A six-year-old boy was stabbed to death by a man screaming ‘Satan ordered me to do it’ in a kindergarten in Russia.
Kirill Savenkov was sleeping in a room where children were napping in Skazka kindergarten when a man walked in and slashed his throat with a knife.
The attacker, Denis Pozdeev, 36, alleged the act of violence was caused by hallucinations that led him to believe the child was a monster.
When Pozdeev entered Skazka ‘Fairytale’ kindergarten in Naryan-Mar, a sea and river port town north of the Artic Circle in the Nenets Autonomous region, he was not stopped by security, according to Russian news sources.
The six-year-old died moments after the brutal attack in the arms of kindergarten nannies.
Pozdeev was detained by security and held until police arrived.
The victim attended a prep group – the last year of kindergarten in Russia before children begin school.
The boy’s devastated father, Konstantin, said the kindergarten contacted himself and his wife to tell them the tragedy.
During an interrogation, Pozdeev said ‘voices in his head’ made him commit the crime, while media reports claim he was intoxicated with either drugs or alcohol.
Pozdeev was not related to the child and claimed that he walked into the kindergarten ‘by accident’ because he was ‘hallucinating’.
Security staff did not stop the man from walking into the kindergarten, according to Russian news.
He said that he took the sleeping child to be a monster, and attacked.
However, a police raid at his flat unearthed pieces of paper with basic information about Skazka kindergarten, such as its working hours and information on number of children in playgroups.
Three criminal cases were started by Russian Investigative Committee on several clauses of Russian Criminal Code, ‘Murder of a minor’, ‘Negligence’ and ‘Provision of services that don’t meet health and safety requirements’.
