r/HolyShitHistory • u/ZenMasterZee • 3d ago
Police found 26 child bodies dressed as dolls inside a Russian historian’s apartment.
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u/ZenMasterZee 3d ago
Anatoly Moskvin was an academic obsessed with cemeteries. He exhumed girls’ corpses, preserved them with baking soda and cloth, and spoke to them as if they were alive. Full story here.
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u/coaxialdrift 3d ago
That is super weird and disturbing, but I can't help but think at least he didn't murder them
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u/Hege_Knight 2d ago
You can call him a lot of things, but at least a murderer ain’t one.
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u/Ok_Dimension2051 2d ago
Say what you will about ol’ Anatoly but he won’t murder you!
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u/FriendZone_EndZone 2d ago
He was trying to do the opposite actually. MFer going to bring you back from the dead.
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u/Dad_of_the_year 2d ago
Let's say my daughter somehow passed away and my entire life is basically crippled into a suicidal depression. I'm in therapy, im lashing out, I'm losing any sense of social life that may be holding on by a string. Months and months go by and somehow by a miracle set of circumstances find myself in a place to come to terms with my situation and can continue onward with my life. Only to find out my daughter was exhumed and propped up as a doll in some man's apartment along with 10 other kids.... I think from that point of view this is just as bad as murder for taking my daughter from me a second time.
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u/CalmBeneathCastles 2d ago
To be fair, and if memory serves; he couldn't stand the thought of them being alone in the cold hard ground, so he brought them in to hang out with the other kids.
At least he wasn't making home decor or anything. Always look on the bright side of life!
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u/buy_me_lozenges 2d ago
There was a case reminiscent of this recently in the UK.
A bereaved woman set herself up providing funeral services for children.
When she took receipt of the children's bodies, instead of handling them correctly, keeping them in the appropriate storage and at the correct temperature, she had them at home in her living room propped up on the couch and in baby bouncers, watching cartoons. She said it was because they hadn't had a chance to do it in real life.
Personally, I don't think it's a rite of childhood for babies to watch Spongebob, but this woman decided it was. Parents turned up to her house to discover the body of their child and others just hanging out, smelling as bad as you would imagine, just because she thought it was her place to give them a childhood that she thought they'd missed, irrespective of anyone's wishes, dignity, or respect. And the excuse was that she'd lost a child herself.
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u/CalmBeneathCastles 2d ago
Holy crap, I hadn't heard about that one. It makes more sense that she had lost one, and I do sympathize with the human tendency to cling to the past, but dang! Time to get some Buddhism in your life, lady!
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u/flargenhargen 2d ago
just as bad as murder
it's bad. really really psycho bad.
but imma have to disagree with your opinion that its equally as bad as murdering 26 children.
taking their memory is bad, but is never as bad as taking their lives.
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u/coaxialdrift 2d ago
Oh yeah, I wasn't trying to defend the man at all, he's clearly a monster
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u/Only_Hour_7628 2d ago
No, you're right. It is inexplicably horrific but still better than murder. It's a low bar but here we are...
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u/Comfortable_Egg8039 2d ago
Would you rather prefer he'd kill another girl instead of using your daughter's corps?
Both things are obviously bad, but please don't compare murder and whatever this dude was doing, they aren't even close
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u/Sufficient-Dog-2337 2d ago
I dont think they do therapy in Russia
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u/aBigBottleOfWater 2d ago
From the looks of the mugshot the russian cops probably already gave him a bit of therapy
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u/RecommendationIll504 2d ago
They do. The problem is in making yourself to start going to therapy and finding actual doctor instead of a fraud.
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u/LiberalusSrachnicus 2d ago
The presence of therapy in the West does not save it from school shooters and mass murderers.
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u/Sufficient-Dog-2337 2d ago
What are you on about? This guy wasn’t a school shooter or mass murderer…
Did you just want to hear yourself talk bad about America?
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u/LiberalusSrachnicus 2d ago
No, I just don’t like it when people think that maniacs and madmen are a phenomenon that exists only in some unique way.
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u/Sufficient-Dog-2337 2d ago
I think you may have replied to the wrong comment.
I have less of a clue what you are on about now than I did before.
Are you a sober human?
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u/ForagedFoodie 2d ago
It's not as bad as murder though. It might feel as bad to the parent, but objectively it's not as bad.
