Summary: Russian police suspect a couple killed around 30 people, dismembering their bodies for cannibal consumption.
A Russian couple is believed to have killed at least 30 people, eating parts of their body in the city of Krasnodar. Investigators believe the couple knocked their victims out with a sedative, skinned them alive, and then ate parts of them, freezing or packing the rest of their bodies in jars filled with saline solutions. The police even believe the couple, who worked in the kitchen of a military academy, slipped “canned human meat” into the food they served to the soldiers.
Authorities believe the killings have been going on for at least the past 20 years. They would not have realized the horrible crimes happening in their town if a cell phone had not been found on a city street. The discovery of the cell phone and the images lead to the arrest of Dmitry Baksheev, 35, and his wife Natalia Baksheeva.
Krasnodar, a city of 750,000, is on the southwestern tip of Russia about five hours from Sochi. On September 11, crews working on a road found the dropped cellphone. The phone was still working so they looked through the photos and were alarmed at what they found. The workers immediately turned the phone over to police when they found “photos of a man with different parts of a dismembered human body in his mouth.”
Around the same time that the police were going through the phone, they found the dismembered body of a 35-year-old woman near the state-run aviation academy. Through “special technical measures” the authorities were able to find the owner of the phone – Baksheev. Once police had arrested him and taken him in for questioning at the police station, he admitted that he and his wife had practiced cannibalism around 30 times in the past twenty years.
Investigators are still pinning the pieces together. They are unsure as to how the couple picked their victims but do know they used a sedative to render the victims unconscious. Based on the photos found in their apartment, the date stamp on one suggests the earliest killing may have happened in 1999. They were living in what BBC described as a “hostel accommodation” at the military base. At some point, one or both of them worked in the kitchen on base.
In a CBS report, investigators said, “In the place of residence of the suspects, the investigators discovered fragments of the human body in saline solution in the dormitory. … Frozen meat parts of unknown origin were seized in the kitchen.” Police allegedly found a “glass jar with a canned hand.”
A video of the police searching the couple’s residence shows a messy room with trash, clothes, and debris on the floor and furniture. There are a few wigs on top of a small freezer and piles of pictures on a bed visible in the footage. One of the first photos is dated December 28, 1999. In the photo, a human head on sitting on a serving plate with fruit around it.
If the killings are confirmed, Natalia and Dmitry could be one of the country’s worst serial killers. So far he has only been charged with one count of murder.
A former Siberian police officer confessed earlier this year to killing 81 people. He has been nicknamed the “werewolf of Siberia” due to the brutality of his murders. He started killing when he was a police officer, offering woman rides in his car before taking them to a remote area to rape and kill them. His victims ranged in age from 17 to 38.
Do you suppose there is something in Russia’s water or is there some other reason to explain why there are such brutal murders in the country? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
To learn more about scandalous stories in Russia, read these articles:
- Mother Throws Children to Their Death Off 15th Floor Balcony
- Young Russian Women Strangles Elderly Neighbor With Her Bra
- Suicide Bomber Kills 6 in Russian Bus
Photo: scallywagandvagabond.com