FULL TEXT: An
80-year-old woman suspected to be a serial killer is being investigated after
her lodger’s dismembered body parts were found in her fridge. The retired farm worker was arrested on suspicion of
murder after the 52-year-old victim’s remains were discovered in the village
Berezovka, in the southeastern Khabarovsk territory.
Detectives now reportedly believe she could be linked to the
disappearance of up to seven people.
Police launched an investigation on 30 January after stray
dogs were seen fighting over body parts, including a human hand, torn out of
packages dumped in the street, according to Russian newspaper Moskovskij
Komsomolets.
Khabarovsk’s Investigative Committee said the victim was
identified through his fingerprints as the elderly woman’s tenant, named in
local media as Ukranian caretaker Vasily Shlyakhtich.
Police found traces of Shlyakhtich’s blood during a search
of her flat and reportedly discovered his organs and flesh in the fridge. The woman was taken into custody for
questioning.
Neighbours told police they heard loud banging “as if
someone was chopping something hard with an axe” on the day of the alleged
murder, according to local news website DVHAB.ru. The arrested woman reportedly
slaughtered pigs as part of her farm work. During a search of her home, police
also found the passport of a woman who disappeared several years ago.
Investigators now believe she may have been murdered.
They are also looking into possible links to the
disappearance of six others who have gone missing in Berezovka in recent years.
They include Nina Babenkova, an 83-year-old who vanished after taking her dog
for a walk in September. Her skull was later found near her home. Shlyakhtich
had been living in the village and working as a caretaker since autumn last
year. He is said to have moved to Berezovka from Ukraine to be closer to his
family.
[Chris Baynes, “Elderly
Russian woman suspected of being serial killer after man's body parts found in
her fridge,” Independent, Feb. 13, 2019]
***
FULL TEXT: A suspected 80-year-old murderer, nicknamed
'Russia's Sweeney Todd', allegedly cut up her victims' bodies and turned their
flesh into jellied treats for local kids. The alleged victims include an
eight-year-old girl who reportedly annoyed the grandmother suspect by playing
too noisily. The youngster was killed after she cheekily threw ice cream at the
pensioner after being told to be quiet, it is claimed.
Sofya Mikhailovna was arrested [January 30, 2019] after
janitor Vasily Shlyakhtich, 52, who had agreed to rent a room in her apartment
in the village of Berezovka, located in Russia's Khabarovsk Territory, vanished
in January this year. Police intensified the search operation when body parts
found in bins around the city were suspected of belonging to the missing man,
and they decided to issue a search warrant for her apartment. A spokesman at
the Russian Investigative Directorate in the Khabarovsk Territory said:
"Criminologists discovered knives and saws on which they discovered traces
of the blood of the victim. She was arrested for murder, and put in pre-trial
detention as the investigation continued."
Locals said the alleged cannibal killer was Sonya Sipataya [a
fictional character?] because she had a deep masculine voice and cut her hair
like a man, walking around the area in camouflage gear and often carrying an
axe, and that she would regularly kill the cats in the neighbourhood, even
though they bothered nobody else.
One local identified only by her first name Tatyana said:
"We always found it strange that despite being surly and unfriendly, she
would often find the time to cook things for the local children. They were
always meat dishes. Sometimes she gave them to the adults, she bought me and my
husband plates with jellied meat" (Aspic, a Russian salted dish known
locally as kholodets). She added: "I remember it well because my husband
said let's not eat it, you never know what it was made from, and now it looks
like he was right."
Tatyana said police had confirmed that she used meat from
the people she killed. However, police declined to comment when contacted by
Central European News (CEN) because the investigation is still ongoing.
Under interrogation, she reportedly admitted to killing her
lodger, and as the police probed deeper, they were shocked when she then
allegedly also admitted to killing an eight-year-old girl who disappeared on
14th December 2005. She reportedly said the girl was a nuisance and had annoyed
her by running around making noise, and that the final straw was when the child
had thrown a piece of ice cream at her. After that her fate was sealed. Police
still have the case open because a few fragments of human remains were found at
the time that they identified as belonging to the child. But the mother,
identified as Natalya Alekseenko, whose age was not given, insisted that the
body could not have been her daughter, and still had hopes that she was alive
and had been taken by somebody.
According to local media, human entrails were found in the
suspect's fridge. When she heard that the girl had been killed by the pensioner
- dubbed a "cannibal" in Russian media. although it is unclear if she
actually ate anyone herself - she broke down.
She said: "I believed against everything that she was
still alive, I waited and I believe. People would tell me Natasha, this is your
daughter, but I didn't listen to anyone."
After apparently confessing to the child murder, she then
reportedly admitted to a third killing, this time in April 2013 when she
allegedly murdered a female friend, Nina Babenko, aged 83, after she moved in
as a lodger. The pensioner had recently sold her apartment and took the money
with her when she went to live with Sofya Mikhailovna. She was never seen
again. Local media said that Mikhailovna had worked in a slaughterhouse before
becoming a security guard at "Teplichnik" - a local company.
She was married to a man called Ivan, who worked as a
plumber dealing with heating at a local company. He died in the summer of 2005,
six months before the girl disappeared. The couple had three sons, although one
died and the other two who survived still live in the Khabarovsk region. They reportedly
have families of their own there. Locals were reported as saying that several
other people have disappeared from the town in recent years. The suspect is
currently in pre-trial detention.
Sweeney Todd is a British Victorian tale about a barber who
sells people pies made with human flesh.
[Matthew Dresch, “Russian Sweeney Todd 'handed out sweets
made from human flesh to local children',” The Mirror (UK), Oct. 3, 2019]
***
[545-8/8/21]
***
No comments:
Post a Comment