder of his stepfather.
When the deranged killer couldn't find his second target, Yelena Bulchenko, he savagely murdered her mother, Anna, instead.
Gelman is very much intoxicated by this violence that he's perpetrating.
In his own sort of distorted mind, this is the high point of his life.
This is as notorious as he'll ever be, and as soon as he stops it, it's over.
Yelena is outside her house, waiting for fire rescue to respond to her 911 call for her mother who lies dead inside.
Then Gelman pulls up to the curb.
I have the knife tucked in my sleeve, so When I walked up to her, she just said, "Wes?" And she didn't see the knife.
All her neighbors were outside.
She ran to her neighbor's, grabbed one of the neighbor's hand.
One of the neighbors tries to intervene, and Max goes around him.
He was waving the knife, slashing at the neighbor's coat.
Yelena's hooked on the back of him for dear life, saying, "he's gonna [bleep.]
kill me.
Please help me, somebody.
" The neighbor's in the middle.
They get into a wrestling match.
Gelman overpowers the neighbor and pushes him away.
He then stabs Yelena with the same kitchen knife he used on her mother.
She took a couple steps, fell down.
I got back in the car.
I backed up.
Then I was like, "maybe she's not dead.
" Picked her up by her hair.
He had cut her throat from side to side.
Tried to chop her head off.
While Gelman is still stabbing her, fire rescue, responding to Yelena's 911 call for her mother's murder, approaches the house.
One fireman sees the sees Max and chases him down the block.
But Gelman manages to outrun him and speeds off in his car.
At the same time, the other responders desperately try to save Yelena's life.
She was alive when she left the scene.
She was blinking.
One of the ambulanced drivers taps me on my back, and he's like, "I don't know if she's gonna make it," and I fall to my knees.
Within minutes, patrol units begin rushing to Yelena's house.
It was funny, 'cause the police had a apb on my car, and I drove by them.
They were looking dead at me.
Gelman immediately abandons his lexus in the middle of the street and approaches a nearby Pontiac.
The driver has no idea he's facing a triple murderer.
I went to the guy, knocked on his window, said, "excuse me, sir.
" Guy lowered his window.
I jumped through his window, pulled out the knife.
I told him, "get the [bleep.]
out the car.
" The guy just looked at me like I'm crazy.
You know, he wasn't taking me serious.
Gelman stabs the driver twice.
He jumped out the car, and I drove away.
The 57-year-old man is taken to the hospital in critical condition.
He came fairly close to dying.
He was seriously hurt.
But he manages to survive.
I just needed the car.
I didn't want to kill no innocent people.
I needed to get around.
They're not gonna give up the car just like that.
He's starring in his own little action movie, and he's the star of the show.
And I do think he's on this kind of Bonnie and Clyde kind of ride, going out with a blaze of glory.
Now in the stolen car, Gelman races away from the scene.
And I was running every stop sign and red light.
At a nearby intersection, 62-year-old Steven Tanenbaum is crossing the street.
I heard something a noise on the roof.
I didn't even see anything.
All I seen was a crack in the windshield, and the guy ended up flying over the car.
Pontiac that he had just stolen smashes into Mr.
Tanenbaum.
Can you hear me? Tanenbaum, a rare coin expert, is taken to the hospital, where he is pronounced dead.
So that, ultimately, is the fourth homicide victim that Max is responsible for.
That was a total accident.
That guy had nothing to do with nothing, and I was just trying to get away 'cause the police were right there.
I wasn't stopping.
Responding cops soon connect Tanenbaum's hit-and-run to Gelman.
This was really a tornado of terror.
You never knew where Maksim Gelman was going to touch down and who he was going to affect next.
With his victim count at five and threatening to rise This is a dire situation.
There's going to be more attacks if you don't stop this guy.
The world's most sophisticated police force launches an all-out manhunt for Gelman.
The police used every resource they had.
There are hundreds of police officers.
And the media kicks into high gear.
Police are searching for a man behind a deadly stabbing spree in Brooklyn.
Police are looking for 23-year-old Max Gelman, who's suspected of stabbing his stepfather to death.
Later in the day, police say he stabbed and killed two women at 24th street.
They recovered a knife at the scene.
But as night falls, Gelman seems to have vanished.
What was so crazy about it was that the police couldn't find him.
The police, the media, and the entire city of New York wondered, "where is mad Max?" Where he was, we don't know.
And what was still on his mind, we're not sure of.
Coming up So if I get the conductor, you know, I'll put the knife to him.
Then I could hijack the train to get out of there.
On February 11, 2011, Maksim Gelman went on a murderous rampage fueled by a twisted sense of payback.
12 hours into his spree, the cold-blooded murderer has already left four dead and another seriously wounded in his wake.
As the NYPD continues their search for Gelman, family and friends of Anna and Yelena Bulchenko are left devastated.
There was just no reason why.
Gelman claims betrayal is the reason, but then he also claims that Yelena was his driver.
Yelena was absolutely not his driver.
Yelena didn't even know how to drive.
So what could have motivated Gelman? He would text her or give her a call.
"Do you want to hang out? Do you want to chill?" She would say no 'cause she was with me.
