Old Print Article: “Awful Story Of Cannibalism,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle (1892)

November 1, 2010 in Old Print Articles, Urban Studies | Permalink

"It is not known whether she is insane or not." (Image by Grigoriy Ugryumov.)

This article from the 1892 Brooklyn Daily Eagle would be the saddest and most horrific story I’ve ever read if I believed a word of it was true. I mean, I guess it could be, but no, it sounds too much like an urban myth, thankfully. It involves a couple of women in Russia getting drunk on vodka and one of them proceeding to eat the other’s small children. Yikes. An excerpt:

“A most horrible story of cannibalism is reported by the Telegraph’s St. Petersburg correspondent. A woman named Akkerman, a giantess in stature and strength, sought shelter at the house of a peasant woman named Yooreski Sariera, living in the Ismail district of Bessarabia. The Akkerman woman was afforded refuge by the peasant, and they became quite friendly. They drank a considerable quantity of vodka, and when the supply gave out Yooreski went out to get another bottle.

She was gone quite a little time. When she returned she was almost struck dumb with horror on finding that her guest in her absence had killed her baby, gnawed the soft parts of its body and sucked its blood and brains. The woman was then in the act of attempting to kill another child, a 3-year-old girl,  who was seeking to escape from the hut and was screaming.

The mother rushed in and tried to save her child from the murderess, but the latter struck the little girl with the bludgeon and killed her before her mother could reach her. The mother’s brain was turned by the terrible scene she had witnessed and she became a raving maniac. She attempted to kill herself, but neighbors who had been attracted to the scene by her wild shrieks prevented her.

The Akkerman woman made a most desperate resistance when some of the peasants attempted to arrest her. She fought like a tigress and some of the peasants were quite severely injured. She was finally overpowered and bound with ropes. Five men accompanied her to the jail. The news of the terrible crime spread rapidly and on the way to the prison a number of men tried to take her from her guards and lynch her. They were prevented, however, and the woman was locked up. It is not known whether she is insane or not. The whole district is in a ferment over the affair.”

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