Woman accused of brutally mutilating model sister in jealous drug-fuelled rage
A woman is to face trial for the brutal murder of her naked 17-year-old model sister whose eyes were gouged out and ears hacked off.
Stefania Dubrovina was stabbed 189 times in a frenzied attack in the Russian city of St Petersburg.
Her sister Elizaveta, 22, is accused of hacking the model to death in an “envious” drug-filled rage, and faces up to 25 years in jail if convicted.
Elizaveta was detained for the horrific killing in 2016 but was sent for compulsory psychiatric treatment. She is now deemed fit to face trial which is due to start soon.
She strongly denies the murder charge and new reports say she will instead accuse the dead girl’s “lover” Alexey Fateev, now 44, in whose flat her sister died, local media reports.
However prosecuting authorities say the man is a witness and is not under any suspicion.
Elizaveta, aged 19 at the time of the killing, is charged with “murder with particular cruelty”.
Fateev has denied on Russian TV that he had anything to do with Stefania’s death. He recounted how he found Stefania’s massacred naked body after returning from the shop where he bought wine.
He detained Elizaveta to stop her fleeing before handing her over to police, he said.
In a court statement prosecutors asserted that the sister “acted with particular cruelty” gouging out Stefania’s eyes.
“She scoffed at her sister, causing her to endure excruciating pain because of her dislike.
“During the massacre, she inflicted at least 189 stabs on her sister - in the head, neck, torso, arms and legs.
“The girl also sliced off her sister's ears.”
Stefania had posed for nude pictures shortly before her death but friends denied she had taken part in porn movies
In an interview with local newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, the girls’ mother Oksana Dubrovina said Elizaveta has now recovered her memory of events and her daughter claimed the man acted as a “demon”.
She alleged Fateev was jealous over the nude photographs. “And to put it mildly, Stefania was not loyal to him…"
St Petersburg showman Stas Baretsky, 45, said: “I had known Stefania for about two years.
“She was a modest and attractive girl, she took part in my shows.”
He insisted that rumours she worked as an escort girl were untrue.
“Stefania was never involved in it,” he said. “She was not filmed in porn film either. She simply tried to boost her career in modelling.”
A newspaper report said Elizaveta “copied the image of her younger sister - the same hair colour, the same lipstick.
“There are photographs of both sisters hugging each other but there is no doubt that the elder sister envied the younger one.”
Both the sisters had spent time in orphanages as children.
Their aunt Ekaterina Dubrovina called Stefania's death a “shocking tragedy”.
“My blood turns to ice,” she said.
- Australscope
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