A Russian man who robbed the graves of 29 young girls and lived with their mummified corpses could soon walk free.
Anatoly Moskvin, 59, turned dead children into ‘dolls’, dressing them in stockings, clothes and knee-length boots before applying makeup to them.
The historian – an authority on cemeteries and a former military intelligence translator – marked the birthday of every of his dead victims in his bedroom in chilling rituals.
Until now, courts repeatedly refused to release him, but pro-Kremlin news outlet Shot says psychiatric doctors are recommending that he’s secure to return home.
They’re ‘submitting documents to the court to discharge the patient and place him under the care of relatives’.
They wish to re-categorise him as ‘incapacitated’, which suggests he could live with friends or relatives or in a care institution, which doesn’t lock him up.
The secure hospital in Nizhny Novgorod city refused to comment.
Moskvin was detained in 2011 and confessed to 44 counts of abusing the graves of ladies aged three to 12.
Parents of the dead children whose graves he opened and robbed have long pleaded to maintain him incarcerated for the remaining of his life.
They fear the multi-lingual historian – and creator of several books – will return to his sinister habit, which saw him living with some children’s stays for as much as ten years.
Moskvin has consistently refused to apologise to the families of his victims.
The corpse of murder victim Olga Chardymova, aged ten, was one in every of the 29 he dug up and become mummified dolls, some with music boxes wedged of their chests.
Her mother, Natalia Chardymova, 53, didn’t realise that on her regular visits to her daughter’s graveside, the coffin was empty because Moskvin had stolen Olga’s stays for his sick collection.
During an earlier attempt by the doctors to free him, which was ultimately overturned by the court, she said: ‘I’m also very afraid that he’ll return to his old ways.
‘I even have no faith in his recovery. He’s a fanatic. And it’s going to be very hard for us, God forbid, to undergo those events yet another time – exhumation and reburial – if he again finds the place she was reburied.
‘My health is failing me, and I don’t think I can face this. I don’t need tragic events. Life is hard anyway now….. This creature brought fear, terror and panic into my life.’
The bodysnatcher earlier told the parents: ‘You abandoned your girls within the cold – and I brought them home and warmed them up.’
In Soviet times, Moskvin worked as a translator for military intelligence within the Red Army, and later wrote several history books.
His mother, Elvira, 86, said: ‘We saw these dolls, but we didn’t suspect there have been dead bodies inside.
‘We thought it was his hobby to make such big dolls and didn’t see anything unsuitable with it.’
She claimed after a 2020 decision against releasing him that the court was biased against her son, who was ‘not in a position to be in society, work, or get married’.
Get in contact with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.
For more stories like this, check our news page.
MORE: Tommy Robinson terror verdict delayed because he’s ‘flying to Israel as guest’
MORE: Thieves steal most foul-smelling plant on this planet which could bloom at any time
MORE: Mother ‘spun web of lies’ after shaking baby daughter to death