Why did he call her so many times that she had to change her phone number? He couldn't comprehend that she didn't love him back.
She loved me.
To this day, Gelman still carries pictures of Yelena.
Oh, we used to go out, you know, and party.
I have pictures with a lot of my friends.
She cleaned her act up and, as part of that, quit Gelman.
He perceived that as an abandonment that was devastating.
I think that unrequited love was a huge narcissistic blow to him.
So rather than becoming sad and depressed the way most people would, he became angry and vengeful.
12 hours into Gelman's rampage, darkness falls over Brooklyn, and he has disappeared.
I went by Avenue H, so I hopped over the fence, went to the freight tracks.
I hid out over there 'cause there was helicopters flying around and all that.
Gelman hides in tunnels next to the abandoned freight tracks near the crime scenes.
These tunnels are his refuge, dating back to his tagging days as a teenager.
He would be ducking in and out of train tracks and under Bridges, and he was very expert at eluding the police.
18 hours after killing his stepfather, Gelman knows he needs to escape the police flooding Brooklyn.
Just before 1:00 A.
M.
, 25-year-old Sheldon pottinger is in his car, waiting for his wife after a late night church service.
All of a sudden, I saw this guy reach my door.
He pulled the door, and he pulled out a knife.
Just, like, a butcher knife.
Starts screaming, "I'm gonna kill you," and he keeps cursing.
"I'm gonna kill you.
Get out, get out.
" I was trying to use my foot to push him off, and he forced himself in the car.
Gelman steps on the gas and pushes pottinger to the passenger seat.
He was fighting, he was kicking me, and I stabbed him.
I'm telling the guy, "get the [bleep.]
out the car," and he's like, "slow down.
" I'm not gonna slow down.
I'm like, "Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
" The car's moving fast.
The first thing comes to my mind is just to get out the car.
Figure, like, it doesn't matter if I lose a foot, you know, by jumping out the car.
As long as I'm alive, you know? I'm doing about 80 miles an hour.
This guy opens the door, jumps out the car.
He's, like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Does a bunch of front flips, backflips I'm looking at this guy.
I'm like, "wow, this guy is insane.
" Miraculously, pottinger survives with just two small stab wounds and several bruises.
Gelman escapes to the neighboring borough of queens in the stolen car.
I drove the car to queens.
I parked the car by a garage.
I just laid in the car until it was morning time.
24 hours since Gelman's killing spree began.
Queens, New York.
The car wouldn't start, so I started walking, and I went to the deli.
I got a gyro.
I got a soda.
And I seen some guy start to follow me.
Gelman believes Federal agents are once again on his trail.
So I went on the train, 'cause I wanted to see if this guy was following me, and he was.
Gelman gets on a Manhattan-bound subway.
On one of the stops, I just jumped out the doors, and I lost him.
Then I got on another train to go back downtown towards Brooklyn.
By 8:35 A.
M.
, Gelman is in Manhattan on a southbound train.
Out of the blue, he spots his mug shot.
I was standing there, and I seen a lady She had a newspaper.
And I was like, "wow, I'm making the newspaper.
" He's now reached notoriety, and I think it's incredibly emotionally gratifying at that moment.
He is now somebody.
The woman sees him, recognizes him, and she's so frightened that she gets off the train immediately at 96th street and tells the police.
8:43 A.
M.
NYPD finally gets a lead on Gelman's location.
There are very few ways out of the train system, so he kind of traps himself in the subway system.
NYPD quickly zeroes in on Gelman's train, one that's just pulling out of Times Square.
He showed up on a busy train in the busiest nexus of transportation.
It is as close to the center of the city as you can get between Times Square and penn station.
So somewhere between 34th street and Times Square, the police realize that they are close to him.
They immediately radio the motorman of the train.
Then they stop the train that there's a ongoing police investigation.
Gelman realizes he's been spotted and is cornered on a train stopped between stations.
So I jumped off the train into the train tunnel to train tracks, and I seen the police were entering with their flashlights.
I had my knife in my jacket, tucked in.
Gelman is trapped.
Then he sees a possible escape: a train slowly moving in the opposite direction.
I jumped onto the moving train in between carts.
I went to the conductor's booth, knocked on the door, I said "This is official business.
Open the door.
This is official business.
" 'Cause that way they'd think, you know, there's some kind of emergency, and they would open the door like I'm one of them.
So if I get the conductor, you know, I'll put the knife to him, you know, and I could hijack the train to get out of there.
And I said it even louder.
"This is official business.
Open the door right now.
" And a cop opened the door.
The morning of February 12, 2011.
Time is running out on Maksim Gelman's depraved killing spree.
Just after 9:00 A.
M.
, as NYPD is closing in near Penn station in Manhattan Mad Max comes up hijack a New York City subway train.
I went to the conductor's booth, knocked on the door, thinking that the conductor would open it and I could hijack the train to get out of there.
And a cop opened the door, so I took out the knife.
I went to stab the police officer.
I missed him by, like, a inch.
Went to stab him in the stomach.
He slammed the door right away.
And this bald guy who's all nosy "What was going on?" He was right there, and he was staring at me.
The bald man is 6'3", 270-pound Joe Lozito.
He turns to me, looks me in the eye.
