Granny Ripper who killed and ate her victims' organs in gruesome ritual

Irish Daily Mirror

5 hours ago

An elderly Russian woman gained the chilling nickname 'Granny Ripper' after committing a series of horrific crimes, with as many as 11 victims falling prey to her. Tamara Mitrofanovna Samsonova infamously spiked her friend's salad with pills, decapitated her, and boiled her head among other terrifying offences.
Born in 1947 in Uzhur, Samsonova appeared to lead a conventional life initially. After completing high school she pursued higher education at Moscow State Linguistic University.
A subsequent move to St. Petersburg saw her wed Alexei Samsonov and spend 16 years working in a travel agency.
However, 2000 marked a mysterious chapter when her husband disappeared, prompting Samsonova to approach the police with no success in locating him. He had seemingly disappeared without a trace. Fast forward to 2015, she even reached out to the investigative department of Fruzensky District in St. Petersburg with information regarding his vanishing.
But in a grisly twist that same year, the sinister facet of Samsonova was shockingly unveiled. A horrific discovery was made by a passerby - body parts of her dismembered renter strewn on the street, reports the Mirror US.
Then 68, she was captured on CCTV in the dead of night removing hefty plastic bags from her home, one of which is purported to have contained the severed head of a human being.
Tragically, it's believed that these mortal remains belonged to Valentina Ulanova, age 79, who was renting from Samsonova and met an alarming demise. Official reports from the Russian Investigative Committee indicate that in July 2015 Ulanova died "on the spot" following Samsonova's lethal concoction of over 50 sleeping pills in her salad, proceeding to then mutilate her body.
Samsonova made her way to Pushkin and sweet-talked a pharmacist into selling her phenazepam, a prescription drug, which she slipped into Valentina's most-loved Olivier salad. Later on, the fragments of Valentina were discovered bundled up in a shower curtain in the street.
Authorities said: "Then, in order to conceal the committed crime, she dismembered the body of her victim and placed the parts in different places near the apartment block."
It was reported the woman brutally dismembered her lodger with a handsaw because of "personal hostile relations" sparked by a "conflict with her friend". Unsettling rumours also circulated that she had cooked Valentina's head by boiling it in a pot.
In court, Samsonova's behaviour was erratic; she even went as far as to blow a kiss to members of the press before admitting to Valentina's murder. Nevertheless, the content of a chilling diary entry shook many, hinting she might have taken the lives of 11 more people, potentially including those of her husband and her mother-in-law, who both vanished without leaving a trace behind.
Her frail health, uncooperative demeanour, and the absence of more human remains meant additional charges became an impossible task.
The Sun quoted a source as saying: "We may never know the extent of this granny's killings."
When she was arrested in 2015, there were rumours she had killed her tenant, Sergei Potanin, in 2003.
Sergei, from Norilsk and aged 44 at his time of death. Samsonova is accused of cutting his body up and then distributing parts of it around the city streets.
Samsonova was under investigation for a staggering 15 deaths when cops stumbled upon a diary entry where she chillingly confessed "killed my tenant Volodya, cut him to pieces in the bathroom with a knife and put the pieces of his body in plastic bags and threw them away in the different parts of Frunzensky District."
It emerged Samsonova may have been inspired by Andrei Chikatilo's book, the notorious serial killer responsible for nearly 50 murders between 1978 and 1990.
A neighbour who had been close to her for 15 years revealed her obsession with Chikatilo, said: "She gathered information about him and how he committed his murders."
During her court hearing for the murder of Valentina, Samsonova admitted to the judge: "I am guilty and I deserve to be punished."
At 78, Samsonova reacted to the news of her continued detention by clapping her hands and grinning broadly.
Yet, a forensic psychiatric assessment in 2015 deemed Samsonova a threat to both society and herself, resulting in her confinement to a specialist facility before being transferred for mandatory psychiatric care at a dedicated hospital in Kazan.
In 2017, she received a life sentence to a psychiatric ward, with the court deciding that her mental disorder exonerated her from culpability for Valentina's death.