Sexual possessiveness (plus angel dust) sets off 28-hour murder rampage in New York City

Fasten your seatbelt and read the story of shaved-headed Ukrainian immigrant Maksim Gelman of Brooklyn, 23, who had a one night stand several months ago with a fellow Russian or Ukrainian immigrant, 20 year old Yelena Bulchenko, and when she wouldn’t see him again, he began stalking her and threatening to kill her, until, starting this past Friday morning, he killed (1) his mother’s boyfriend by stabbing him 11 times, (2) Bulchenko’s mother by stabbing her, (3) Bulchenko by stabbing her, (4) a 62 year old pedestrian by running him over in a stolen car, as well as stabbing and wounding several other strangers, until he was captured on a Number 3 train at Times Square 28 hours after his ultimate enriching of America began.

Immigrant Maksim Gelman, enricher
of America, after his arrest

For a detailed chronology of Gelman’s murders and of the chase that led to his capture, see “Route of all evil: Maksim Gelman’s 28-hour trail of blood.” (See also is the Daily News’ story.)

After you’ve read that, see, for some perspective, the May 2009 VFR discussion in which a reader said that the cause of such murders of young women by men with whom they have gotten involved is sexual jealousy, and I replied:

You’re right about sexual jealousy. Which, duh, double duh, is why marriage exists. Let’s spell this out in very simple terms. When it becomes common in a society for women to get sexually involved with men who are not their husbands, that means (to repeat the point from the other side) that lots of men are getting sexually involved with a woman who is not their wife. In many cases, the man becomes fiercely attached to that relationship. The woman then ends the relationship, and either gets a new boyfriend or doesn’t. Either way, her former boyfriend can’t live without her, can’t stand her rejection of him, goes nuts, and kills her. It’s the story of Carmen, with tiny variations, over and over and over.

In traditional society, this type of event happens far less frequently for the simple reason that women in such a society have zero or very few sexual relationships outside marriage, so that you do not have this mass phenomenon of women dumping men they’ve been sleeping with. (Of course men dump women too, but here we’re talking about the dynamics of homicidal male rage, which is much more common than homicidal female rage.)

This type of murder is so common, the reaction leading to it seems so primal, that I don’t know that it can be explained. I don’t know what the man feels he accomplishes for himself by killing the woman who has rejected him. If he feels he cannot live without her, why not kill himself?

Ok, maybe this is it: It’s about the man asserting power over the woman who at present has so much power over him. At present, she is using her power to reject him, which is putting him in unbearable hell. So the man will get out of hell by asserting his power over her. He does this by taking away her power to hurt him, which he does by killing her. Is that it?

What seems unique about this latest case of homicidal sexual jealousy is that the relationship which set it off apparently consisted of nothing more than a one-night stand. Which only draws more powerfully the unwelcome (unwelcome to our natural desires) traditionalist moral of the tale. If a woman becomes intimate even once with a man to whom she is not married and then rejects him, that can be enough to set off homicidal rage.

Another moral of the tale is that when a young woman finds herself the target of a former lover who is stalking her and threatening her life, she must, if she wants to live, DO SOMETHING. But what can a young woman do in such a situation? As discussed by James N. in the VFR discussion quoted above, taking out a restraining order against the man is useless; the cemeteries are full of women who had restraining orders. The only thing that will work is to pack one’s bags and leave town. That sounds extreme, but unless the woman is willing and able to purchase a gun, learn how to use it, carry it with her at all times and be ready to shoot and kill in self-defense, what can she do to save her life, other than going away and disappearing?

Given the presumably Jewish ethnicity of Maksim Gelman from Ukraine and his prime victim, one can’t help but be reminded of another New York City case in which Soviet Jewish immigrant and physician Mazoltuv Borukhova hired her cousin to murder her husband and fellow Soviet immigrant Daniel Malakov, a dentist. In an odd echo of the Malakov murder, Gelman’s prime victim, Yelena Bulchenko, was a dental assistant.

By the way, the charming Mazoltuv Borukhova,

who had her husband shot dead in a Queens playground in front of their small daughter, is now appealing her conviction, and guess who is representing her? Alan Dershowitz. However, the evidence of Borukhova’s guilt is so overwhelming that I doubt very much that Dershowitz is about to repeat the victory he enjoyed when he defended Claus von Bulow.

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February 14

Mark Jaws writes:

Very un-Jewish type behavior. When it comes to sexual passion, Jewish men are perhaps the least impulsive characters I know. When scorned, they typically shrug their shoulders and look for someone else.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at February 13, 2011 05:36 PM | Send