I heard my neighbor screaming and went outside to help her… but my act of kindness brought a quadruple murderer stalking up to my family’s front door
A neighbor who tried to stop a deranged son from stabbing his mother to death was chased to his door where the manic tried to break it down.
Aleksandr Aleksand Shablykin, 32, killed his mother Zoya, 52, then went on a rampage down her quiet street, where he murdered three of her neighbors.
The psycho killer was gunned down a few doors down the cul-de-sac in Gig Harbor, Washington, at 9.33am on Tuesday by police who arrived seconds too late.
A man working from home in the street, just a few miles from the Puget Sound, gave a gripping account of Shablykin’s rampage to the Daily Mail.
He heard a bloodcurdling scream and saw Zoya being attacked out his window on the back porch of the $800,000 family home.
The shocking scene was partially obscured by hedges and he initially thought Zoya was being mauled by the German Shepherd he knew lived in the street.
But when he ran into the unfenced backyard of Zoya’s home, he realized she was being stabbed a dozen times by her schizophrenic son.
‘I saw him stab her two more times in the chest and I yelled out like “hey what’s going on?”‘ the neighbor, who asked not to be named, said.
Zoya Shablykin, 52, (right) was stabbed to death by her son Aleksandr Aleksand Shablykin, 32, outside her home on Tuesday morning. Her daughter Anastasia, 30, (left) survived
Zoya with her 11-year-old granddaughter, who was not present during the stabbing spree
‘To which he stood up in a very composed fashion and confidently walked towards me. He said, “I don’t know, does someone need help?”‘
Shablykin was brandishing a large kitchen knife, dripping with blood from his murdered mother, and menacingly approached him.
‘He had this distant look on his face, he was very calm, composed, very serious, even his gait… he didn’t seem full of unbridled rage,’ he said.
The neighbor retreated back to his house and retrieved two of his pistols, handing one to his wife who had just got out of the bath and was calling 911.
Seconds later, he heard a pounding on his door as Shablykin tried to break it down and murder everyone inside.
The neighbor, who is former military, told the Daily Mail he warned Shablykin ‘if he came through the door I would kill him’, but that didn’t deter the crazed knifeman.
He grabbed his M4-carbine assault rifle, positioned himself atop the stairs overlooking the door, and again warned he would start shooting.
This time the banging stopped, but the neighbor knew he had to go after him.
‘I told my wife I needed to go outside and deal with him because he’s gonna start murdering everybody. I just kind of had that feeling,’ he said.
‘I was thinking, because of his behavior, his callousness, his methodical nature, he was just gonna go door to door and kill everyone.
‘Because he was trying to kick down my door and I had nothing to do with it, and he was gonna try to murder me and my wife.
‘So I’m just like if he’s gonna try to murder most of the neighborhood, which is mostly old people who are gonna have zero way to defend themselves.
‘And I’m like holy s**t, I cannot let that happen.’
The neighbor raced up the street to engage but heard several gunshots as a Pierce County Sheriff’s deputy shot Shablykin dead.
In the about 45 seconds between leaving the neighbor’s door and being gunned down, Shablykin killed two other women outside their homes.
One of them was still being stabbed – like Zoya more than a dozen times – when police rolled up, and the deputy opened fire when Shablykin charged at him.
The neighbor saw all three lying dead in the street, one in the middle of a road and one elderly woman at the bottom of her driveway.
Anastasia had the awful task of telling her grandmother – Zoya’s mother – that her daughter was dead
A fourth victim’s body was later found between Zoya’s home and the building next door, but it was unclear when they were killed.
The neighbor told police about Zoya and was told to go and give her first aid if she was still alive.
‘I got within two feet of the body and there was no question she was deceased, she’d been stabbed in the chest about 12 to 15 times,’ he said.
The neighbor is haunted by the seconds between when Shablykin left his door, and when he was ready to pursue with his rifle.
‘It’s just unfortunate that I couldn’t get out there about 30 seconds earlier because I could have put a gun in his forehead, probably stopped the other two from getting murdered,’ he said.
