THEY ATE SLICES OF HER FLESH
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On that fateful June day, he’d taken Ira by bus to a stop about a mile from his home. An attractive woman we now know was his wife, Svetlana, then 22, ran up and started passionately kissing him.
‘Who are you?’ demanded a horrified Ira, still thinking Vladimir was in love with her.
‘His wife,’ she sneered, before they forced Ira into nearby woods, at knifepoint, where Vladimir raped and tortured her.
Worse, the fiendish pair were cannibals and removed some of her organs while she was still alive.
They cooked some of her body parts on their stove – burying the rest in the woods, where police found them, after Ira died.
The monsters ate slices of Ira’s flesh, even feeding some in a stew to their son, Dmitry, 4.
One of the vilest revelations was that, after scalping Ira, they gave some of her skin with hair attached to their boy, to play with, like a wig. After their arrest, we were told that Vladimir lived by a strange code of ‘military behaviour’, never smoking or drinking alcohol, and never having sex more than twice a month.
Vladimir demanded the same discipline from his wife and his friends – accomplices in some of his crimes, mostly robberies.
The sicko believed he had a unique strength, inherited from his ancestors and sorcerers.
For a long time after Ira’s murder, I couldn’t do anything – cook, read, nothing.
Looking for answers, I visited the woods and went to the cannibals’ lair – bumping into their landlady.
‘They seemed like the ideal tenants,’ she told me. ‘They were good looking and seemed so kind and considerate.’ How wrong could she be? She showed me around their flat, but I couldn’t face a proper look.
Slava and I were so distraught that we sent our son to live with his big sister for a while.
I’d vowed to face Ira’s killers in court. To confront them and ask, ‘Why?’
But their trial wasn’t held until four years later, and I couldn’t face reliving it all again.
Vladimir was locked up for life, with a minimum of 25 years at Zhitomir Regional Court, while Svetlana was jailed for 13 years.
And their boy was taken away for adoption. Hopefully, that will mean he has a chance.
In 2007 the evil cannibal duo dared to appeal against their sentences at the Supreme Court of Ukraine. Thankfully, their convictions and sentences were both upheld.
People ask why I don’t want further revenge.
Why I don’t want to throw acid at these murderers.
But I don’t want any more violence.
Ira’s killers are rotting in jail and can’t harm anyone else.
Their landlady claimed Svetlana was also groomed by Vladimir. That she was under his spell when she committed this heinous crime.
He is the Devil and she’s his twisted disciple.
I have no sympathy.
They cooked her body parts on their stove