In Kostyantynivka, law enforcement officers suspect a 58-year-old woman of keeping the body of her deceased daughter in her own apartment for 18 years. The investigation found that the mother systematically abused the children and did not provide them with proper living conditions, the Donetsk region prosecutor's office reported.
According to the investigation, the woman and her two daughters lived in a run-down apartment without electricity, heating, and basic hygiene. She forced her younger daughter to beg and look for food in cemeteries, intimidating and threatening her if she refused.
The eldest daughter died in December 2006 at the age of 22. The mother decided not to report the death to either the doctors or the law enforcement officers, but left the body in the apartment, occasionally washing and changing it. The suspect told the younger daughter that her sister was only sleeping and forbade her to talk about the incident, forcing the child to sleep next to the body.
Only in 2025, after moving to another city, did the youngest daughter tell lawyers about the terrible event. During a search of her mother's apartment, law enforcement officers discovered mummified remains that had been lying there for about 18 years.
The woman is suspected of malicious failure to fulfill her duties to care for a child, which led to serious consequences, and of desecration of the body of a deceased person (Article 166, Part 1 of Article 297 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine). The suspect will be sent for a psychiatric examination to determine her mental state.
