In 1912, a newspaper article appeared in St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city, which struck fear into the hearts of readers. It reported on a cannibalistic murder duo from the village of Kurdla on the Estonian island of Saaremaa. The duo were Ivanova and Olga Tamarin, a diabolical mother-daughter pair whose crimes were so brutal that they must have come straight from hell. Both women, who with their wheat-blonde hair, blue eyes and slender figures could easily have passed for sisters, had been preying on people for months. The 17-year-old Olga acted as the decoy, luring men and women to their remote house near the edge of the forest. There, their victims were led into the dining room, where they were dropped down into the cellar via a trapdoor. In the cellar, the victims were tied up, robbed, tortured and then dismembered. The crimes came to light as more and more people who had visited the mother-daughter duo seemed to have vanished into thin air. Consequently, the police searched the area around the two women’s house, where they found numerous bodies mutilated beyond recognition. The sight was horrific. The victims must have suffered unspeakable torment before their deaths. The police then stormed the women’s house, heavily armed, whilst the two women put up fierce resistance to their arrest. During the subsequent search of the house, the police were met with a scene of horror. The house resembled a slaughterhouse. In the storeroom alone, 27 bodies and numerous valuables were found. Did the victims have to die so that the mother-daughter duo could rob them, or was there another motive behind the murders? When the police discovered the trapdoor to the cellar and found instruments of torture, restraints and pieces of meat there, it became clear that the women had not only robbed their victims but had also eaten their flesh. Faced with overwhelming evidence, the cannibalistic mother-daughter duo made a full confession. They were the leaders of a peasant gang comprising 30 members who had robbed and killed 40 people over the previous months. With the exception of nine men, all members of the peasant gang were arrested. Following the women’s arrest on 20 July 1912, their trial is said to have taken place without much fanfare. Whether they were actually executed or sentenced to life imprisonment is not clearly documented. Nor is it certain whether the ‘house of horrors’ in Kurdla was demolished. These are mere speculations, as little else has come to light about the eerie mother-daughter duo.
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Isabella Mueller (crime writer)
