His arrest could play a key part in a number of other outstanding murder cases
Content warning: The details of this case may be upsetting to readers
A former officer has been arrested by police hunting an alleged serial killer and rapist in Russia.
Vitaly Berezhnoy is being held on suspicion of the rape and murder of eight-year-old Nastya Muravyova. He denies the charge, as well as seven other cases his name is now attached to.
Nastya's naked body was tragically found wrapped in polythene on a lakeside in the city of Tyumen, seven weeks after she went missing.
Berezhnoy's arrest follows police linking the case to earlier disappearances of other children. He has a teenage daughter and worked as a police sergeant after leaving the GRU military intelligence service.
It's reported that he told interrogators he was drunk and when he sobered up found the naked body of the missing girl in his bath. He claimed he had no memory of abducting her but confessed to killing her and "in a panic”, stashing her body behind his washing machine in the flat he rented alone after separating from his wofe. After seven weeks the smell became too strong, and he moved the body to the lakeside, a place that had been earlier repeatedly searched by volunteers looking for Nastya.
The boxes in which Nastya’s body were found led to a furniture-making company where the suspect now works. The workers were requested to take DNA tests but Berezhnoy came under suspicion when he refused to comply.
