Grandmother strangles and stabs grandchildren to death

A grandmother who strangled and stabbed her grandchildren to death because she thought they were possessed by demons, has been arrested by the police.

The 42-year-old grandmother who was taking care of her grandchildren Vladislav Eliseev, 5, and his sister Esenia, 3, at their home in the Belgorod region of Russia with her lover, began hallucinating shortly after they began drinking and thought they saw evil spirits in the children.

The court was told that the boy was strangled with an electric cord by the man, and the grandmother stabbed the girl. Shortly after the incident, the grandmother identified as Svetlana Muradyan, called for help from a neighbour’s son, a doctor.

It was learnt that the boy was already dead and the girl was wheezing when the doctor arrived. The girl however died in the hospital. While the judge ruled that the grandmother’s lover – named only as Yury – was unaware of his actions during the murder due to a “temporary mental disorder” brought on by “alcoholism”, the grandmother was found to be ‘sane’ and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

Yury, whose condition was said to have “deprived him of the ability to recognise the danger of his actions and to control them”, was sentenced to compulsory psychiatric treatment. 

The parents of the late kids, reportedly divorced after the murder of their son and daughter in January last year.