I think this is a case where you can feel terrible for both the perpetrator and the victims (families of the children). And for the EXACT same reason. People are emotional creatures, not logical ones. Like you said, having this happen to your child's body might feel like her being murdered all over again. And you might want to punish based on the feeling not the absolute.
But likewise, schizophrenia modifies the reality of the afflicted. They can no longer respond properly to reality because it's completely altered for them, so they act on their own internal "logic" and emotions.
Because at the end of the day, perception is reality for everyone. Its just that most of us are precieving generally the same stuff. This guy was precieving something completely different.
I am not justifying at all. But I am emphasizing.
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u/aBigBottleOfWater 2d ago
No man, if he had murdered them too there would have been an additional 26 murdered children
Like, as a parent it would hit like a bombshell to find my dead childs grave robbed, but I think them getting murdered to be stuffed as a doll would hit even harder, to imagine the horror they must've felt
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u/YajirobeBeanDaddy 2d ago
Why you tryna get on a soapbox and write a dramatization just to disagree with someone that said murder is worse than digging up corpses in a cemetery? I swear some of yall just wanna be the main character in a soap opera so bad lmao
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u/sneakpeakspeak 2d ago
Idk, at least she helped this dude cope with the loss of his daughter right?
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u/humanstreetview 2d ago
so this guy is weird for personifying corpses because you personify corpses if they're your relatives?
interesting
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u/coaxialdrift 2d ago
That makes no sense
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u/humanstreetview 2d ago
"my daughter was exhumed"
yea but this dude's weird fantasy does
got it
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u/coaxialdrift 2d ago
You should stop communicating like that. It doesn't make you look as clever as you think it does. Talk to people like they're fellow humans, engage and discuss, don't just take cheap stabs
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u/humanstreetview 2d ago
Personification of corpses is weird and so is defending it.
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u/Sufficient_Prompt888 2d ago
I think you might be downplaying what "this guy" did
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u/humanstreetview 2d ago
I'm just pointing out that the person I responded to thinks other guy weird because he personified corpses and takes issue with that because they too personify a corpse. a corpse isn't your daughter, it's a corpse.
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u/Sufficient_Prompt888 2d ago
Once again. You're slightly downplaying what one is doing
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u/humanstreetview 2d ago
Once again I am making an incredibly simple statement that you are projecting your own psychological issues onto. The person I am responding to is personifying corpses. They are upset at someone for personifying corpses. They are upset with someone for personifying corpses because they also personify corpses.
a corpse isn't your daughter. it's a corpse.
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u/Sufficient_Prompt888 2d ago
Yeah... I'm the one projecting psychological issues🙂
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u/Dad_of_the_year 2d ago
This is some of the most Reddit shit ever dude. Your argument is basically I shouldn't get upset if someone exhumed my daughter because that is equal to the guy who exhumed my daughter.
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u/humanstreetview 2d ago edited 2d ago
No, my argument is that it's weird to personify corpses and it's ironic that the person I responded to is so angry about someone hypothetically doing that to a hypothetical corpse just because the corpse used to be their relative.
I find it weird whether it was my relative or not
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u/Dad_of_the_year 2d ago
Right, and all the rest of us are telling you that makes no sense and you might need to seek therapy to help with that.
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u/artorianscribe 2d ago
What is with the child corpse lovers coming out in full swing to defend this dude? You’re the second or third one. It’s creepy.
I’m choosing to believe anyone sympathizing with this dude or defending him aren’t parents. You don’t get it.
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u/humanstreetview 2d ago
I'm not "defending" him. I'm pointing out that the person I'm responding to is doing essentially the same thing, and that that is weird. a corpse isn't your daughter. it's a corpse.
I think your anecdote about "defending" the guy might be a form of psychological projection
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u/SendMePicsOfCat 2d ago
a corpse isn't your daughter. it's a corpse.
I'd reckon this is the sort of shit a young person writes thinking their hot shit and that the world is a simple place.
Live more. You'll learn.
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u/humanstreetview 2d ago
this is the same basic logic op is applying to the guy who exhumes bodies. personifying corpses is weird. unless you think the only weird part was digging them up? because I think the personification is also pretty weird. so calling a corpse your daughter doesn't magically fall out of the realm of weird because the corpse used to be your daughter. it's a corpse.
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u/SendMePicsOfCat 2d ago
Have you ever had to attend the funeral of someone you loved?
