Popkov's crimes were motivated by suspicions that his wife had committed adultery.[5] His victims were all women between the ages of 16 and 40 apart from one male, a policeman.[6] The female victims were prostitutes or inebriated young women—people who Popkov considered immoral.[5] At various points between 1992 and 2010 in Angarsk, Irkutsk, and Vladivostok—a distance of some 3,900 km (2,423 mi)—Popkov, dressed in his police uniform, lured victims with the promise of a free ride and sexually assaulted them.[5] He killed women with instruments including knives, axes, baseball bats, screwdrivers and mutilated the bodies so grotesquely that Russian media ascribed the crimes to "The Werewolf" and the "Angarsk maniac".[7][8]