HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Tamara Mitrofanovna Samsonova (; born 25 April 1947), known as Granny Ripper and Baba Yaga, is a Russian murderer and suspected
serial killer A serial killer (also called a serial murderer) is a person who murders three or more people,An offender can be anyone: * * * * * (This source only requires two people) with the killings taking place over a significant period of time in separat ...
who was arrested in July 2015. She has been hospitalized three times in psychiatric hospitals and may be
schizophrenic Schizophrenia () is a mental disorder characterized variously by hallucinations (typically, Auditory hallucination#Schizophrenia, hearing voices), delusions, thought disorder, disorganized thinking and behavior, and Reduced affect display, f ...
. Russian cannibals


Biography

Samsonova was born on 25 April 1947, in the city of Uzhur, now part of the Krasnoyarsk Krai. After graduating from high school, she arrived in Moscow and entered the
Moscow State Linguistic University Moscow State Linguistic University (), previously known as Maurice Thorez Moscow State Pedagogical Institute of Foreign Languages ( and still often referred to as InYaz) is a university in Moscow, Russia. It is the largest and the oldest univers ...
. After graduating, she moved to
St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...
, where she married Alexei Samsonov. In 1971, she and her husband settled in the newly built panel house number 4 on Dimitrov Street. For some time, she worked for
Intourist Intourist (, a contraction of , "foreign tourist" also Goskomturist ()) was a Soviet Union, Soviet then Russian tour operator, headquartered in Moscow. It was founded on April 12, 1929, and served as the primary travel agency for foreign tour ...
travel agency, in particular, in the
Grand Hotel Europe The Grand Hotel Europe () is a historic Hotel rating, five-star luxury hotel on Nevsky Prospect in Saint Petersburg, Russia. History The Grand Hotel d'Europe was built from 1873 to 1875, to designs by Swiss/Russian architect Ludwig Fontana. I ...
. The amount of work experience Samsonova gathered at the time of her retirement was 16 years. In 2000, Samsonova's husband disappeared. She appealed to the police, but searches yielded nothing. Fifteen years later, in April 2015, she contacted the investigative unit of the Fruzensky District in St. Petersburg and gave a statement about her husband's disappearance.


Murders

After her husband's disappearance, Samsonova rented out a room in her apartment. On 6 September 2003, during a quarrel, she killed her tenant Sergei Potanin. He was a 44-year-old resident from
Norilsk Norilsk ( rus, Нори́льск, p=nɐˈrʲilʲsk) is a closed city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located south of the western Taymyr Peninsula, around 90 km east of the Yenisei, Yenisey River and 1,500 km north of Krasnoyarsk. Norilsk is 300 ...
. She dismembered his corpse and disposed of it on the streets of St. Desyhis Way. In March 2015 a mutual friend asked 79-year-old Valentina Nikolaevna Ulanova, who also lived on Dimitrov Street, to shelter Samsonova temporarily while Samsonova's apartment was being renovated. Samsonova lived in Ulanova's apartment for several months, helping with the housework. The relationship between the two deteriorated, and when Ulanova asked Samsonova to leave she refused to move out. Samsonova travelled to
Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is conside ...
and persuaded a pharmacist to sell her the prescription drug
phenazepam Phenazepam (also known in Russia as bromdihydrochlorphenylbenzodiazepine) is a benzodiazepine drug, first developed in the Soviet Union in 1975, and now produced in Russia and several other countries. Phenazepam is used in the treatment of vario ...
. She put the pills into an
Olivier salad Olivier is the French form of the given name Oliver. It may refer to: * Olivier (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Olivier (surname), a list of people * Château Olivier, a Bordeaux winery * Olivier, Louisiana, a rural p ...
, a favourite of Ulanova's, and gave it to her. On the night of 23 July, Samsonova found Ulanova's body lying on the kitchen floor. Samsonova dismembered the body with two knives and a saw and bagged up the pieces. She left pieces of Ulanova's body scattered about as she made several trips to take all the bags out of the apartment. Ulanova's dismembered body, wrapped in a bathroom curtain, was found on the evening of 26 July, near a pond at house number 10 on Dimitrov Street. The package had not attracted attention for several days, until a resident took an interest in its contents. The identity of the deceased was established on 27 July after a survey of apartment residents. When police officers knocked on Ulanova's apartment, Samsonova opened the door. Police found traces of blood in the bathroom, and the fastening from the torn-off curtain. Samsonova was arrested.


Investigation and compulsory treatment

On 29 July 2015, Samsonova was brought to the Frunze District Court of St. Petersburg. A forensic psychiatric examination determined on 26 November 2015 that she was a danger to society and to herself, and she was placed in a specialized institution until the end of the investigation. In December 2015, Samsonova was sent for compulsory psychiatric treatment in a specialized hospital in
Kazan Kazan; , IPA: Help:IPA/Tatar, ɑzanis the largest city and capital city, capital of Tatarstan, Russia. The city lies at the confluence of the Volga and the Kazanka (river), Kazanka Rivers, covering an area of , with a population of over 1. ...
. She is being investigated in connection with 14 murders. Police found a diary containing details of some of the murders. One entry claims she: "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."


See also

*
List of Russian serial killers A list is a set of discrete items of information collected and set forth in some format for utility, entertainment, or other purposes. A list may be memorialized in any number of ways, including existing only in the mind of the list-maker, but ...
*
List of serial killers by number of victims A serial killer is typically a person who murders three or more people, in two or more separate events over a period of time, for primarily psychological reasons.''Macmillan Encyclopedia of Death and Dying'' entry o"Serial Killers" (2003) by Sa ...


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Samsonova, Tamara 1947 births Living people Criminals from Saint Petersburg People with schizophrenia Suspected serial killers Moscow State Linguistic University alumni