A man has been arrested after police found the head of a murdered 19-year-old beautician simmering on a cooking stove.
Other parts of Ayazhan Edilova’s dismembered body were found in the suspect’s flat and nearby rubbish skips. Her teeth and fingernails had been pulled out, according to police in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
Her head was boiling in a pan of water on the suspect’s cooker, according to reports and it’s believed that the remains of a second unknown human body were found, leading to suspicions that the suspect could be a serial killer.
Police suspect that Ayazhan may have been raped before she was killed.
CCTV footage from the scene appears to show Ayazhan entering the lift with the alleged killer voluntarily.
Police have only identified the 28year-old suspect by his first name Ruslan, adding that he was had trained as a pharmacist.
He had tried to take his own life as police broke into his apartment, but doctors saved him, and he is now detained under armed guard.
Relatives have blamed police for refusing to start a search for the young woman when they first reported her missing.
The dead woman’s brother Almat Mulikov said: “Police told us, quoting the suspect’s testimony, that he killed her and dismembered her body to hide the body.
“But when we saw the photographs of the body parts, each nail was cut out, every tooth was extracted, and they were put into separate plastic bags.
“Why did he need to do this if he is not a maniac. Why did he slowly cut off her head and was boiling in water?”
He added: “The body parts were cut professionally.”
The detained man had a medical education and is a trained pharmacist, it was reported.
“He is from a good family, polite and intelligent,” said one account.
Police have not determined whether the woman was alive when her nails and teeth were removed.
As well as working as a beautician, Ayazhan had her own online clothes shop.
It is suspected that the killer may have arranged to meet her posing as a buyer, and then kidnapped her.
Another version is that she had met the suspect for a date, but she had also called her boyfriend to say that she was on the way home to meet him.
Police told relatives that they had no spare officers to search for her because they were patrolling a protest rally in Almaty.
They told one relative not to worry because she was “probably having sex with some man, or just walking in the city”.
Her family say she might have still been alive if police had acted immediately.