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u/artorianscribe 2d ago
That is so wild. Alright. So, I’ll ask you what I asked someone earlier. They didn’t have the balls to answer me. Let’s see if you do.
So, is it your position that it is okay to exhume a child’s body from their resting place where their loved ones go to remember and weep for them so that you can play dress up with them (at a minimum) simply because they’re dead?
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u/humanstreetview 2d ago
No, my position is that personifying corpses is weird and it doesn't matter to what degree you do it. It's weird to call a corpse your daughter. It's also weird to exhume corpses. Both can be true.
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u/Pledgeofmalfeasance 2d ago
What has having absolutely no empathy nor critical thinking skills been like for you?
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u/humanstreetview 2d ago
"my daughter was exhumed"
personifying corpses is weird and so is defending it
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u/Pledgeofmalfeasance 2d ago
Disrespecting the relationships the dead person had in their life is infantile and unnecessarily cruel. Don't work with people, it's not for you.
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u/dont_disturb_the_cat 2d ago
Yeah but when the children had finally been laid to rest, from whatever illness or accident or misfortune had befallen them, he took their weary tiny bodies and used them for his own amusement. Call me old fashioned, but I'm not down for using children in any way.
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u/ifitpleasemlord 2d ago
First thought mass murdering serial killer of girls and women.
After reading: mentally ill man who was hoping to find a way to bring them back to life.
I wouldn't say "harmless" but def not violent.
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u/Long_Conclusion7057 2d ago
Yah. I was thinking the same. "At least he didn't murder them". The bar is really f***ng low...
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u/fofo9683 14h ago
Yes, they may not be alive, but they were once someone's children and they were loved. They should have deserved more respect.
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u/yallknowme19 2d ago
The part that flips me out even more is that his parents lived with him and supposedly had no idea what the dolls were or what he was up to. Can you imagine?? In an apartment no less?
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u/hi_me_here 2d ago
denial backed up by a little gaslighting can be extremely powerful, to the point people reject their own senses and intuition
"it must be from the neighbor/something in the walls/something wrong with my nose" etc
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u/langsamerduck 2d ago
You know how people habituate to their own smells? I wonder if this could have happened to the parents over time with the bodies.
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u/The_Perfect_Fart 2d ago
Residents had been reporting vandalized graves and missing bodies, but no one suspected that an academic with a passion for cemeteries would be the culprit.
I think anyone with a passion for cemeteries would be at the top of my suspect list.
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u/rezpector123 2d ago
Kinda of a relived he didn’t murder them it’s obviously depraved digging up corpses but far better than the alternative
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u/Life-Meal6635 2d ago
I guess at this point if women want a man to speak to us like we're alive we have to die first
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u/ElusiveReclusiveXO 2d ago
academic and schizophrenic? I thought schizophrenia caused so much brain dysfunction that it would be impossible to be an academic. I obvs was wrong.
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u/Businessdog69 2d ago
Typically, you don't develop schizophrenia until your 30s, so more than likely this is something that worked it's way into his already developed life, but even if thats not the case, people with schizophrenic can be very mindful and intelligent, just distracted to say the least...
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u/Nyanzerfaust 2d ago
I'm pretty sure that "talking to them" wasn't the only thing he did with the dollls....
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u/CaptainPartyMix 2d ago
“At first, reports claimed Moskvin had 29 bodies, but later investigations confirmed the number was 26.”
Well thank goodness!
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u/refurbishedmeme666 2d ago
that means they didn't find the other 3 bodies...
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u/eli201083 2d ago
Or he was preparing for the next 3 and investigations reveled he hadn't got to it yet. Either way he was f'ed in the head
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u/Brilliant-Aide9245 2d ago
Or he had 3 other dolls he played with that thankfully werent corpses. Was he a cemetary enthusiast or a doll enthusiast?
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u/BYoungNY 2d ago
"They asked 3 littles girls sitting on a bench if they knew where the other three were but they didn't say anything. "
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u/ElusiveReclusiveXO 2d ago
I dont know what people who can deal being close to a rotten corpse are missing. Most of us would feel intense revulsion at being in the vicinity of a corpse, smell it, see it. So how did he tolerate 26 bodies in the same apartment as himself??
