A woman who hired a hitman to kill her best friend and five-year-old daughter because she thought she had cursed her, has been sent to a secure psychiatric clinic.
Deranged Maya Kuzmicheva believed that pal Taisiya Nosova was using black magic to bring her bad luck.
So she lured Taisiya, 45, and her daughter Anastasia to her rented home in the town of Krasnokamsk, Perm territory, western Russia, to kill them, a court heard.
When they got there hired killer Andrey Serebrov gruesomely murdered them both, judges at Perm Regional Court were told on 13th July.
Serebrov – jailed for life at an earlier hearing – stabbed Taisiya to death and throttled her daughter Anastasia with a towel in August last year.
Their mutilated bodies were found by police a week after they’d been killed in a shallow grave near the house after Taisiya’s brother raised the alarm.
Serebrov had been paid just GBP 860 (RUB100,000) for the double killing, which disturbed Kuzmicheva believed would end her curse, the court heard.
Prosecutor Alexey Chepkasov said: “Kuzmicheva did indeed tell Serebrov that she was under a curse by Nosova and that the only way to get rid of it was through murder, but I believe Serebrov didn’t attach much importance to it. His goal was the money.”
The court heard how terrified Anastasia fought for her life while she was being watched by sick Kuzmicheva.
In her defence, she had told the court: “Please clarify the identity of this friend. She was involved in black magic! Everyone knew this, and she was after my apartment.”
Prosecutor Chepkasov said: “The child resisted, fought desperately for her life, but it didn’t stop him.”
Judges found Kuzmicheva was suffering from a “severe mental illness”.
They sentenced her to be held at a maximum-security mental hospital for compulsory psychiatric treatment.