I'm looking him in the eye.
Reaches in his jacket, takes out an 8-inch knife That seemed like it was in slow motion.
Now I'm looking at this knife.
And says, "you're gonna die.
You're gonna die.
" He brings his arm back, and I shot in for his legs.
And I shot in too high, and I ended up going around his waist.
Lozito throws Gelman off balance.
Together, they fall on the subway floor.
And he's behind my head, doing this to the back of my head, and I'm hearing him grunt.
I'm hearing him go Now I have blood pouring out of both sides of my neck.
The one thing that means more to me than anything is my family, and, um I don't know.
I have I have two sons and a wife, and nobody is gonna take me from them, especially not this guy.
So now the only chance I have is to get this knife away from him.
I was gonna have him as my hostage.
He was, like, the first seat right there, so all I had to do was just stab him by turning.
Three, four times.
I didn't really He kept trying to run away and, like, move around.
During the fight, one of the officers in the conductor's cabin sees an opening.
And while I was stabbing him, the police officer came out.
He pulled out the gun.
Cop was a big guy, you know? Pointed the gun at me, but I was still stabbing the guy, so he put the gun away back in his holster, and he grabbed both of my arms.
He overpowered me.
And that's how they caught me.
After 28 hours, four murders, four wounded, immeasurable mayhem, chaos, and destruction, the cold-blooded killer is finally apprehended in Times Square.
And suddenly, this awful reign of terror Has ended.
Joe Lozito is rushed to the hospital with seven stab wounds.
One head wound alone required over 20 stitches.
I was upset I was caught in jail.
That was about it.
I would have done it differently, you know.
What's done is done.
To this day, Gelman believes the feds were after him in the days before and during his killing spree.
I was pretty shocked, you know.
I was like that they actually allowed me to go on and kill all these people.
Maybe the feds and the NYPD had some kind of miscommunications or something, you know? But according to the Brooklyn D.
A.
's office, there was no surveillance by the feds on Gelman.
Wherever he turned, he said, in those moments, hours before the incident, he was seeing D.
E.
A.
agents.
They were just everywhere, and that's just not plausible.
I believe that Gelman was using and abusing angel dust.
Angel dust has profound long-lasting effects, and in my opinion, his use of PCP enhanced his paranoid view of the world.
Was this a cold, calculated crime spree committed by an enraged killer? Or was this the work of a madman? There's nothing human about what he did.
It is shocking to contemplate.
Gelman's defense attorney arranges for him to be examined by Dr.
Bardey for a possible insanity defense.
I spent a number of hours with him in a visiting room at riker's island.
I came to the opinion that Mr.
Gelman, at the time of the offense, was not suffering from a mental disease or defect, and he could appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions.
Gelman pleads guilty to four counts of murder and multiple counts of robbery, assault, and carjacking.
I was like, "I wouldn't want to be in a mental hospital for the rest of my life," 'cause there's people that are really mental.
As for the friends of Alexander Kuznetsov, Yelena and Anna Bulchenko, Steven Tanenbaum, and all the others touched by his violence, they are left wondering why.
Yelena was a beautiful girl, she had everything going for her, and she was taken way before her time.
And Anna she'd light up a room.
Make everyone laugh, smile.
They didn't have a mother and daughter relationship.
They were more like best friends.
This is a 56-year-old woman, mother of two, grandmother of a newborn.
He ruined an entire family.
Maksim Gelman has never shown any remorse for his unspeakable crimes.
In the courtroom, I'm sitting in front of the surviving family members of the Bulchenko family, and Maksim Gelman keeps staring at them, talking to the family members, taunting them, and he was saying awful things about Yelena, and I'll never forget this.
He is led out of the courtroom, and he's laughing maniacally cackling.
And you just know you've heard someone and witnessed someone who is pure evil.
Holds secrets.
I can't tell you why he did it.
When you're stabbing somebody dozens of times, you're talking about overkill.
The victim can't speak These victims were no match for this guy.
And the killer won't What was on his mind, we're not sure of.
He is pure evil.
Until now.
Kicked the door, and she ran to the kitchen where she had, like, a wooden knife set.
She said, "I'll never tell you where my daughter is.
" At least she died in honor.
I'm all right.
I'm good.
My name's Maksim Gelman.
People call me Max.
The media called me Mad Max.
In February 2011, Maksim Gelman unleashed his madness on New York City.
He butchered four people And wounded four others.
What was so crazy about it was the 28-hour span.
This very personal violence inflicted with knives.
For 28 hours, he rampaged through the city, assaulting, carjacking, stabbing, killing in unpredictable spurts.
While eluding the NYPD tracking his gruesome trail.
The entire city held their breath in terror until the frenetic showdown deep under the streets of the city.
If the police had not finally found him, there's no telling how much more horror he could have inflicted on this city.
We have no reason that we can give you as to why he did this.
Now, for the first time, Gelman reveals the chilling details behind his brutal crimes.
As long as you don't get caught for it, there's nothing wrong with it.
You know, once you're in that life and you're in the streets, that's part of the game.
I'm just somebody that got caught for it.
That's it.
And I did it in a very reckless manner.
Forensic psychiatrist Dr.
