Woman ‘strangled and burned her two children’ when she ran out of Money

A popular Instagram queen with her own make-up business strangled her two children and then burned the corpses, claiming she couldn’t support them.



Elena Karimova, 27, had 21,000 subscribers for her online sales business, is under investigation for allegedly strangling her ‘beloved’ children Khadizha and Suleiman in her Kia Rio.

Police claim she drove to a petrol station, bought lighter fluid, and drove the bodies to a forest and set fire to her dead children, before attempting to conceal her crime in Nizhny Novgorod.

The Russian woman had fallen behind with loan repayments after being divorced by her husband.

Khadizha and Suleiman

Fearing she would be spotted by locals, she put the charred bodies in her car and returned home.

Next day she put the corpses in an abandoned warehouse near Nizhny Novgorod and set fire to it.

Firemen initially found what appeared to be one severely burned body after extinguishing the blaze.

‘The fireman initially thought that the charred corpse belonged to a dog,’ said local resident Evgeny Katyshev. ‘But when he came up closer, he realised these was the bodies of two children.’

‘They were in unnatural poses, and rumours spread that they had been transported in a suitcase.

‘The bodies were so damaged only one leg remained, and it was impossible to identify the gender of the corpses.’

The crime scene

Locals had noticed her car at the scene and police interrogated her leading to an immediate confession, say reports.

‘I couldn’t provide for my children,’ she told officers.

Later in court, where she was remanded in custody, she said:

‘I’m very sorry for what happened. I do not even know how I could go about this.’ She added: ‘I lived with my husband, and then we divorced and it became difficult to raise children.’

Despite her financial problems, she spend £470 a month on car rentals and took foreign holidays.