A 29-year-old man who was living in a dormitory in the Russian city of Omsk strangled his fiancee to death because she wanted him to get a job, investigators said Tuesday.
The couple had planned to get married on March 14, but in a heated argument the 43-year-old fiancee said she would not go through with the ceremony unless the man got a job, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
The man strangled the woman to death in their dorm room and then told neighbors that she had committed suicide by hanging herself. But investigators found evidence of foul play, and the man confessed to the crime, the statement said.
Also Tuesday, investigators in southern Russia said a 38-year-old man confessed to fatally strangling a pensioner who refused to loan him money, in an incident reminiscent of Fyodor Dostoevsky's classic novel "Crime and Punishment."
The perpetrator went over to the 67-year-old man's house in the city of Taganrog earlier this month to ask for the loan, but when the pensioner declined his request, the would-be debtor killed him and stole his bank card, the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Russia's unemployment rate rose to 5.5 percent last month and is expected to further increase as the government and private sector cut jobs amid the country's economic downturn, Reuters reported.
A recent poll by the state-run Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VTsIOM) revealed that a third of Russians expect their family's income to fall within the next three months due to anticipated wage cuts and layoffs.