Sasha Bardey examined Gelman in prison after his arrest in 2011.
You have a resentful person, and he was likely born lacking a certain amount of empathy to others.
You add drugs on top of that, you end up with this set of circumstances that, I think, led to the commission of these brutal murders.
Sheepshead bay, Brooklyn.
It's a neighborhood a large immigrant population of former Soviet union residents, be they Russians or Ukrainian, and a low crime rate.
You know, not known for homicides.
5:20 A.
M.
A 911 call comes in from an hysterical woman in a quiet residential block.
When NYPD responds, they find a bloodbath 54-year-old Alexander Kuznetsov dead on the floor from multiple stab wounds.
The number of stab wounds and their severity demonstrated there was no question that it was done with an intent to kill.
Investigators learned from the victim's wife that she witnessed the whole murder and that the killer is 23-year-old Maksim Gelman, her only son.
For Gelman, the shocking crime was a culmination of the anger and paranoia that had been building inside, fueled in part by his use of PCP.
Smoked angel dust once in a while.
Angel dust makes me calm and relaxed.
PCP is a drug A potent drug.
It gives you energy, makes you invincible or feel invincible It delays sensations of pain, and it can give you an incredible drive to just keep going on and on.
According to Gelman, he was a mid-level drug dealer working in South Brooklyn, moving tens of thousands of dollars of cocaine and oxycontin a week.
I had clientele that were, like, doctors, lawyers, pharmacists.
These people were paying $100 a gram for a gram of cocaine, and I could see 30, 40 people on a daily basis.
By his account, he became a successful drug dealer.
By other accounts, he was a user who did a little dealing to procure drugs.
Dr.
Bardey believes Gelman created an inflated self-image to elevate his low self-esteem.
To bolster his sense of himself, he needs to conjure up this grandiose sense of himself so that he can find a path in the world.
Even though Gelman had racked up six felony arrests for robbery, graffiti, and harassment, he'd never been arrested for dealing.
But in early February 2011, he becomes convinced the feds are on to him.
I went and purchased a kilo of cocaine, and when I was driving back on the Brooklyn bridge, every car that was around me had official plates.
All these cars were following me, and my cell phone was dying very fast the battery.
My text messages were messed up, and my cell phone was calling people by itself.
At that time, I kind of put it together.
The feds they tapped my cell phone, and they were following me.
I didn't want to get caught with a kilo, so I ended up ripping it open and throwing it in the water.
That night, Gelman claims he was paranoid and desperate.
He comes up with a plan.
It's best that I just lay low and don't do anything from now on, so that night, I ordered some tickets to Dominican Republic.
But first, he needs his passport and to say goodbye to the most important person in his life, the one woman he loved and trusted completely, his mother.
My real father died in Russia.
I never even seen him.
So at 5:00 in the morning, I ended up going to my mother's house to get my passport.
And I'm waking her up, "listen, I just need my passport.
" You know, "I got into some things and I have the feds on me, and I have to lay low.
" And she thought I was drunk.
Gelman and his mother have always protected each other, ever since emigrating from the Ukraine when he was just seven.
So she takes my keys.
"You can't be driving.
You've been drinking.
" I'm like, "mom, listen, this is serious.
I got to get out of here.
" And then my stepfather comes in.
Gelman despised his stepfather, Alexander Kuznetsov, who married Gelman's mother when Gelman was a teen.
I developed a disgust for him 'cause he would get drunk, and he wouldn't be respectful, certain times, to my mother, and I didn't like that.
He became angry and resentful at his stepfather for stealing his mother from him, and he has to compete with to get his mother's attention and his mother's love, so that set up a hostile dynamic.
So this guy comes in stinking.
This fat, ugly Russian with some dirty briefs and a gut, talking all kind of obscenities in Russian.
I was paranoid, and I was angry.
I don't want to hear his [bleep.]
.
Gelman's paranoia turns to rage, and his rage turns to something worse, something evil.
Mad Max is about to come out.
So I stabbed him with one of the kitchen knives.
He's begging for help, screaming for my mother.
"Sveta, Sveta, pozvonit politsiya.
" "Call the police.
Call the police.
He's killing me.
He's killing me.
" When the kitchen knife breaks during the attack, Gelman turns to a carving fork.
Mad Max stabs his stepfather a total of 55 times.
It was a deluge of anger and rage and resentment that came pouring out.
The act is no longer so much about disabling the individual.
It's about letting go of rage.
It becomes a pleasurable activity.
My mother She picked up the phone, and I looked at her.
I'm like, "she's not gonna call the police," and I kept stabbing him.
I didn't think nothing of it.
She picked up the phone, and she called the police, and I was shocked.
I was like, "my own mother called the police on me.
" I love my mother.
I would never hurt my mother.
Took the keys, and I left.
NYPD learns from Gelman's mother that he is driving a 2004 silver Lexus.
They issue a B.
O.
L.
O.
alert to patrol units in sheepshead bay and throughout the city.
And so now Gelman was the target of a police pursuit and manhunt.
Three hours after the killing, Gelman has already fled the city.
Once he killed his stepfather, he had a choice: He could either stop there, but if he stops, he has to face the horrible nature of what he's done.
As Gelman drives on, a twisted logic takes hold of him.
