Tamara Samsonova, known as ‘Granny Ripper’, allegedly kept a chilling diary detailing how she dismembered victims and scattered body parts across St Petersburg.
There’s a familiar horror film cliche depicting elderly ladies as vulnerable, delicate souls destined to fall victim to the monster. But what occurs when the pensioner herself becomes the predator?
In the chilling case of Russian OAP Tamara Samsonova, this nightmare scenario became reality. Dubbed the “Granny Ripper” and “Baba Yaga” after the fearsome witch from Slavic legend, Samsonova appeared to be an unassuming grandmother, yet this murderous pensioner proved to be amongst Russia’s most savage and deadly serial killers.
Currently in her late 70s, Samsonova was born in the unforgiving Siberian wilderness in 1947, during a period when Russia was still recovering from the devastating economic and social impact of World War Two. Whilst little is documented about her formative years, records show she relocated to Moscow as a younger woman before eventually establishing herself in St Petersburg, where she wed a gentleman named Alexei.
The handful of acquaintances she retained describe her existence in the city as thoroughly ordinary, with employment spanning various positions within the tourism sector. In 2020, Alexei inexplicably disappeared and although Samsonova alerted authorities, the investigation stalled.
Numerous observers suspect Samsonova’s involvement, though this remains unsubstantiated, reports the Mirror.
After her husband’s vanishing, Samsonova started accommodating tenants in her flat. In 2003, following a heated dispute, she purportedly killed one lodger, 44 year old Sergey Potanin, subsequently dismembering his corpse and disposing of the body parts throughout the local area.
The murder remained undetected for over ten years. Despite the savagery of the murder and the haphazard disposal, the case remained unsolved.
However, 12 years later, Samsonova wouldn’t be as fortunate. In early 2015, she moved into her neighbour Valentina Ulanova’s flat while her own was undergoing renovation.
Initially, the arrangement was successful, but tensions soon arose. When Ulanova asked her to leave, Samsonova refused and instead began plotting her next horrific murder.
She managed to acquire phenazepam, a potent prescription sedative, which she crushed and mixed into Ulanova’s favourite Olivier salad. After her neighbour collapsed, Samsonova began the gruesome task of dismembering her body.
Reports from that time depict Samsonova decapitating her neighbour and boiling her head in a pot.
She then made several trips outside with bin bags in the dead of night, stashing them in various locations. Fortunately, one of these bags was found by police near a residential pond.
When authorities questioned Samsonova, she calmly led them to a bathroom smeared with blood and missing a curtain from its rail, identical to the one wrapped around the discovered corpse.
The horror intensified when detectives discovered her handwritten diary following their investigation. She allegedly boasted about previous killings in it, detailing how she dismembered victims and scattered their body parts around St. Petersburg.
One chilling entry in her diary reportedly reads: ‘I killed my tenant Volodya, cut him to pieces in the bathroom with a knife, put the pieces of his body in plastic bags and threw them away in the different parts of Frunzensky district. ‘.
Samsonova was swiftly deemed mentally unfit for trial and committed to a secure psychiatric hospital, where she continues to reside. Russian authorities state that she is under investigation for up to 14 murders, but the true number of victims claimed by the so-called Granny Ripper may forever remain a mystery.
