RUSSIAN AUTHORITIES HAVE detained an elderly woman on suspicion of poisoning a friend and chopping up the body, while police said she was being investigated over a second gruesome murder.
A court in the city of Saint Petersburg ordered Tamara Samsonova, a 68-year-old former hotel worker, behind bars until September on suspicion of poisoning the 79-year-old victim, for whom she acted as a carer, after they quarrelled.
Lodger killing
She is also suspected of murdering a 32-year-old male lodger in her apartment in 2003 after a row and dismembering his body, police said in a statement.
The suspect wrote a diary apparently detailing some 10 killings over more than a decade, state television reported, although it was unclear whether these claims had any basis.
Russian media showed the slight, curly-haired woman in court as an investigator called her a “huge danger to those around her.”
She smiled at reporters and blew an air kiss.
Security camera footage aired on state television showed Samsonova, wrapped in a hooded raincoat, dragging a black plastic sack out of an apartment, apparently containing the body parts of her victim, which police found on Saturday.
She cut up the body with a saw and knife and dumped it in her Saint Petersburg suburb, investigators said.
Police found a sack containing the body without a head or limbs next to a pond.
State television reported that Samsonova wrote diary entries detailing a series of some 10 murders committed more than 10 years ago.
It remained unclear whether these entries were fact or fantasy — they were written in three languages: Russia, English and German.
Investigators said Wednesday they had “no objective evidence” of more murders.
Neighbours told the tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda that Samsonova had recently spent several months in a psychiatric hospital.
Babushka Yaga
Russian media christened her “Babushka Yaga” after a terrifying old woman from fairytales and called her crimes “Nightmare on Dimitrova Street”.
“If the memoirs are correct, the babushka will turn out to be a serial killer on a scale rare for Russia, and her diary a real version of Stephen King,” wrote Fontanka.ru, referring to the US horror novelist.
Samsonova told police she used to work in the Soviet era at a hotel frequented by foreign visitors, now known as the Grand Hotel Europe, Life News website reported, perhaps explaining her familiarity with foreign languages.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say