I realized I got the feds on me, and now I just caught a body, and I'm probably not gonna come home anytime soon.
If he's going down, he's not going down alone.
The people that were snitching on me, they're working with the feds.
They're people who've done things to me All these people, in Gelman's sick mind, must die.
- 'Cause they were rats.
- The floodgates are open.
He is full of adrenaline, making him feel very strong, maybe making him feel powerful for the first time in his life.
Gelman turns his car around.
He heads back to Brooklyn, his first destination: the home of his former friend 20-year-old Yelena Bulchenko.
She set me up to get robbed, you know.
You know, she pretty much marked herself for death over there.
Rage is a potent emotion, kind of like when you push yourself off the top of a ski slope there's that rush that becomes intoxicating, and you don't want to stop.
Mad Max is out for his own deranged brand of justice.
I mean, when you're in the streets, there's certain things you don't do.
For every action, there's a reaction, you know? Karma's a bitch.
In the early morning hours of February 11, 2011, Maksim Gelman murdered Alexander Kuznetsov, stabbing him 55 times in his mother's Brooklyn home.
It would be human for him to feel remorse for what he did But he doesn't.
People, like they can't understand that.
[Bleep.]
happens.
I didn't plan for it to happen.
You know, sometimes things happen in life.
9:00 A.
M.
Brooklyn, New York City.
Gelman moves with a singular purpose.
There was about four or five more people that I wanted to kill.
All the people who've betrayed him He's gonna right all those wrongs, and that's a self-deception.
In all likelihood, none of that ever happened.
20-year-old Yelena Bulchenko, a former friend who lives only four blocks from his mother's house.
Renata Sandra shlai and Yelena were as close as sisters.
Yelena came from a really good family.
You know, I lost both my parents, so Yelena was really there for me.
Her and her mother were like family to me.
Yelena was a beautiful girl.
She was a straight "A" student through high school.
Soon after they met, her boyfriend, Gerard Honig, noticed a change in Yelena.
She was doing things that she shouldn't be doing.
You know, there were drugs in the picture.
She started to slip in school.
I do blame the influences that were around her at the time.
Maksim Gelman, who went by his street name, "Wes," was one of those influences.
She had told me a few times, "you know, I think Wes likes me.
" She never had a thing for him at all.
Wes was scary to her.
Well, when I met her, you know, she was very easygoing, and, you know, she was cool and stuff, you know? She was attracted to me, and we flirted and whatnot.
I thought she was, you know she was all right.
Gelman claims he paid Yelena to help him with his drug runs.
I told her, "I'll pay you, you know, "a couple hundred dollars a day if you drive me around and be my driver.
" But their friendship unraveled, upsetting Gelman, so when his stash house was allegedly burglarized, he convinced himself Yelena was involved.
She set me up to get robbed, you know? She fooled me.
Now, only four hours after he killed his stepfather, Gelman wouldn't be satisfied until he got to Yelena as well.
I went to McDonald's, got a strawberry milkshake, some chicken nuggets.
Then I went by Yelena's house.
At Yelena's house, it's the start of a usual day for her mother, Anna, who works out of her home as a travel agent.
She is home alone.
She was on the phone with a customer when Max rang the doorbell.
The customer was able to hear Why was Max here and what was he doing here and that she didn't have time for any of his nonsense, and the next thing he knows is, he heard a scream, and the phone went dead.
No one knows what really happened in the house.
Except Gelman.
Her mother opened the door.
She invited me in, and I was like, "where's Yelena?" Anna knows at a friend's house two blocks away.
I was like, "where's Yelena?" She's like, "she's at work.
" I'm like, "where does she work?" And she wouldn't tell me.
She was like, "why are you asking all these questions?" Gelman will stop at nothing to get Anna to talk.
He stabs her repeatedly with a small knife.
It's just him essentially torturing this woman to kind of up the ante.
It's how he sees himself, living this kind of fantasy as a gangster, of taking these lives.
She told me She's like, "okay, okay.
I'll tell you where she is.
" And she tried to trick me, and then she ran for the door.
She opened the door, and there was a neighbor outside.
I ended up kicking the door closed so he didn't see it.
Then she ran to the kitchen, where she had, like, a wooden knife set, and I found the big knife.
And I'm thinking, "I can't get Yelena "'cause she's not here.
"Might as well get her mother 'cause she's the closest person to her.
" Gelman stabs Anna with the big kitchen knife a dozen times.
While I was stabbing her, she said, you know, "I'll never tell you where my daughter is.
" I mean, she died in honor.
She didn't die like a coward, you know.
I drove by kings highway.
I was looking for Yelena's job.
She worked as a dental assistant on kings highway.
When he has no luck finding Yelena, Gelman claims he went after others he believed had betrayed him.
I went by this kid [bleep.]
's house, and he wasn't there.
Then I went to [bleep.]
's house two times.
He's the one who set me up with the feds.
Ten hours into Gelman's rampage, completely unaware of the horrors of the day, Yelena leaves her friend's house and starts walking home.
Meanwhile, Yelena's best friend, Renata, gets word the police are looking for Gelman.
I was at work.
I got a message from a friend of mine, and it was a "wanted" picture with Wes's face on it.
