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A doctor and Instagram influencer was brutally murdered and her naked body squeezed into a suitcase by a man who studied at the Open University in the UK.

Russian IT specialist Maxim Gareyev has been jailed for at least nine years after attacking 24-year-old Ekaterina Semochkina.

The killer claims the pair had sex before she began mocking him for being wealthy but having "a lack of personality".

He claims he then "lost control" and grabbed a knife from the kitchen and began stabbing her.

Gareyev told detectives: “I lost control.

“I grabbed a knife in the kitchen.

“She half turned and I struck her in the neck."

She tried to escape to the bathroom and lock the door, he said.

(Image: east2west news)

“I pulled her out of the bathroom,” he said. “Her blood was dripping, then in the corridor she started screaming.

“I covered her mouth, I stabbed her again, to her chest with a knife.

“She ran to the living room and started fighting me, but I was in a state that I didn't feel pain.

"During the fight she fell down and I struck her twice again…in the neck… she had convulsions and died.”

Gareyev claims that he his victim charged £130 an hour for sex to supplement her junior doctor wages and income as a social media influencer, where she has 85,000 subscribers.

The victim’s distraught parents, who attended Gareyev’s sentencing when he was filmed by REN TV in a court cage, strongly denied that she had worked as a prostitute.

(Image: east2west news)

(Image: 360 TV/east2west news)

They claimed her “jealous” university classmates had posted her pictures on escort sites.

There were also allegations that at the time of her death she was being blackmailed over nude pictures which appeared online.

She was close to them and not short of money, they said.

The victim’s mother Dr Olga Semochkina, a cardiologist, told a Moscow court how she went to Ekaterina’s flat and found her body after she failed to answer her phone.

(Image: katti_loves_life/Instagram)

“I saw my daughter lying in a suitcase,” she said.

“The big red suitcase was in the middle of the room…. I started to scream."

Ekaterina’s father Dr Stanislav Semochkin, a urologist, rushed to her side hoping she was still alive, but soon realised she was dead, she said.

Ekaterina, known as Katya and was famed as an Audrey Hepburn lookalike.

Gareyev was quoted as saying: “I want to apologise to Katya's parents. I regret a lot.

“I’m very ashamed of myself."