An 80-year-old woman has been arrested on suspicion of being a killer after the dismembered body parts of her male tenant were found by children.

The silver-haired retired pig farm slaughterer is also being checked for two historic unsolved cases of missing people in Berezovska, a suburb of Khabarovsk city in eastern Russia.

A judge ordered the woman - who has not been named - to be held in detention for two months as a murder investigation was launched.

Internal organs of the tenant including his bowels were found in her fridge, stated news reports that cited law enforcement sources.

She denies killing the 52-year-old street cleaner, according to reports.

The 80-year-old woman (circled) was arrested on suspicion of killing her 52-year-old male neighbour

Bin bags of dismembered body parts were found by police in in Berezovska, a suburb of Khabarovsk city in eastern Russia

Children playing near the apartment building of the suspect found a man's severed arm

The case came to light after shocked children playing near their apartment block found a man's severed arm.

Police soon discovered more dismembered remains in a number of plastic bags that had been dragged around the streets by dogs.

Fingerprints from the body parts led to the identification of the 52-year-old Ukrainian tenant of the retired slaughter woman, say reports.

There were local claims that the woman is suspected of cannibalism but these have not been confirmed by the Russia Investigative Committee.

Despite this a law enforcement source told local news outlet DVHab: 'The bowels and other inner organs of the man were found in her fridge - and she threw away the bones.

'But the dogs smelled the blood and carried the body parts all around the area.'

Traces of blood were found in her flat, according to police sources.

The apartment block in Khabarovsk city where the suspected murder and disembowelling took place

Rubbish bins near the apartment block in eastern Russia where the body parts were found by police

Neighbours reported hearing 'loud knocks in her apartment until almost midnight, as if somebody was using an axe'.

Another female tenant went missing some years ago, along with a large sum of her money, and her passport was found by police in the woman's flat, it was claimed.

And a teenage neighbour disappeared in another unsolved case which is now being reexamined, according to local media reports.

Neighbours had alleged previously complained of the pensioner 'torturing cats'.

The committee said: 'For the sake of the investigation we cannot disclose more information.'

The green door of the flat where the victim's body parts were allegedly found in the 80-year-old woman's fridge

The suspect is known to have worked at the local pig farm, but she was also invited by local farmers to slaughter their animals.

Newspaper Moskovsky Komsomolets reported: 'She had a firm hand. Besides, she was not sentimental.'

Leading Russian psychiatrist and criminologist Mikhail Vinogradov was quoted by the newspaper saying: 'She worked for many years as a slaughter woman.

'So she had no regrets that she kills living beings. This was her job.'