Renata immediately calls Yelena.
I was like, "listen, when's the last time you spoke to Wes?" And she said, "I haven't spoken to him "in about six, seven months.
Why? What's going on?" I just kept telling her, "I'm really worried about you.
" And then she was like, "don't worry, I'll be fine.
" She said, "I'm actually putting the key "into the door as we speak.
I'll call you back.
" What Yelena finds inside is unimaginable.
Yelena found her mother's body, called 911, and was on the phone in a quite hysterical tone.
The same time Yelena is calling 911, Gelman decides to drive by Yelena's house one last time.
At Yelena's house, she waits outside for police and fire rescue to arrive.
She then calls a girlfriend who, in turn, breaks the news to Yelena's boyfriend, Gerard.
She's like, "oh, my God.
Oh, my God! "Yelena's mother's been stabbed.
She can't get ahold of you.
" So off the bat, I'm thinking, "Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Let's go.
" Trying to get there as fast as possible because I'm calling Yelena's phone the entire time, and I'm not getting anything.
I'm not getting her.
But while Gerard is frantically racing to Yelena's house, Gelman arrives.
And I seen she was outside on the telephone.
I pulled up in her driveway, and I have the knife tucked in my sleeve, so When I walked up to her, she just said, "Wes?" February 11, 2011.
Brooklyn, New York.
Maksim Gelman is in the 11th hour of his 28-hour killing spree that began with the brutal murder of his stepfather.
When the deranged killer couldn't find his second target, Yelena Bulchenko, he savagely murdered her mother, Anna, instead.
Gelman is very much intoxicated by this violence that he's perpetrating.
In his own sort of distorted mind, this is the high point of his life.
This is as notorious as he'll ever be, and as soon as he stops it, it's over.
Yelena is outside her house, waiting for fire rescue to respond to her 911 call for her mother who lies dead inside.
Then Gelman pulls up to the curb.
I have the knife tucked in my sleeve, so When I walked up to her, she just said, "Wes?" And she didn't see the knife.
All her neighbors were outside.
She ran to her neighbor's, grabbed one of the neighbor's hand.
One of the neighbors tries to intervene, and Max goes around him.
He was waving the knife, slashing at the neighbor's coat.
Yelena's hooked on the back of him for dear life, saying, "he's gonna [bleep.]
kill me.
Please help me, somebody.
" The neighbor's in the middle.
They get into a wrestling match.
Gelman overpowers the neighbor and pushes him away.
He then stabs Yelena with the same kitchen knife he used on her mother.
She took a couple steps, fell down.
I got back in the car.
I backed up.
Then I was like, "maybe she's not dead.
" Picked her up by her hair.
He had cut her throat from side to side.
Tried to chop her head off.
While Gelman is still stabbing her, fire rescue, responding to Yelena's 911 call for her mother's murder, approaches the house.
One fireman sees the sees Max and chases him down the block.
But Gelman manages to outrun him and speeds off in his car.
At the same time, the other responders desperately try to save Yelena's life.
She was alive when she left the scene.
She was blinking.
One of the ambulanced drivers taps me on my back, and he's like, "I don't know if she's gonna make it," and I fall to my knees.
Within minutes, patrol units begin rushing to Yelena's house.
It was funny, 'cause the police had a apb on my car, and I drove by them.
They were looking dead at me.
Gelman immediately abandons his lexus in the middle of the street and approaches a nearby Pontiac.
The driver has no idea he's facing a triple murderer.
I went to the guy, knocked on his window, said, "excuse me, sir.
" Guy lowered his window.
I jumped through his window, pulled out the knife.
I told him, "get the [bleep.]
out the car.
" The guy just looked at me like I'm crazy.
You know, he wasn't taking me serious.
Gelman stabs the driver twice.
He jumped out the car, and I drove away.
The 57-year-old man is taken to the hospital in critical condition.
He came fairly close to dying.
He was seriously hurt.
But he manages to survive.
I just needed the car.
I didn't want to kill no innocent people.
I needed to get around.
They're not gonna give up the car just like that.
He's starring in his own little action movie, and he's the star of the show.
And I do think he's on this kind of Bonnie and Clyde kind of ride, going out with a blaze of glory.
Now in the stolen car, Gelman races away from the scene.
And I was running every stop sign and red light.
At a nearby intersection, 62-year-old Steven Tanenbaum is crossing the street.
I heard something a noise on the roof.
I didn't even see anything.
All I seen was a crack in the windshield, and the guy ended up flying over the car.
Pontiac that he had just stolen smashes into Mr.
Tanenbaum.
Can you hear me? Tanenbaum, a rare coin expert, is taken to the hospital, where he is pronounced dead.
So that, ultimately, is the fourth homicide victim that Max is responsible for.
That was a total accident.
That guy had nothing to do with nothing, and I was just trying to get away 'cause the police were right there.
I wasn't stopping.
Responding cops soon connect Tanenbaum's hit-and-run to Gelman.
This was really a tornado of terror.
You never knew where Maksim Gelman was going to touch down and who he was going to affect next.
With his victim count at five and threatening to rise This is a dire situation.
There's going to be more attacks if you don't stop this guy.
