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A suspected mass murdering pensioner dubbed the 'Granny Ripper' may be a cannibal who ate the remains of her victims, police have said.

Tamara Samsonova, 68, admitted killing 11 people in a diary where she kept a grisly record of her crimes.

The deadly OAP is thought to have beheaded and dismembered her victims during a 20 year spree in St Petersburg, Russia.

The suspected serial killer was held in Russia's second city after CCTV footage emerged, allegedly showing her carrying the body parts of an elderly woman in a black plastic bag.

A former hotel worker, she entered details of macabre secret life in diaries which she kept in Russian, English and German alongside black magic and astrological books.

(Image: east2west news)

Russian tabloids have labelled her Baba Yaga - a horrifying supernatural old woman from Slavic folklore.

Samsonova allegedly had a penchant for gauging out and eating lungs, it is claimed.

Asked if she was a cannibal, a police source said: "It is not excluded," report the Mail Online.

It has also been suggested the self-confessed killer gave her final victim, Valentina Ulanova, 79, an overdose of sleeping pills before dismembering her body with a hacksaw while she was still alive.

She was detained after the headless body of Ulanova - for whom she was a carer - was found near a pond on Dimitrova Street in St Petersburg.

Samsonova killed her after a quarrel over unwashed cups, she told police investigating the murder.

(Image: East2West News)

Senior investigator Mikhail Timoshatov, said: "Tamara Samsonova says that at first she made her friend [Ulanova] sleep - and then cut her into pieces.'

Samsonova is also suspected of murdering her husband, who she reported missing in 2005.

His body has never been found.

The 'Granny Ripper's' diary excerpts include a chilling confession of murdering one of her former lodgers.

"I killed my tenant Volodya, cut him to pieces in the bathroom with a knife, put the pieces of his body in plastic bags and threw them away in the different parts of Frunzensky district," she wrote.

Between accounts of her gruesome killings, mundane details such as 'Slept badly' or 'Drank coffee', are written on the yellow paper.

Russian officers are now comparing her elaborate diary entries with known cases of unsolved murder cases where victims were dismembered, and body parts packed in bags strewn around the city.

"A diary was found where the woman described murders which took place more than ten years ago.

"Now police are going through all old unsolved cases for the last 20 years," said a law enforcement source.

Speaking to journalists after being remanded in custody, she said: "I knew you would come... It's such a disgrace for me, all the city will know."

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In a disturbing police video following her arrest, the alleged killer blows a kiss to the camera.

When a judge announced she would be held in custody, she smiled and clapped her hands.

A police source said detectives can't force her to say where the missing head is hidden.

When Samsonova was questioned by the police last week, she admitted to committing the crimes but without going into detail, say reports. And in her flat, police found a saw, a knife, and blood spots in the bathroom.

A source from the investigation said: "She's either much more stupid, or much smarter, than she seems."