666 Stabbing Spree

The "when" seems less important than the graphic details to the media, but here are the latest mass stabbings and beheadings, this time, from Eurasia, 155 miles (250 kilometers) northeast of Moscow, Russia.

An alleged gang of Satanists, accused of stabbing four teenagers 666 times and eating their body parts, were carrying out an initiation ritual during one of the murders, according to Russian police.

Police said that during the murders of the two teenage girls, the Satanists carried out a ritualistic initiation ceremony for a new recruit to their cult.

As part of the initiation, the blood of the dead girls was poured over the near-naked body of 18-year-old Ksenia Kuznetsova, while they prayed to the Devil.

They carried out the murders and induction at the same time, the UK's Sun quoted a source, as saying.

The victims, aged between 15 and 16 described by police as "Goths" were stabbed 666 times before being roasted on a bonfire and eaten. They had apparently been singled out by the Satanists because they were fans of "Goth" music and fashion. One of the girls was said to have had a document titled "101 rules of Satanism" among her belongings. Kuznetsova was the ninth member to join the group all of whom had the nicknames Dead, Corpse, Hitler, Fang, The Count, Doctor, Dark and Goth. Kuznetsova — known as Kara, meaning punishment — and three of the youths have been quizzed by cops over the killing spree.

(Of course, critical thinking would call for us to ask, how can the authorities prove that someone was stabbed 666 times if their body parts have been eaten? Why should the word of the murderers be taken as fact versus attention-seeking sensationalized testimony?)

Two more victims, a boy and a girl, were killed and dismembered the next day by the gang in a rural area of Russia. The four teenagers slain in Russia were Varya Kurmina, Olga Pukhova, Andrei Sorokin and Anya Gorokhova. The remains of a 16-year-old boy and three girls aged 16 and 17 were discovered in a pit near the home of the alleged ringleader Nikolai Ogolobyak in the Yaroslavl region. The remains of a rat tied to an upturned cross marked the spot where they had been executed.

(It should be pointed out that in Yaroslavl, one of the most prominent churches in the important Russian mafia Perekop section of town is the Church of Saint John the Baptist, celebrating the beheaded saint. Yaroslavl is located at the confluence of the Volga and the Kotorosl Rivers. It was preceded here by the Viking site Timerevo from the 8th or 9th centuries.)

Russia has a history of gruesome killings. The so-called "chessboard killer" Alexander Pichushkin was convicted of 48 murders and three attempted murders last October after he told a court that he had wanted to kill enough people to fill all 64 squares on a chessboard.

He claimed to have murdered 63 people in a bid to overtake the country's worst serial killer, the notorious "Rostov ripper" Andrei Chikatilo, who was executed by firing squad in 1994 for the deaths of 52 women and children.

(Of course, my question is "when" did this occur? Why no specific date in conjunction with the high-level of graphic details?)

Sources: Sun, Times, ANI, & Todd Campbell's Through The Looking Glass.