Russia’s gruesome cannibal couple
A Russian couple are under arrest after a gruesome 18-year cannibalistic killing spree
SELFIES with body parts, pickled humans remains, strips of skin . . . it’s a litany of horror so gruesome it makes Hannibal Lecter’s actions sound tame. But unlike Hannibal in the harrowing film The Silence of the Lambs, the people behind this cannibalistic killing spree aren’t fictional characters and their deeds can’t be written off as “just a movie”.
This is very real – and it went on for 18 years before police discovered their dark secret.
Dmitry Baksheev (35) and his wife, Natalia (42), were arrested after a cellphone was found in the southwest Russian city of Krasnodar containing a series of horrific photographs.
Remains of an unidentified woman were also found close to where the pair lived on the grounds of a military academy run by the Russian defence force.
It’s believed Dmitry killed the woman and cut her up after he and Natalia argued with her during a drinking session three days earlier, according to a statement by the local investigative unit.
A subsequent police search of their room yielded a terrifying find. Human fragments were found preserved in saline jars while frozen body parts were discovered in the fridge, freezer and cellar. Cans of steamed human meat were also found.
Videos on cannibalism were found along with a number of gory photographs. One, dated 28 December 1999, shows a severed human head on a serving plate surrounded by fruit.
Police also found 19 strips of human skin, that had reportedly been removed from dead people. All have gone for forensic testing.
A stash of wigs was also found in the room, which was described as a filthy mess, with clothes and debris strewn everywhere.
After being questioned by local police Dmitry confessed to a killing spree lasting almost two decades.
A stash of cellphones believed to have
‘The police should now look where this woman may have worked as a chef . . . These cannibals were looking for places to sell their meat’
belonged to the couple’s former victims was found in their room.
THE sadistic couple’s reign of terror came to an abrupt end after construction workers found a cellphone lying in one of the city’s roads. Discovering it still worked they began swiping through the photos. And what they found made them head straight to the police.
On it 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.
That man was, of course, Dmitry. In one photo he poses with the severed head of a woman who, it’s now believed, may be the same woman whose body parts were discovered on 12 September near the couple’s home.
A bucket and bag containing female body parts were found along with another bag filled with the dead woman’s possessions.
It’s believed Dmitry and Natalia used ether and a Russian drug called Corvalol to drug their victims before skinning them and carving them up.
Neighbours claim the smell of the drug emanated from their room but they were too scared to confront the couple.
“Each time we tried to enter their room they started shouting wildly and crying. Natalia is a scandalous woman, aggressive, so we didn’t risk it,” one neighbour says.
Over the years the couple worked at the military base where they lived in a hostel. But Natalia was fired from her job as a nurse because of her heavy drinking.
It’s believed she tried to lure soldiers into becoming cannibals by sharing cans of steamed human meat with them.
In a bid to boost her income she also tried to sell “meat pies” to local eateries, boasting to café owners that she was a chef and could supply meat. When asked what she filled her pies with, she replied, “Whatever is around.” Café owner Vitaly Yakubenko recalls Natalia coming around in 2010 and asking lots of questions, “Mainly about where we buy our meat and fish and how fresh it is. She made it clear she could supply meat. I said that we work only with certified suppliers. “The police should now look where this woman may have worked as a chef and if she tried to push her products there too. For sure these cannibals were looking for places to sell their meat.” He adds that he refused to work with her saying she looked “vulgar”. “People are trembling when recalling such exchanges,” a Russian newspaper reported.
ONE victim is believed to be Elena Vashrushev (35), a waitress who lived nearby. Others are feared to be women whom Dmitry lured via dating websites.
Police have confirmed the couple will remain in custody on the initial murder charge while further investigations and biological testing continues.
Natalia has since undergone psychiatric tests and has been deemed “mentally healthy”. Dmitry, meanwhile, can only be described as troubled from the start.
His parents were allegedly drug addicts and he was sent to an orphanage at an early age before being adopted. While growing up he was often in trouble with the law and jailed several times for theft.
According to Lyubov Baksheeva, the second wife of Dmitry’s adoptive father, Vladimir, when they met Natalia they knew she was bad news. “We knew she influenced him in a bad way. I saw her three times and she was drunk, aggressive and shouting. They were always fighting with each other.”
She says they tried talking to Dmitry but it was useless. “His eyes are made of glass. He’s looking through your body and does not listen. Before he moved out of our flat he set fire to his room.”
If all the murders are confirmed, the couple will rank among Russia’s worst serial killers.
In 2015 the country was shocked by the cannibalistic antics of Tamara Samsonova, dubbed the Granny Ripper. The 68-year-old pensioner, who drugged her victims, usually her lodgers, before cutting them up with a hacksaw and eating their organs, killed at least 11 people over two decades.
She was eventually caught after CCTV footage showed her removing one of her victims’ bodies in a black bag. She was said to have modelled herself on the Soviet Union’s worst-ever serial killer and cannibal, Andrei Chikatilo.
Dubbed the Red Ripper, Chikatilo murdered, sexually assaulted and cannibalised at least 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990. He was known to chop off his victims tongues, break their eardrums and gouge out their eyes. He was brought to trial in a cage and eventually executed in 1994, aged 58.
Real life, it seems, is often more disturbing than fiction.