Severed Hand, Shotgun Found In Backpack Of Professor Saved From Drowning

Police officers arrested a professor after saving him from drowning in a river as they retrieved a woman’s severed hand and a nonlethal shotgun from the man’s backpack. The incident took place in St. Petersberg, Russia, early Saturday morning.

Russian law-enforcement agency, the Investigative Committee, confirmed the presence of the items with the man and added that he was detained as a suspect. A criminal case was lodged against him in connection with the death of a former student at St. Petersburg State University, where he was a professor.

The man was identified as 63-year-old Oleg Sokolov, according to the local reports. He was reported to be under treatment for hypothermia. The university website suggested that Sokolov was a specialist in the military history of France, teaching in the university’s Department of Modern and Contemporary History.

The law enforcement officials told local sources that the mutilated body of the student was found in a backpack at Sokolov’s apartment. The victim was identified as 24-year-old Anastasia Yeshchenko, a former student of Sokolov at the St. Petersburg State University.

According to local sources, Yeshchenko hailed from Krasnodar, a southern Russian city, to pursue education and had continued to work as a researcher with Sokolov.

Sokolov was also a member of France-based Institute of Social Science, Economics and Politics — founded by Marion Marechal, the niece of Marine Le Pen, leader of the far-right National Rally party — but was stripped of the position Saturday after the incident surfaced.