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A teenage girl was brutally murdered in a disused building because her father helped to arrest a notorious Russian cannibal, police believe.

Maria Glinka, 19, was found naked and tied-up in the basement of a disused building with a bag over her head two days after going missing.

Maria had been going to meet a friend in Novogorod, Russia, but called her to say she had changed her plans. Her phone had then been switched off.

Detectives now fear she may have been killed because of the role her father Vladimir Glikin played in the arrest of cannibalistic and paedophilic serial killer Andrei Chikatilo who was responsible for over 50 murders between 1978 and 1990.

Chikatilo’s victims were mainly women who he would approach at train and bus stops before luring them to nearby forests under the pretence of giving them money or drugs.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

He would then stab them to death for sexual pleasure before mutilating them by gouging out their eyes - because he believed they provided a snapshot of the last thing they saw - and cutting out their tongues and genitals.

He was arrested in 1990 by Maria’s dad after being questioned close to the spot where his last victim Svetlana Korostik was found.

He eventually confessed to a total of 56 murders, of which investigators had only attributed 36 to him.

He was executed in 1994, aged 58, with a single bullet to the head.

A police spokesman said: "Because of the disturbing state in which Maria’s body was found and because of who her father was, we cannot rule out that there is a connection between her murder and the arrest of Chikatilo.

Maria’s funeral was attended by over 100 people who turned out this week to pay their respects.

Classmate Natalia Bogdanova, 18, said: "We had earlier been out as a group and then Maria said she had to go and meet someone else before going home.

"That was the last we saw her alive."