Russian ‘cannibal couple’ killed and eaten 30 people?

Agencies
September 27, 2017

Sept, 27: Investigators believe a Russian couple knocked their victims out with sedatives, then skinned them alive. Afterward, police say, they ate parts of their victims, froze the remains or packed them in jars filled with saline solution.

At times, the couple tried to turn soldiers at the military academy where they worked into unwitting cannibals, slipping "canned human meat" into their food.

And the people in the city of Krasnodar may never have known about any of that if not for a broken cellphone lying on a city street, authorities say.

City police have arrested the couple - Natalia Baksheeva and her husband, 35-year-old Dmitry Baksheev - who authorities say may be responsible for the death or disappearance of as many as 30 people in the city of 750,000 in the southwestern tip of Russia, about five hours from Sochi. So far, Baksheev has been charged with one count of murder, and the investigation is ongoing.

If all the killings are confirmed, the Russian couple would rank among the country's worst serial killers.

The investigation started on Sept. 11, according to the Moscow Times, when crews repairing a road found a discarded cellphone. It still worked, so they swiped through the photos.

What they found made them dash to the police station. On the phone were "photos of a man with different parts of a dismembered human body in his mouth," the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a statement.

Around the same time that investigators were poring over the phone, officers found the dismembered corpse of a 35-year-old woman near the state-run aviation academy where the couple lived, according to Vice News.

Investigators were able to determine the phone's owner via "special technical measures," and arrested Baksheev, according to a news release.

In police custody, he told authorities that he and his wife had practiced cannibalism at least 30 times in the past two decades, according to the BBC.

The investigation ballooned from there. The details are still spotty, but some have seeped out as the story has rocketed around the world.

The earliest potential killing, based on the time stamps of photos the couple had, dates back to 1999.
For years, the couple had been living at what the BBC called a "hostel accommodation" at the site of a military base in the city. One or both had at one point worked on the base, in the kitchen.

Investigators have not said how they believe the couple chose their victims, only how they rendered them unconscious - and what came after.

"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," investigators said, according to CBS News.

According to CNN, one police source said, "at the moment, law enforcement had discovered a glass jar with a canned hand."

Unofficially, officials have designated the pair the "cannibal couple," but they have not released many details about them.

Russian news stations released video of the police search, apparently from the couple's home.

The footage showed a messy, disheveled room, with trash, debris and clothes scattered on the floor and draped over furniture. There were also wigs on top of a small freezer and dozens of pictures on a bed.

The pictures were telling, Russian investigators said. One photograph is dated Dec. 28, 1999 and appears to show a dismembered human head on a serving plate with fruit.

Earlier this year, former Siberian policeman Mikhail Popkov - nicknamed "the werewolf of Siberia" for his brutal killings - confessed to killing 81 people.

According to The Washington Post, Popkov's victims ranged in age from 17 to 38. He started his spree as a police officer, offering women rides in his car, then taking them to remote locations and raping and killing them.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
September 24,2024

lebanon.jpg

The Israeli regime’s warplanes have conducted extensive airstrikes against towns and villages across Lebanon, killing at least 492 people.

Lebanon’s health ministry announced the death toll on Monday, saying the victims included 35 children and 58 women.

The ministry said at least 1,645 others had also been wounded in the attacks that targeted the areas earlier in the day.

Lebanon’s health minister Firass Abiad said that the health ministry is working to ensure those injured in Israeli strikes are getting the health care they need.

The health minister said he had asked hospitals to stop taking regular, light cases to make space for the wounded from the south.

“We working on directives for the first-aid centres to be turned into places that can receive the wounded. The displaced people who have cancer, kidney failure and other chronic diseases, we have the plan to continue their treatment in different medical centers,” he said.

The country’s media outlets said the aircraft had bombed all the towns and villages lying on the southern border as well as their surroundings.

Israeli warplanes also reportedly targeted eastern Lebanese areas, including the Bekaa Valley and Baalbek.

Lebanese sources said the airstrikes had targeted a total of more than 40 areas in Lebanon during the attacks.

The Sheikh of the Druze community reached out to the Deputy Head of the Supreme Islamic Shia Council and expressed solidarity and reaffirmed support for the people of southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs, and the Bekaa during this critical period for the country.

The Commissioner of Marjayoun-Hassbaya in the Muslim Scouts, Sheikh Hussein Al-Nader, was killed in an Israeli airstrike that targeted his home in the town of Dibbine, Marjayoun district, South Lebanon.

Three people were injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting the Deir El-Zahrani highway, in South Lebanon.

A family of four was killed in Hermel, Bekaa, due to the recent Israeli airstrikes.

Israeli media outlets, meanwhile, alleged that the attacks had hit locations lying as far as 125 kilometers (77 miles) inside the Lebanese territory.

Israeli military spokesman Danieh Hagari said the regime "will engage in [more] extensive and precise strikes” against Lebanon, adding that the attacks would "go on for the near future.”

The regime has markedly intensified its attacks against the country since October 7, when it launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement has responded with numerous strikes against the occupied Palestinian territories as a means of both retaliating against the regime and displaying support for the war-hit Gazans.

On Sunday, the group staged its farthest-reaching strikes against the territories since October, firing scores of rockets against the Ramat David Airbase, 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of the city of Haifa, and the Rafael weapons manufacturing facility in the Zevulun area north of the city.

