A Russian couple has been detained after they tried to dispose of the mummified remains of the husband’s parents. The bodies had apparently been kept in their apartment for months, with the foul smell blamed on a “pet goose.”
The blood-chilling story unfolded in the city of Odintsovo, located just outside Moscow. On Thursday, local police were alerted after two mummified bodies were found in a multistory building, packed into wooden longboxes.
CCTV footage circulating online showed a man and woman loading one of the boxes into a van before fleeing the scene. The box contained the body of an elderly woman, while another one, containing the remains of an elderly man, was found leaning against the wall on the staircase of the building.
The horrifying discovery prompted the launch of a murder case. The two suspects, who turned out to be a married couple, were detained on Saturday, Russia’s Investigative Committee confirmed. The dead bodies that were stuffed into the boxes turned out to be the husband’s parents.
“So far, experts have not established the cause of death of the elderly couple,” the Investigative Committee said.
The suspects have been identified by Russian media as Anatoliy and Tatiana Tkachenko, who had lived in the building for some six years. They rented their apartment from its owner, who permanently resided in another city.
At some point, Anatoliy’s parents moved in with the couple, and ultimately met their end at the apartment. The corpses had reportedly been kept in the apartment at least since March, when the couple’s neighbors noticed a foul smell coming from inside.
They notified the police over the smell, but law enforcement reportedly found nothing suspicious. Anatoliy is understood to have blamed the smell on a “decorative goose” he kept in the apartment.
He was also reportedly confronted by neighbors when he brought a haul of lumber into the flat, which was apparently used to construct the longboxes. The suspicious activity was blamed on the elusive goose again, with Anatoliy claiming his pet needed a pen. It remains unclear whether the suspect actually owned such a bird or merely sent his neighbors on a wild-goose chase.
The botched attempt to dispose of the bodies reportedly came after the apartment’s owner decided to check up on his property after the couple failed to pay rent for several months in a row. He ran into his tenants just as they were loading the grim cargo into the van, sending them on a two-day flight from the police.
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