For roughly fifteen years, an unassuming Russian woman named Tamara Samsonova may have secretly murdered between ten and perhaps as many as fourteen people. When she was finally arrested in 2015, she was sixty-eight years old and just weeks removed from her final, gruesome murder. Her age and the way she dismembered her victims’ bodies led to her “Granny Ripper” nickname. She was also given the name “Babushka Yaga” due to rumors of cannibalism, her interest in the occult, and the fact that her overall look led many to label her a real-life Baba Yaga. When Samsonova’s story broke in the press, the Russian tabloids went buck wild and started claiming that Babusha Yaga ate her victims. That she killed in order to complete dark occult rituals. The current belief in the occult is very, very strong in Russia. Faith healers, witches, sorcerers - YES, SORCERERS - very much in demand in Russia today. More so than actual medical doctors. And today, we explore all of this and more on another crazy, Russian edition of Timesuck.

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HBH 19: Rasputin and the Romanovs