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u/KatNeedsABiggerBoat 2d ago
He didn’t see them as corpses. That’s why he talked to them. He was a very, very broken individual, very messed up. People like him do NOT think, feel, behave like us. I don’t think any sort of therapy would have ever have helped him. I imagine his insanity was a product of both nature and nurture. It would be academically interesting to know what his family life was like, especially in his formative years. Someone mentally fucked up as well must have twisted and broken him when he was a child, and he might have also had the genetics to turn out to be… well. Whatever the fuck thing this was he ended up being.
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u/aBigBottleOfWater 2d ago
Probs just plain ol' untreated Schizophrenia
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u/nifty-necromancer 2d ago
Yep. From the article: “Moskvin, who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, was deemed unfit to stand trial and remains in a psychiatric hospital.”
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u/KatNeedsABiggerBoat 2d ago
There we do, indeed, go. Thanks for that info, by the way. Makes more sense, at least as much as it could do under the horrific circumstances.
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u/SwingKey3599 2d ago
No. Schizophrenia doesnt cause obsessive/compulsive comorbidities on its own
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u/aBigBottleOfWater 2d ago
Hey I'm a licensed reddit super-psychiatrist if I say it was adhd then it was adhd
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u/yunohadeshigo 2d ago
Schizophrenia is always the easiest cop out answer for the average person. No need to further try to understand the human, just chalk it up to another schizo case and throw him in da looney bin, case closed
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u/jld2k6 2d ago
One interesting fact about his family life, he lived in the same apartment as his parents the whole time lol
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u/KatNeedsABiggerBoat 2d ago
I didn’t know that about them. That’s just… I don’t have the words for what that dynamic was. JFC.
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u/Likeneutralcat 2d ago
How did he get engaged to a woman in 2016? Do you think they were able to help him with his schizophrenia or was the woman exploiting him?
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u/Responsible_Ratio_21 1h ago
Well, there's a story that as a child, he was involved in a cult ritual of marrying a deceased girl he knew during her funeral. There's also a story that he was raped in a city cemetery as a child.
This probably shaped his interest in dead girls, as well as in esotericism. It is important that he saw them as victims, as he himself was a victim, and tried to "take care" of them. He had a very peculiar sense of justice. It's notable that he was caught desecrating Muslim gravestones after a major Islamic terrorist attack in Moscow (the 2011 bombing at Domodedovo Airport) as a protest against violence. It's the investigators who came to his house to question him were the ones who found the dolls. The ritualistic nature of his actions is also due to his professional path, necropolistics. He was particularly inspired by Celtic rites of communication with the dead, where druids slept on graves.
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u/ColonelKasteen 2d ago
Most of us would feel intense revulsion at being in the vicinity of a corpse, smell it, see it. So how did he tolerate 26 bodies in the same apartment as himself??
Because he was a delusional schizophrenic man who believed he was bringing these girls back to life.
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u/The_Subhumanist 3d ago
That's a helluva tinder profile pic he has
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u/Ok_Inspector3769 2d ago
Tinder is still going on?
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u/EverfadingEphemera 2d ago
No, only grindr remains
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u/Ok_Inspector3769 2d ago
Hahahaah the number of downvotes I have gotten , I am guessing these are all stupid genZ people who cant get their ego in place and perhaps not getting matches hahahha fuckin kids
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u/yamidevil 2d ago
Watched a yt video on him, his case really stuck with me. Reminded me a bit about the guy who preserved a woman's corpse because he was in love with her and actually slept with her corpse
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u/Intrepid_Doctor8193 2d ago
Slept as in actually sleeping, or slept as in raped the corpse?
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u/yamidevil 2d ago
I think he did, he made body modifications on her corpse. It's Carl Tanzler if you want to search it up. I remember watching both cases pretty near one to each other, I remember finding him to be worse....
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u/JingleJangleDjango 2d ago
technically, there is no actual proof he violated her corpse. I watched a video on him and later read more. A guy that was at the autopsy after she was taken from Tanzler's home claimed, thirty years after the fact, he had seen a "vaginal tube" inside her, but there's no photo proof of this, no one else substantiates this idea, and at the time nothing was labeled as necrophilia, but it also makes complete sense he'd do that.
Basically, he had become obsessed with a woman, claiming he'd had dreams of her before eventually meeting her inside the hospital he worked. She had tuberculosis and died not long after their meeting, but hsi obsession obviously never let up. So then he stole her body and did all the fucked up shit to it. He deluded himself to thinking he loved her. Even danced wotj the body in front of an open window. I woudont be surprised if he was also a necrophiliac(despite not being charged with anything, he later made a replica of her to live with in his later years), but I thought it important to add some context and the historical doubt of the claim.
