Russian law enforcement authorities on Monday said they arrested the mother of a six-year-old boy whose severed head was reportedly discovered inside a backpack left at a pond in northeastern Moscow over the weekend.
Russia’s Investigative Committee, which probes major crimes, said a backpack containing “a fragment of the child’s body” was recovered at the Golyanovsky Pond on Sunday. Telegram news channels with purported links to law enforcement authorities claimed the body part in question was the boy’s head.
“The young boy’s body was later discovered in an apartment in the town of Balashikha,” the Investigative Committee said in a statement.
Crime scene experts recovered evidence, including two knives, at the mother’s apartment, where investigators say the boy was believed to have been killed.
The mother confessed to killing her son but was unable to explain her motives, Russia’s Investigative Committee said, adding that she had admitted to disposing of parts of the boy’s body at the pond in Moscow.
The Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper reported that the mother had previously undergone psychiatric treatment, though officials have not commented publicly on her mental health status.
Police said they had pressed murder charges.
Investigative Committee Chairman Alexander Bastyrkin ordered investigators in the Moscow and Moscow region branches to report to him directly on the initial findings of the criminal probe.
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