Detective Tales from the Soviet Union

Second Case

I just stumbled upon those photos, so I guess I'll tell you about them. I have to warn you that some people might not find it too scary, but this case always captivated me, there is something about it. Also, when I once saw some tiny lights in that wood at night I figuratively shat my pants. It will be longer than the first one, but do prepare yourselves, for I have no fucking idea how long the third one will be either.

It happened in the winter of '95. One evening, around 8 o'clock a strange visitor came to a local Militsija station - a priest of the local church, which, by the way, happens to be in the middle of fucking nowhere.

He came to report threats he has been recieving for some time now. Priest brought a bunch of notes with him, which were written on torn notebook pages in crooked block letters. They were written with a bunch of mistakes, that desk cop on duty that night had a field day with. But he didn't laugh for long. According to priest he regularly recieved those notes in his mailbox, first every three days, later - everyday, which was the reason he decided to finally report them. After being asked if he wanted to add something else to his report, he hesitantly added that recently he started to hear the sound of slaps in his apartment. As if someone was slapping linoleum in his corridor and kitchen with bare hands, very distinctly. When asked if he actually checked what it was he answered that he was too scared to leave his room and just prayed to God, hoping for His protection. He was clearly worried that people would think that he is just insane, and people at the station indeed thought so, but his report was officialy accepted non the less. It was a buisy period for Militsija, and since priest didn't look well in the head, the case and those notes were forgotten for a time.

Around a week later, an investigatory-operative group gets a call. In the forest (around 200-250 meters deep, on the glade you can see on the first photo) a body was found. And not just some body, but, as you have probably guessed, body of that very priest. State of that corpse was pretty fucking terrible, almost all of the muscule tissue on his hands and legs was missing, body was covered in livor mortis and blemishes. Facial features were distorted by the rot. He was only recognized so quickly thanks to his cross (which was the only element of clothes on him), long hair and beard. Later it was concluded that he died 7.5-8 days before the discovery. Additionally, his body clearly was kept indoors for some time, since it wouldn't have rotten so much in the winter frost. It was confirmed by the elderly guy who found the body, since he used to walk with his dog everyday on the same route in this forest and only discovered body that morning. Also, which was especially bizarre, many prints that were found around that body looked like the prints of human hands. "They didn't look like handprints, they were the handprints. It was just fucking ridiculus at that point" - quoting my granfather. There was a trail of such prints leading around the forest, strangely enough, not on the cleared trail, but around it, in the snowdrifts. There wa no evidence of body being dragged, all the other prints belonged to that elderly guy and cops. Previous night there was a serious snowfall, which would have covered the tracks, so body clearly wasn't there for long and it clearly didn't happen to appear there by itself.

Questionings of the elderly guy, residents of the nearby houses and guards of a garage cooperative close by didn't clarify much. Though the elderly guy kept nagging about finding corpses of animals on that glade: dogs, cats, rats, crows and such. He reported it to Militsija many times, but nothing was done about it and he had to bury animans himself. He also just had to share his theory about satanists with the investigators. The place itself was far away from anything, the closest houses were like 600-700 meters away, same as that garage cooperative. No cars stopped nearby, no mysterious people were seen there, not even ordinary people with a big bag or parcel. Literally fuck all. And that's when someone remembered about the notes.

Earlier notes were rather simplistic, basically threats like: "Reject your faith or we will kill you". But those that came later were a bit more interesting: "Take off your cross or you will feed the hungry one with yourself", - my grandfather quoted from his memory. There was more, but he didn't recall what those were about, sadly. All of them had a bunch of mistakes, as I already stated. No handwriting expertise was done, to my knowledge, but those notes were quickly given away to experts in order to check for fingerprints, while investigators decided to visit priest's flat.

Door wasn't closed, though there were no signs of forced entry. Remembering priest's words about slaps on the floor, linoleum in his corridor and kitchen was checked, without much hope, for fingerprints. But is was a sudden success - a few clear handprints. Huge fingers certainly were not the priest's. "Fingers looked like they belonged to some hammerer or a smith" - according to my grandfather. Other than that, everything in his flat looked in order. All the obvious valuables, like the icons, were still there. But there was no way to know for sure, since that priest lived alone and had no relatives, being an orphan. In short, fingerprints on the notes were identical to those on the floor, but neither the local Militsiya station, nor the bigger regional archive had those prints in their data-bases. Meanwhile, coroner report stated that muscules in his hands and legs weren't eaten by the animals, but neatly removed with surgical accuracy, usung either scalpel or a small and very sharp knife. No additional wounds were found on his body, no traces of known poisons were found either. Militsiya had to start quiestioning members of pirest's church parish. He wasn't seen there since the day he reported death threats to the local station. Obvious conclusion was that he disappeared after visiting it, since it happened after the evening service. So it happened either on his way home, or at his flat, considering it was found open. Questioning his neighbours revealed that he probably didn't come home that day. One old lady even came to his door at around 9 in the evening, to ask for some life advice, but no one opened. She didn't hear any suspicious sounds or seen any suspicious people either. It seemed to be a complete dead end.

All the local invalids were checked, just in case. Investigators really tried to somehow work that strange handprint angle. At first they started to check those who lived nearby. And after Chechnya and Afganistan there were many. By the end of it, Militsiya checked almost all town's invalids, but found no fingerprint matches. They didn't really expect any results at that point, to be honest, so they just wrote it off to probable local cultists which was really easy to do back then because of the story that happened when I was a child. Even those two guys that were caught two years ago were questioned, but to no avail. Maybe it was their friends doing or something, but I doubt it, since modus operandi seems too different.

Of course if priest wasn't largely ignored when he came to the station he probably could have told them something else, and that info might have resulted in a solved case, but we have what we have. And it really smells of some mysticism, in my opinion.

By the way, here's another photo of that place made at around 11 in the evening. Those little lights, that I told you about in the beginning. Zooming didn't result in anything, and the flash on my camera was so fucking bright that I got scared and decided to leave that place in case I was seen. Not that I am a coward, but you know, that forest becomes really creepy when you know this story. The lights are around the place where the glave is. Those are certainly not cigarette lights, too far away to be seen so clearly. Possibly small campfires of motorcycle lights (there is no way to get a car there). It remains a mystery.

© 1996 Archive66