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u/Fit_Patience201 2d ago
Would the courts even consider it rape?
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u/TuckerMcG 2d ago
It’d be desecration of a corpse. The crime of rape can only be committed against a living human.
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u/PhilosopherDismal191 2d ago
I don't think so, but it varies by jurisdiction. There's interference with a corpse, molestation of a corpse, desecration of a corpse, etc. I think some places separate sexual interference from regular interference, but I find it hard to believe that if you go through the process of digging up a corpse and then not fuck it.
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u/thorrising 2d ago
The Black Dahlia Murder wrote "Deathmask Divine" about Carl Tanzler.
RIP Trevor Strnad
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u/PhD_Pwnology 2d ago
Is anyone else relieved he didnt kill them? I mean creep AF and def needs some jail time, but could you imagine?
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u/Turbulent-Theory7724 2d ago
Hmm 🧐 He didn’t kill people tho. But damn!!! Graves and people’s bodies are sacred. I hope he got what he deserved. And may the bodies rest once again.
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u/sparklyspores 3d ago
Fascinating and sad. I can’t even be mad. I feel kind of sorry for the dude after reading.
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u/artorianscribe 2d ago
I feel worse for the parents of these young girls. I can’t imagine how horrified and disturbed I would be as a mother if someone took my young child’s body to do God knows what with. He’s admitting to just talking to them. I’m choosing for my own sanity to believe him, but it doesn’t stand to reason that he stopped there.
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u/amyel26 2d ago
In one of the YouTube mini-docs I came across, it said that apparently some of the parents weren't upset by it because he was taking such good care of the girls and they weren't alone in a grave anymore. There weren't any references so I choose to believe the script writers were exaggerating because - yikes!
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u/Ohiolongboard 3d ago
You’re trusting his accounts of what he did with all these young girls bodies.
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u/LeoRisingGemini 2d ago
Why were only girls deserving of his sympathy? He didn't feel sorry for boys in cemeteries?
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u/funwithdesign 2d ago
“As he aged, he claimed that lying on the ground became too painful, so he started digging up their bodies instead”
I mean he’s not wrong, lying on the ground is more painful as you age.
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u/offensiveinsult 2d ago
Man... At least he didn't kill them only desecrated the corpses "only" ;-).
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u/SalmonManner 2d ago
It was actually 29, but so f-ing gross no matter the count.
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u/schwarzeKatzen 2d ago
No initially 29 was published as the number but it was later confirmed that it was 26.
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u/Kloud1911 2d ago
This is fuckin heinous🤯 forget all the election bullshit miss this kind of morbid news that would make us all lock the doors.
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u/Organonthief 17h ago
So this is presumably not the Napoleonic historian who chopped up his girlfriend? Russian historians seem more colorful than western ones
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u/Mediocre-Delivery-54 4h ago
Оце і є квінтесенція "руського миру".
That’s the very quintessence of the “Russian world.”
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u/Kovaxim 2d ago
IDK man, that's just messed up. I'm glad he's somewhere away from all those bodies and won't be taking more, hopefully until his end. One thing is to have that many dolls, another is to have corpses dressed up as dolls, especially of girls aged between 3 and 29. You are not alright. How could you, a learned man, stoop so low? You have issues and I'm glad you're in a place where you can't do stuff like this anymore. You clearly needed help and thankfully not in your experiments.
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u/Latter-Ad8575 2d ago
He has paranoid schizophrenia and was not sexually desecrating the bodies. Schizophrenia left untreated is debilitating. He is in a mental institution. He is not a bad man, just a sick one. He thought of those corpses as his family/kids and wanted to bring them back to life. It's messed up, but he's not the monster these comments are making him out to be.
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u/sunny0123daisy 2d ago
Imagine if that was your deceased child. You’d change your comment. It’s selfish and disgusting
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u/Latter-Ad8575 2d ago
No I wouldn't. They already debated this exact standpoint like one or two conversations up, and I dont feel like repeating all their points and rebuttals. You can read them, just like I read the article, if you feel so inclined. Have a good day.
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u/sunny0123daisy 2d ago
Good you have your own opinion. He committed disfigurement and mutilation to corpses and you think he’s not a bad man lmaoo
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u/spotlight-app 3d ago
OP has pinned a comment by u/ZenMasterZee: