Woman (80) suspected of being a serial killer

RUSSIAN police are investigating whether an 80-year-old woman is a serial killer after her lodger’s dismembered body parts were found in her fridge.

The retired farm worker was arrested after the 52-year-old victim’s remains were discovered in the village of Berezovka, in the south-eastern Khabarovsk territory.

Detectives believe she could be linked to the disappearance of up to seven people.

Police launched an investigation on January 30 after stray dogs were seen fighting over body parts, including a human hand, torn out of packages dumped in the street, according to Russian newspaper ‘Moskovskij Komsomolets’.

Khabarovsk’s Investigative Committee said the victim was identified through his fingerprints as the elderly woman’s tenant, named in local media as Ukrainian caretaker Vasily Shlyakhtich.

Police found traces of Mr Shlyakhtich’s blood during a search of her flat and reportedly discovered his organs and flesh in the fridge.

Neighbours told police they heard loud banging “as if someone was chopping something hard with an axe” on the day of the alleged murder, according to local news website DVHAB.

The arrested woman reportedly slaughtered pigs as part of her farm work.

During a search of her home, police also found the passport of a woman who disappeared several years ago. Investigators now believe she may have been murdered.

They are also probing if the arrested woman could be linked to the disappearance six others who have gone missing in Berezovka in recent years.

‘Someone was chopping something hard with an axe’