Med student killed two to study death

She observed their last moments and decomposition

A medical student here killed two women so she could study the process of dying for her doctorate, said the police.

Tatyana (24) axed her victims before observing their last moments. She was close to qualifying as a surgeon and has confessed to her crimes, said prosecutors.
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She knew her first victim Olga Stepushenko (85), a neighbour who saw her grow up.
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"I took the axe and hit her on the head several times... I sat next to her and waited until she died. I had an unbelievable view," said Tatyana.

Four days later she attacked another neighbour, Zoya Karpova (87), with the axe. This time she didn't just record the death which took an agonising four hours but made notes about the decomposition of the body.

For the next two weeks, she kept returning to the flat to study changes to the corpse, observations which she used in her dissertation at a top medical institute.

"I wanted to have more details of the death process to use it in my work... I aimed to see how the worms would decompose Zoya's body," she said. She was arrested before she could finish her analysis.
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"When two similar crimes happened, we realised we were dealing with a maniac," said a senior investigator.

"We questioned the neighbours and found that Tatyana was visiting both women. We found the axe in her flat."
Tatyana faces 20 years in jail.