Pussy Riot murders: Man in Russia confesses to killing women, trying to mislead police

A Russian man has confessed to murdering two women and then scrawling “Free Pussy Riot” on a wall in their blood to make his gruesome crime look like a religious or political act, the BBC reported today.

Igor Danilevsky, a 38-year-old university professor, was detained by police on Thursday over the grisly double-murder in Kazan, 500 miles east of Moscow, the Associated Press reported.

The New York Times said the bodies of the 38-year-old woman, who Danilevsky had dated, and her 76-year-old mother were found in their apartment earlier this week.

They had been brutally stabbed and their faces and bodies disfigured.

"Before leaving, in order to remove any suspicion from himself and make it seem like a ritual killing, he arranged the victims' bodies in a certain manner and wrote Free Pussy Riot on the wall with their blood," the federal investigative committee said in a statement, the BBC reported.

From the outset police had suspected that the message, written in large capital letters in English, had been designed to mislead investigators into thinking supporters of the Pussy Riot band were responsible.

Earlier this month, three members of the feminist punk-rock group were sentenced to two years in jail for hooliganism after performing an anti-Putin song in a Russian Orthodox cathedral.

The trial and conviction drew international criticism and celebrities around the world expressed their supporter for the three defendants.

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