In September 2017, we reported on the case of a cannibal couple in Russia who was arrested on charges of having murdered thirty people over a two decade expanse of time. Among the horrible discoveries that police investigators made were human body parts on food platters, preserved in salt, and canned in jars, as well as photos of the couple posing with the dismembered remains of the deceased. According to the wife, she said that her extramarital affairs drove her husband mad to the point of cannibalism, something which she also participated in by choice.
To follow up on this case, the couple who was arrested and charged with the crimes, Dmitry and Natalya Baksheeva, have been sent to prison for their crimes according to reports:
A Russian woman suspected of being part of a cannibal couple who ate ‘dozens’ of victims has been jailed for eleven-and-a-half years.
Natalia Baksheeva, 43, was found guilty of instigating the murder of 35-year-old waitress Elena Vashrusheva by her husband.
In a statement given in court, she claimed her cheating had driven her ‘maniac’ husband to steam, pickle and freeze the waitress’ remains.
Her spouse Dmitry Baksheeva, 35, nicknamed the ‘Devil’, is still to face a separate murder trial after being declared psychiatrically fit.
Earlier media reports citing law enforcement sources claimed the couple had some 30 victims over 18 years between them, and also kept meat from dogs and cats.
They lured victims from dating websites, and sold ‘meat’ at the military academy where they lived, it was alleged.
Baksheeva’s trial in Russia only concerned the waitress whose butchered remains – some cooked in a frying pan – were found in the family’s fridge and freezer, and on their cooker.
She was convicted of provoking her husband to murder the waitress who allegedly flirted with her husband during a drinking session.
Baksheeva had earlier admitted to being a cannibal, but later retracted.
In a rambling seven-minute statement from the court cage, Baksheeva confessed: ‘I’m guilty that for the last three years I had another man.
‘I did not name him to the jury.’
Her husband guessed she was cheating, she said.
She told the judge: ‘This man was even involved in our church wedding. I’m guilty, your honour, that with my behaviour, I brought my husband to what he has done.
‘If he went for this [murder and cannibalism], I blame myself.’
She said: ‘I asked him why he removed the scalp from the woman’s head.
‘He replied: “Her hair looked like yours and to prevent this happening to you, I decided to chop it off, and destroy it.”
‘To my question “why?” He did not answer.’
Evidence suggested she had a big sway over her husband who obeyed her commands, prosecutors said.
‘I blame myself so much,’ she said. ‘That I lived with him not loving him, and had pity for him… I think that I’m guilty very much in this.
‘I will never forgive myself for this.’
Criminal lawyer Dr Yulia Fedotova has claimed the murder and slicing up of the waitress’ body was carried out by a skilled ‘butcher’ who had previous experience.
She also highlighted that in her first testimony, Baksheeva had said her husband ‘put the body parts in the bathroom, cut the skin off the skull, severed the ears and lips with his teeth, and ate them’.
Later Baksheeva denied cannibalism, which was suddenly accepted by the authorities, said Dr Fedotova.
If Baksheev was a novice killer – as law enforcement claimed – she asked how he knew how to expertly cut off the dead and gouge out the heart while dismembering other body parts.
If the couple were not cannibals, why were the woman’s body parts expertly preserved in the couple’s fridge and freezer, she asked.
‘How could Baksheev – who was never convicted before and who was not a butcher or surgeon – manage to do all this alone and just within several hours?’
She claimed witnesses were shown ‘dozens’ of pictures of missing people suspected of being linked to the case.
She wrote in opposition outlet Mediazone: ‘The most important question is – what happened to other bodies? Did they exist?
‘What about those dozens of missing people? Why did witnesses have to go through numerous photographs of men and women for identification? Who are these people and where are they?’
Several sources have suggested the authorities did not want to allow a scandal at the prestigious military academy where they couple lived.
But investigators say that the couple only met in 2012 so could not have jointly engaged in cannibal acts before this.
They authorities now allege a grisly picture showing a feast – apparently depicting the severed head of a man in 1999 – was a fake. (source, source)