‘But my wife was right there, literally in a bath towel just out of the bath, and there’s no way I’m gonna leave her a side if I’m not absolutely confident that she can handle an issue.
‘Should you know he come back by circling around the house or whatever.’
He said that his pistol is with him almost all the time, but he forgot to grab it from the safe in his office – right next to the window.
‘It was the mistake on my part of thinking it was the dog attacking her,’ he said.
Zoya took out the protection order against her son last April, claiming he ‘believed he was an Egyptian god’ and performed ‘occult rituals’ as he threatened his family for years and injured her cat
Zoya was granted a protective order after he pushed her and told her, ‘Your grave has been dug up,’ according to court documents
Police were already on their way to Zoya’s home after a 911 call about 8.45am reporting that Shablykin was violating a restraining order.
Zoya took out the protection order against her son last April, claiming he ‘believed he was an Egyptian god’ and performed ‘occult rituals’ as he threatened his family for years and injured her cat.
A family friend told the Daily Mail that Shablykin’s sister Anastasia, 30, and her 11-year-old daughter were safe at her partner’s home when Zoya was killed.
The identities of the three deceased neighbors are not yet known.
A different man, living on the same street, told the Daily Mail the family were having problems since he moved in about seven years ago and he heard them arguing.
He said it appeared Shablykin stopped living there full time about two years ago and was only there sporadically since then.
Dispatchers said they first received a 911 call about 8.45am claiming that the suspect was violating a no contact order.
Zoya was granted a protective order after he pushed her and told her, ‘Your grave has been dug up,’ according to court documents obtained by the Daily Mail.
She wrote in her petition for the protective order on April 4 that she had a legitimate reason to fear for her safety as her son ‘has been threatening me, abusing me both mentally and emotionally’.
Deputies found Zoya Shablykin, 52, and three others outside, one lying in the middle of the quiet cul-de-sac a few miles from the Puget Sound
Shablykin was shot by one of the deputies and died at the scene along with three of the victims, the sheriff said
Shablykin was ‘doing witchcraft/occult behavior and doing rituals in my home, damaging personal belongings’, she wrote.
He even ‘thinks [he is] an Egyptian god!’ the terrified mother wrote, noting that she was an ‘elderly disabled woman and he is taking advantage of me and my health, recording me at my home’.
Zoya wrote that on April 2, Anastasia showed up at the house and brought her daughter.
‘After arrival to my home, I noticed my house smelled very strange, my rugs from the home have been moved to the garage, the cat was missing,’ she wrote in the petition, adding that picture frames and photographs were destroyed.
‘The smoke detector was going off and my son was acting delusional. Evidence of occult rituals were present.’
At an ensuing hearing on whether to grant the temporary restraining order, authorities noted that Shablykin ‘has been having escalating mental health issues, which include grandiosity, auditory hallucinations and command hallucinations’.
Shablykin previously had a mental break about five years earlier, and his mental health improved for a while after, ‘but is worse now than it was five years ago’, the order explained.
‘His current command hallucinations tell him he is a god and that Petitioner must obey him,’ it added.
‘Several days ago, he told her that “Your grave has been dug up.”‘
Records also showed Zoya previously sought a restraining order from her son when he was first having mental health issues in 2020.
Three adults were killed at the scene. Paramedics took a fourth victim to a nearby hospital in critical condition, where they later died from their injuries
She wrote at the time that Shablykin did not like when his sister had her boyfriend over, so he went into her room with a knife and started threatening her.
‘He is threatening everyone in my family,’ Zoya claimed at the time, noting that she did not ‘feel safe in my house’.
‘He doesn’t want to work or learn, think she has a freedom to do what he wants and have everything in my house because he thinks it belongs to him,’ she wrote in the petition.
‘He is abusing me emotionally, which is affecting my health condition,’ she added without specifying what health conditions she had.
Shablykin was arrested numerous times since 2020, mostly for driving without a valid license and refusing to identify himself to officers when he was pulled over in his vehicle, according to court records that included 14 separate cases.
He was also charged with trespassing in January 2023, but the charge was dismissed with prejudice.
