

Elena Karimova suffocated daughter Khadizha, four, and son Suleiman, two, and then burnt their bodies using lighter fuel







An evil mother who bought a final chocolate bar for her two young children before brutally murdering them has been jailed for 19 years.





Elena Karimova suffocated daughter, Khadizha, four, and son Suleiman, two, in the back seat of her rented Kia Rio.Chilling CCTV footage showed the Russian divorcee buying the pair a Snickers as well as the lighter fluid she used to burn their bodies.The court heard how she first suffocated her daughter to death, while her son watched, before in turn murdering him.She then burned the bodies before dumping them in an abandoned warehouse which she also set on fire.Elena Karimova has been jailed for 19 yearsThe bodies of Khadizha and Suleiman were found in a warehouseThe 27-year-old who has 27,000 subscribers for her online sales business,initially confessed to murdering her children.But she later claimed two mystery men from Azerbaijan had killed them because she would not reveal the location of her ex-husband.The court in Nizhny Novgorod dismissed her account as fantasy and she was jailed for 19 years as a cold-blooded killer.The mother was seen acting normally as she made her purchases at the filling station.She then walked back to her hired car — inside which were her two “beloved” children — and drove away towards woodland where she strangled the pair as they sat on her knee on the back seat of her £23-a-day rental car.Karimova suffocated her daughters before burning their bodiesJudge Alexey Zavarikhin told the court: 'Karimova covered her daughter’s mouth with her hand.“She suffocated her daughter until she stopped twitching and resisting.“The son at that time was sitting and watching how she killed his sister.”After the murders, “she searched for a place where she could burn the bodies”.Hunters Alexander Voronnikov and Roman Melnikov who saw her make a fire - and mistook her for a witch - denied there were any men with her, said the judge.“We thought that there dolls in the fire,” said Voronnikov.Karimova and son Suleiman“When we passed, the woman tried to hide her face.”The judge said that footprints in the snow and CCTV footage showed clearly that Karimova was alone with her children in her rental car and when she burned the bodies.Fearing the hunters suspected her, she loaded the charred corpses into her car and drive home.Next day she drove to an abandoned warehouse where she dumped the bodies and set the building on fire almost completely destroying the human remains.When detained by police she initially confessed to the murders saying: “I couldn’t provide for my children.”Karimova and Suleiman who she suffocatedIn her first court appearance she said: “I'm very sorry for what happened.I do not even know how I could go about this.”Despite her financial problems, she spent £470 a month on car rentals and took foreign holidays.Shocked family members and friends said her action was “totally out of character” and refused to believe she was capable of such barbarity.Her mother Natalia Testenkova said she was “the most loving mum” adding”:“How could she kill her kids?”She underwent psychiatric tests and was found to be sane, say law enforcement officials.Karimova and daughter KhadizhaIn her final address to the court before being sent to jail, Karimova said:“I am accused of the most inhuman crime a woman can commit - the cruel murder of my children.”She stuck to her claim that she let “the real killers escape and took the blame myself.…”She told the court: “Throughout April, when I was intimidated, threatened with murder, I thought that they were just scaring me to make me tell them where my ex-husband was.”If she had her time again, she would have called for help, she said.After she was seen buying Snickers at the filling station “they killed my babies in front of my eyes”.CCTV of the mum at the petrol station was releasedShe pleaded: “If I could only return there, I would find a way to escape and hide from them and save my children.“I would not keep silent about the death of my kids in front of my eyes.”Two weeks before the double murder the mother wrote on her daughter’s fourth birthday card: "You are my soul, my dearest little one, my long-awaited daughter….“The one I live for. You are a copy of me.”Prosecutors had called for a 21 year sentence but the judge said she would be jailed until the year 2038