A wife who helped her husband kill and butcher a woman and then store her flesh in specimen jars has sued a prison for GBP 40,000 after her husband died in jail.
Dimitry Basksheev, 38, and his wife Natalia Baksheeva were dubbed the Krasnodar Cannibals after details of their gruesome killing emerged in Russia.
The pair were found guilty of killing a drinking partner with an axe and then systematically butchering her and preserving sections of her body.
Now Baksheeva, 48, has sued jail officials in Rostov-on-Don after her TB-suffering husband died from medical negligence in a prison hospital.
Baksheeva – serving 10 years’ jail for the 2017 killing – has demanded RUB 5 million (GBP 40,530) for her “irreparable loss”.
Judges agreed that her husband had died of negligence but ruled the sum she had demanded was too large.
Instead, they said she should receive just RUB 300,000 (GBP 2,440) for her loss.
The couple’s grisly killing earned them a place among Russia’s most macabre murders.
A night’s drinking with a female friend ended in a bloodbath when Basksheev was ordered to kill their companion with an axe by his wife.
The truth only emerged when a roadworker found a discarded mobile phone that had pictures of a severed human head in its memory.
Police traced the phone to the couple and began to unravel a shocking blood-soaked trail of evidence.
The victim’s head was found inside a bucket and part of her scalp – still with its distinctive red hair – was discarded on a path next to a bag of her belongings.
And inside the couple’s home they discovered glass jars with preserved human meat sealed inside.
Many were convinced the couple had eaten their victim’s flesh although the allegation was never made part of their trial.
Natalia Baksheeva was found guilty of incitement to murder.
Her husband was sentenced to 12 years in a maximum-security correctional colony but never admitted his guilt in the murder.
But his advanced TB meant that he served only a year in jail before dying in the prison hospital.
His lawyer, Julia Fedotova, stated: “Dima died from type 1 diabetes. This is only possible if he did not receive insulin, which should be injected three times a day.
“A couple of days without it result in a lethal outcome. He was in the Rostov prison hospital from 1st February to 16th February, with the 13th in the intensive care unit, so he stopped receiving insulin shortly before his death for unknown reasons.
“Perhaps he was placed in a psychiatric ward and restrained.”
The doctor who treated him was investigated and was found guilty of malpractice.
Baksheeva has appealed the reduced compensation awarded by judges.
Rostov Region Court is to consider the appeal on 7th September.