The world's most sophisticated police force launches an all-out manhunt for Gelman.
The police used every resource they had.
There are hundreds of police officers.
And the media kicks into high gear.
Police are searching for a man behind a deadly stabbing spree in Brooklyn.
Police are looking for 23-year-old Max Gelman, who's suspected of stabbing his stepfather to death.
Later in the day, police say he stabbed and killed two women at 24th street.
They recovered a knife at the scene.
But as night falls, Gelman seems to have vanished.
What was so crazy about it was that the police couldn't find him.
The police, the media, and the entire city of New York wondered, "where is mad Max?" Where he was, we don't know.
And what was still on his mind, we're not sure of.
Coming up So if I get the conductor, you know, I'll put the knife to him.
Then I could hijack the train to get out of there.
On February 11, 2011, Maksim Gelman went on a murderous rampage fueled by a twisted sense of payback.
12 hours into his spree, the cold-blooded murderer has already left four dead and another seriously wounded in his wake.
As the NYPD continues their search for Gelman, family and friends of Anna and Yelena Bulchenko are left devastated.
There was just no reason why.
Gelman claims betrayal is the reason, but then he also claims that Yelena was his driver.
Yelena was absolutely not his driver.
Yelena didn't even know how to drive.
So what could have motivated Gelman? He would text her or give her a call.
"Do you want to hang out? Do you want to chill?" She would say no 'cause she was with me.
Why did he call her so many times that she had to change her phone number? He couldn't comprehend that she didn't love him back.
She loved me.
To this day, Gelman still carries pictures of Yelena.
Oh, we used to go out, you know, and party.
I have pictures with a lot of my friends.
She cleaned her act up and, as part of that, quit Gelman.
He perceived that as an abandonment that was devastating.
I think that unrequited love was a huge narcissistic blow to him.
So rather than becoming sad and depressed the way most people would, he became angry and vengeful.
12 hours into Gelman's rampage, darkness falls over Brooklyn, and he has disappeared.
I went by Avenue H, so I hopped over the fence, went to the freight tracks.
I hid out over there 'cause there was helicopters flying around and all that.
Gelman hides in tunnels next to the abandoned freight tracks near the crime scenes.
These tunnels are his refuge, dating back to his tagging days as a teenager.
He would be ducking in and out of train tracks and under Bridges, and he was very expert at eluding the police.
18 hours after killing his stepfather, Gelman knows he needs to escape the police flooding Brooklyn.
Just before 1:00 A.
M.
, 25-year-old Sheldon pottinger is in his car, waiting for his wife after a late night church service.
All of a sudden, I saw this guy reach my door.
He pulled the door, and he pulled out a knife.
Just, like, a butcher knife.
Starts screaming, "I'm gonna kill you," and he keeps cursing.
"I'm gonna kill you.
Get out, get out.
" I was trying to use my foot to push him off, and he forced himself in the car.
Gelman steps on the gas and pushes pottinger to the passenger seat.
He was fighting, he was kicking me, and I stabbed him.
I'm telling the guy, "get the [bleep.]
out the car," and he's like, "slow down.
" I'm not gonna slow down.
I'm like, "Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
" The car's moving fast.
The first thing comes to my mind is just to get out the car.
Figure, like, it doesn't matter if I lose a foot, you know, by jumping out the car.
As long as I'm alive, you know? I'm doing about 80 miles an hour.
This guy opens the door, jumps out the car.
He's, like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Does a bunch of front flips, backflips I'm looking at this guy.
I'm like, "wow, this guy is insane.
" Miraculously, pottinger survives with just two small stab wounds and several bruises.
Gelman escapes to the neighboring borough of queens in the stolen car.
I drove the car to queens.
I parked the car by a garage.
I just laid in the car until it was morning time.
24 hours since Gelman's killing spree began.
Queens, New York.
The car wouldn't start, so I started walking, and I went to the deli.
I got a gyro.
I got a soda.
And I seen some guy start to follow me.
Gelman believes Federal agents are once again on his trail.
So I went on the train, 'cause I wanted to see if this guy was following me, and he was.
Gelman gets on a Manhattan-bound subway.
On one of the stops, I just jumped out the doors, and I lost him.
Then I got on another train to go back downtown towards Brooklyn.
By 8:35 A.
M.
, Gelman is in Manhattan on a southbound train.
Out of the blue, he spots his mug shot.
I was standing there, and I seen a lady She had a newspaper.
And I was like, "wow, I'm making the newspaper.
" He's now reached notoriety, and I think it's incredibly emotionally gratifying at that moment.
He is now somebody.
The woman sees him, recognizes him, and she's so frightened that she gets off the train immediately at 96th street and tells the police.
8:43 A.
M.
NYPD finally gets a lead on Gelman's location.
There are very few ways out of the train system, so he kind of traps himself in the subway system.
NYPD quickly zeroes in on Gelman's train, one that's just pulling out of Times Square.
He showed up on a busy train in the busiest nexus of transportation.
It is as close to the center of the city as you can get between Times Square and penn station.
So somewhere between 34th street and Times Square, the police realize that they are close to him.
They immediately radio the motorman of the train.
Then they stop the train that there's a ongoing police investigation.
