Teacher kills 9-year-old handing out “Save The Planet” flyers
While handing out homemade 'Save the Planet' flyers on the street, a nine-year-old girl was kidnapped, tortured and stabbed to death by a teacher, according to Russian police.
Sofia Zhavoronkova’s head was “smashed” and her face and body “disfigured” after she was lured home by Ulyana Lanskaya, 40, an English language tutor.
Hundreds attended the girl’s funeral, many in tears, said local reports in Vologda.
Sofia hand wrote the flyers in a notebook with 'save the planet 'announcements', which she handed out to strangers with her friend Alla.
One read: “Do not throw rubbish on the ground, because you are polluting nature.”
Lanskaya - now remanded in custody - had seen the girls distributing the messages to passers-by and praised them for their green initiative.
“Well done, girls, come on, I'll buy you something tasty,” she told them, according to the mother of the other girl.
Alla was told by the teacher to go home - unharmed - before she is alleged to have attacked and killed Sofia.
The woman took the girls to a cafe for cake, and bought sweets and ice cream for them before allegedly luring them to her home.
“Sofia came up with the idea of handing out flyers. She herself wrote them on sheets from her notebook,” said Alla's unnamed mother.
Lanskaya is reported to have been distraught after the authorities barred her from raising her own son and daughter, and said Sofia looked like her own child.
The teacher had repeatedly claimed her healthy daughter suffered from cancer and needed urgent medical treatment, and had reportedly threatened her child with a knife.
After Sofia’s death, police detained Lanskaya on a train heading towards Arctic port Murmansk.
She confessed to carrying out the murder, said Russian law enforcement.
Later in court, wearing military garments, she said, “I confessed because I'm very ill. I feel unwell, I don't have so long to live.”
Despite her claim, investigators say there is no evidence she is terminally ill.
During the court proceedings, Lanskaya admitted to inviting the girls to her flat “for tea”.
She was covered in slash wounds and her head was “a broken, bloody mess”, reported Vologda-Poisk media.
Sofia was reported missing and a huge police search started with 272 volunteers in Vologda city, with the girl’s mother Anna Zhavoronkova, 32, making an emotional appeal on social media.
Police eventually located her friend after volunteers scanned CCTV footage and saw the girls together.
The friend told them the address where she last saw Sofia, as police went to Lanskaya's house.
Lanskaya was absent but police broke in and found Sofia’s body.
Her throat had been slit and head battered with a blunt object, say police.
A local said Lanskaya "is an intelligent woman, with an education" and “she used to be a tutor in several foreign languages."
She was remanded in custody for two months pending the murder investigation.
At the funeral, hundreds of mourners carried flowers in the tragic girl's memory.
A local report said, “People are silent, do not talk at all. Everyone is crying."
“Even men, leaving the church, step aside, light a cigarette and wipe away their tears.”
One weeping woman said she came because “my granddaughter is the same age”.
Image credits: East2West/Australscope