CCTV footage has emerged of a convicted rapist leaving a
karaoke club with two women who police say he later stabbed to death and
dismembered.
Officers are investigating reports Alexander Maslennikov,
31, raped the women and minced some of their remains before feeding them to
dogs.
In the footage, he is smoking a cigarette and carrying a
bottle of wine as he leaves the club at 6am in the Russian city of
Volzhsky.
He is followed by sales assistants Daria Labutina, 29, and
Olga Shaposhnikova, 28, who are known to have accompanied him to a flat he
rented after being released from prison over rapes, sexual assault and robbery.
The women, who worked in a local shopping centre, were
unaware of his rape convictions, but even so friends say it was "out of
character" for the pair - who both had boyfriends - to go home with a
stranger.
Despite this, the women shared drinks at his flat but it is
unclear if he stabbed them after they refused to have sex with him or - as
earlier reported - he raped the women then killed them.
One version is that they turned down his demand for a
threesome.
But it is known he then dismembered their bodies in his
bathroom.
One of the women was cut into around 20 pieces. The other
woman had severed legs.
Police have not confirmed local reports that he minced body
parts of the women in a grinder, and later fed the "meat" to
dogs.
The man was later arrested near Moscow as he was suspected
of plotting an attack on another woman, a hairdresser.
At the weekend, a crowd of 500 gathered to protest the
suspected killer, hurling abuse at the man as he showed police where he hid
human remains.
They shouted "murderer" and "bastard".
Police have released CCTV videos showing the 6ft 6inch man
entering his apartment block with the women, but then leaving later carrying
two sports bags containing the women's remains.
Alexander Minaev, senior investigator on the case, said:
"So far we can tell you that Maslennikov confessed the crime and has given
evidence pointing at the place where he hid the bodies.
"The details of his crime are being established now,
and the investigation is in progress."
While he confessed to murdering both women, he has been
reluctant to give police all the details.
The women had been missing since visiting Voice karaoke club
in the industrial city of Volzhsky on 13 October. Their mobile phones stopped
working immediately and frantic relatives could not reach them.
Police established that they had left the club with
Maslennikov who had been freed from jail in May after serving 11 years for
rape, sexual assault and robbery.
"The criminal dismembered their bodies and ground them
up with a mincer," reported Moskovsky Komsomolets, citing law enforcement
sources.
Their remains were "fed to dogs", according
to local reports. Body parts of the women were also found in a forest near the
city, in Volgograd region, say police sources.
Five days after the women vanished, charges of "murder
of two people" were laid against Maslennikov in absentia and he was put on
Russia's wanted list.
The local mayor offered a 700,000 rouble reward (£9,100) for
information on the suspect.
Maslennikov was detained late last week by police close to
Moscow where he had fled and begun dating a woman, a mother-of-one who worked
as a hairdresser. She had earlier been his penpal.
In a video of his interrogation, the suspect is seen
sweating as he is quizzed by a policeman.