Gelman realizes he's been spotted and is cornered on a train stopped between stations.
So I jumped off the train into the train tunnel to train tracks, and I seen the police were entering with their flashlights.
I had my knife in my jacket, tucked in.
Gelman is trapped.
Then he sees a possible escape: a train slowly moving in the opposite direction.
I jumped onto the moving train in between carts.
I went to the conductor's booth, knocked on the door, I said "This is official business.
Open the door.
This is official business.
" 'Cause that way they'd think, you know, there's some kind of emergency, and they would open the door like I'm one of them.
So if I get the conductor, you know, I'll put the knife to him, you know, and I could hijack the train to get out of there.
And I said it even louder.
"This is official business.
Open the door right now.
" And a cop opened the door.
The morning of February 12, 2011.
Time is running out on Maksim Gelman's depraved killing spree.
Just after 9:00 A.
M.
, as NYPD is closing in near Penn station in Manhattan Mad Max comes up hijack a New York City subway train.
I went to the conductor's booth, knocked on the door, thinking that the conductor would open it and I could hijack the train to get out of there.
And a cop opened the door, so I took out the knife.
I went to stab the police officer.
I missed him by, like, a inch.
Went to stab him in the stomach.
He slammed the door right away.
And this bald guy who's all nosy "What was going on?" He was right there, and he was staring at me.
The bald man is 6'3", 270-pound Joe Lozito.
He turns to me, looks me in the eye.
I'm looking him in the eye.
Reaches in his jacket, takes out an 8-inch knife That seemed like it was in slow motion.
Now I'm looking at this knife.
And says, "you're gonna die.
You're gonna die.
" He brings his arm back, and I shot in for his legs.
And I shot in too high, and I ended up going around his waist.
Lozito throws Gelman off balance.
Together, they fall on the subway floor.
And he's behind my head, doing this to the back of my head, and I'm hearing him grunt.
I'm hearing him go Now I have blood pouring out of both sides of my neck.
The one thing that means more to me than anything is my family, and, um I don't know.
I have I have two sons and a wife, and nobody is gonna take me from them, especially not this guy.
So now the only chance I have is to get this knife away from him.
I was gonna have him as my hostage.
He was, like, the first seat right there, so all I had to do was just stab him by turning.
Three, four times.
I didn't really He kept trying to run away and, like, move around.
During the fight, one of the officers in the conductor's cabin sees an opening.
And while I was stabbing him, the police officer came out.
He pulled out the gun.
Cop was a big guy, you know? Pointed the gun at me, but I was still stabbing the guy, so he put the gun away back in his holster, and he grabbed both of my arms.
He overpowered me.
And that's how they caught me.
After 28 hours, four murders, four wounded, immeasurable mayhem, chaos, and destruction, the cold-blooded killer is finally apprehended in Times Square.
And suddenly, this awful reign of terror Has ended.
Joe Lozito is rushed to the hospital with seven stab wounds.
One head wound alone required over 20 stitches.
I was upset I was caught in jail.
That was about it.
I would have done it differently, you know.
What's done is done.
To this day, Gelman believes the feds were after him in the days before and during his killing spree.
I was pretty shocked, you know.
I was like that they actually allowed me to go on and kill all these people.
Maybe the feds and the NYPD had some kind of miscommunications or something, you know? But according to the Brooklyn D.
A.
's office, there was no surveillance by the feds on Gelman.
Wherever he turned, he said, in those moments, hours before the incident, he was seeing D.
E.
A.
agents.
They were just everywhere, and that's just not plausible.
I believe that Gelman was using and abusing angel dust.
Angel dust has profound long-lasting effects, and in my opinion, his use of PCP enhanced his paranoid view of the world.
Was this a cold, calculated crime spree committed by an enraged killer? Or was this the work of a madman? There's nothing human about what he did.
It is shocking to contemplate.
Gelman's defense attorney arranges for him to be examined by Dr.
Bardey for a possible insanity defense.
I spent a number of hours with him in a visiting room at riker's island.
I came to the opinion that Mr.
Gelman, at the time of the offense, was not suffering from a mental disease or defect, and he could appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions.
Gelman pleads guilty to four counts of murder and multiple counts of robbery, assault, and carjacking.
I was like, "I wouldn't want to be in a mental hospital for the rest of my life," 'cause there's people that are really mental.
As for the friends of Alexander Kuznetsov, Yelena and Anna Bulchenko, Steven Tanenbaum, and all the others touched by his violence, they are left wondering why.
Yelena was a beautiful girl, she had everything going for her, and she was taken way before her time.
And Anna she'd light up a room.
Make everyone laugh, smile.
They didn't have a mother and daughter relationship.
They were more like best friends.
This is a 56-year-old woman, mother of two, grandmother of a newborn.
He ruined an entire family.
Maksim Gelman has never shown any remorse for his unspeakable crimes.
In the courtroom, I'm sitting in front of the surviving family members of the Bulchenko family, and Maksim Gelman keeps staring at them, talking to the family members, taunting them, and he was saying awful things about Yelena, and I'll never forget this.
He is led out of the courtroom, and he's laughing maniacally cackling.
And you just know you've heard someone and witnessed someone who is pure evil.