>
A 21-year-old man killed his 45-year-old girlfriend, dismembered her body with a meat cleaver, roasted and eat her brain.
The man, identified as Dmitry Luchin, reportedly smashed a wine bottle over Olga Budunova’s head 25 times before proceeding to tear up her body at her home in Valdai, Russia.
Reports said he roasted her brain and ate it while drinking her blood.
The murder happened when he went to Budunova’s flat in Valdai for ‘romantic’ drinks to mark International Women’s Day, a major public holiday in Russia.
Prosecutors said he had carefully planned the act after becoming obsessed with reading about serial killers on the web, He subscribed to an online site called ‘World of manians and serial killers’.
A witness to the crime scene, Alexander Dadiova, said: “After killing her he used blood from her cracked skull to daub a sign of the devil’ on a door. He wanted to summon the devil.
“He waited for 5 minutes but the devil did not appear. Next he took the meat cleaver and smashed her skull to the brain. He cut pieces out of her brain. He roasted and ate them.
“He liked it. He ate another piece. Then poured a glass of her blood and drank.
“Next he cut out her stomach, and chopped off her ears. One he put into her mouth, the other into the cars bowl .”
On interrogation, Luchin told police: “I carried out the killing to ‘get inspiration to write poetry’.
“I liked the taste of her brain. I decided to give it another try. Then I drained some of her blood into a glass.”
Luchin also said he got sexual pleasure from the attack.
It is normal in Russia for an independent witness to be invited to a crime scene to confirm that police did not tamper with evidence.
Luchin had appealed for the trial to be held behind closed doors but the judge refused. He will face a life sentence if convicted of murder and the desecration of the dead.