It described the strike against the facility as its “initial response” to the regime’s detonation of thousands of booby-trapped pagers and walkie-talkie radios that killed at least 39 people and wounded 3,000 others across Lebanon over Tuesday and Wednesday.

Also on Sunday, Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary General Sheikh Naim Qassem said the movement was in a "new phase" in its battle against the regime.

"Threats will not stop us... We are ready to face all military possibilities,” he noted.

Qassem made the remarks while attending the funeral of Ibrahim Aqil, one of the group’s senior commanders.

Aqil had been martyred alongside 37 others, including three children and seven women, during an Israeli attack on a residential building in a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital Beirut on Friday.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
September 10,2024

masscr.jpg

The Israeli regime has attacked displaced Palestinians in the southern part of the Gaza Strip with US-provided 2,000-pound bombs, killing at least 40 civilians, mostly women and children.

As many as 60 others were injured in the attack that targeted an area previously declared by the Israeli military as a “humanitarian zone” at the al-Mawasi refugee camp in the city of Khan Younis on Tuesday.

The military alleged that it had struck members of the Hamas resistance movement, who were “operating a command and control center” inside the targeted area, a claim that was rejected by the group as a “blatant lie.”

“The resistance has repeatedly confirmed the absence of any of its members among civilian gatherings or the use of such areas for military purposes,” Hamas said.

The bloodletting took place as part of the regime’s ongoing genocidal war on Gaza, which began on October 7 in response to a retaliatory operation staged by the territory’s resistance groups.

So far, close to 41,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 94,800 others wounded in the brutal military onslaught.

The Tuesday massacre came after the refugee camp witnessed an influx of homeless Palestinians, who had fled there from the death and destruction spree caused by the war elsewhere across the coastal sliver. Between 30,000 and 34,000 people were living upon each square kilometer of the camp at the time of the attack, the United Nations estimates show.

The weapons deployed during the massacre have been identified as American-made MK-84 bombs, which carry 900 pounds of explosives. 

The payload can create a crater about 15 meters wide and over 10 meters deep, besides being capable of causing deadly damage around it within a radius of approximately 73 meters. 

This is not the first time when the regime deploys the ammunition against civilian targets during the war. 

More than 70 Palestinians were killed after it struck the refugee camp with the same bombs in July.

As part of its unbridled military support for the regime, the United States has armed it with as many as 14,000 of the bombs since the onset of the war.

Hamas also called the US “complicit” in such massacres that “are being deliberately carried out without regard for international law, humanitarian law, or resolutions calling for an end to the aggression.”

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.
News Network
September 17,2024

Kalaburagi: Karnataka Home Minister G Parameshwara on Tuesday said that alleged role of "outsiders" belonging to the banned Popular Front of India (PFI) in the violence at Nagamangala will be examined and action taken based on the probe report.

Clashes broke out between two groups during a Ganesh idol procession in the town in Mandya district following which mobs went on a rampage targeting several shops and vehicles leading to tension on September 11 night.

"Everything will be examined, investigation will be done, on getting the report we will decide. We will not protect anyone, and unnecessarily no one will be punished. We will look into the facts based on the inquiry report and take action accordingly," Parameshwara told reporters here.

He noted that two officials -- Deputy Superintendent of Police and Inspector -- have already been suspended, and added that further action will be taken based on the report.

The Minister said the government has taken the Nagamangala violence seriously and there is no question of taking such incidents lightly. "BJP makes such allegations, but we too have responsibility, we don't take anything lightly."

On allegations that "outsiders" were involved in the violence, Parameshwara said if inquiry reveals complicity of such elements, it would be examined and action taken accordingly.

Regarding claims that those belonging to the banned PFI were involved, he said: "It will be known from the probe."

On demand for a National Investigation Agency (NIA) probe into Nagamangala violence by BJP which alleged "failure" of state's home department, Parameshwara said: "they keep saying such things, we will not listen to all that."

According to police, an argument had broken out between two groups, when the procession by devotees from Badri Koppalu village reached a place of worship on September 11, and some miscreants hurled stones, which escalated the situation.

Following the clashes between the two groups, a few shops were vandalised and goods torched and vehicles set on fire, they added.

To allegations from some BJP leaders that the party MLA Munirathna was arrested "hurriedly", Parameshwara said, police acted after the complaint was given, "what's wrong in that?"

Munirathna, who represents Rajarajeshwari Nagar Assembly segment here, was picked up from Nangli village in Kolar’s Mulbagal on Saturday evening on charges of harassing a Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) contractor for bribe, casteist slurs on a former corporator, and also cheating, criminal intimidation and insulting a woman’s modesty.

Asked about "illegal items" seized from the prison here recently by officials, he said an investigation has begun on this.

When a photo of actor Darshan Thoogudeepa, who was lodged in Parappana Agrahara Prison here, hanging out with other inmates surfaced recently, action was taken based on the probe report and eleven officials were suspended.

"I will look into recent seizures made too and action will be taken; also probe is on at other prisons in the state and action will follow if anything wrong is found," the Minister added.

Police raided the high-security wing of Parappana Agrahara Central Prison here on Saturday and seized smartphones and other illegal goods.

Comments

Add new comment

  • Coastaldigest.com reserves the right to delete or block any comments.
  • Coastaldigset.com is not responsible for its readers’ comments.
  • Comments that are abusive, incendiary or irrelevant are strictly prohibited.
  • Please use a genuine email ID and provide your name to avoid reject.