Vladimir Nikolayev, known as the ‘Novocheboksarsk Cannibal’, killed two people and then sold their meat as kangaroo and other exotic animals – before he was finally caught
Vladimir Nikolayev claimed he was selling meat from various exotic animals, including kangaroos, but when his customers began to suspect something was amiss, his horrifying crimes were exposed.
Customers who believed they were purchasing a unique and rare delicacy became so convinced that something was terribly wrong, they reported it to the police. A doctor’s examination of the meat revealed a chilling discovery – it contained human blood.
Nikolayev, who already had an extensive criminal record, was swiftly arrested by authorities and confessed to murder shortly after being taken into custody. A search of his apartment uncovered human remains and a bathtub heavily stained with blood.
Born in 1959 in Novocheboksarsk, a city in western Russia, Nikolayev is known as the ‘Novocheboksarsk Cannibal’. Also referred to as ‘The Ogre’, he first came under police scrutiny in 1980 when he was convicted for theft and robbery.
He has given detailed accounts of his crimes, including the two murders for which he was ultimately convicted. According to Nikolayev, his first murder occurred “accidentally.”, reports the Mirror US.
He claimed to have killed a drinking companion, who also had a criminal past, during a brawl.
At first, Nikolayev thought he had merely knocked out his friend and tried to revive him. He carried the unconscious man up to his flat and doused him with cold water.
When his attempts to revive the man failed, Nikolayev realised he was dead. In a gruesome attempt to hide his crime, he decided to dismember the body in his bathtub.
He confessed to police that he had initially planned to bury the man but ended up removing a chunk of flesh from the victim’s thigh and roasting it during the process of dismemberment.
Nikolayev’s chilling story was featured in the National Geographic documentary “Russia’s Toughest Prisons,” where he delved into the details of his first murder and proudly displayed his tattoos.
He said: “I was coming home from a party a little drunk. And next to the door of my building, another guy, also drunk, asked me for a light. We started arguing and got into a fight. He hit me, and I hit him, and it turned out he died.
“What was I to do? I dragged him to the bathroom, undressed him, and started cutting him apart.”
Nikolayev admitted that he first attempted to boil a piece of the man’s thigh but switched to frying it after being dissatisfied with his initial cooking attempt.
Having developed a taste for human flesh, Nikolayev turned cannibalistic, consuming his victims as food. The murderer even distributed parts of the body to acquaintances and shockingly sold eleven pounds of flesh as exotic animal meat at an open market – a move that ultimately led to his capture.
Shockingly, he even served some of the macabre meat to an unsuspecting family, The Mirror reports. The cannibal claimed that he passed the human flesh off to a friend, whose wife unwittingly used it to make dumplings, consuming some herself and serving them to her children.
In a chilling interview, Nikolayev flashed a disturbing smile as he recounted: “Well, I said it was kangaroo but we don’t have kangaroos around here. They didn’t know what it was.”
The proceeds from his ghastly crimes were spent fuelling his alcohol addiction. During his trial, he was found responsible for committing two murders back in 1997.
Initially sentenced to meet the executioner, Nikolayev’s fate changed when Russia scrapped capital punishment in 1999.
Though generally opposed to the death penalty, he expressed a grim preference for it over a lifetime behind bars. In 2001, further darkness befell him as he was relocated to the infamous IK-6 Black Dolphin Prison, known as one of the most severe penal institutions on the globe.