Husband, 46, ‘drugged wife, 32, then stuffed dead body into case he threw in a river in bid to get custody of daughter’
AN EVIL husband allegedly drugged his wife before stuffing her body into a suitcase in a twisted bid to get custody of their daughter.
The dismembered body of 32-year-old Ekaterina was found inside a case floating on the river in the city of Bremerhaven, Germany.
Suspicions fell on her husband of ten years Walter B, who claimed his wife had run away.
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And now, months after the woman's death, the 46-year-old has been charged with her murder.
The prosecution believes the suspect spiked his wife's drink with diazepam before strangling her while she was asleep.
He is believed to have chopped up her body and wrapped the severed body parts in foil and rubbish bags.
According to the indictment, the suspect then stuffed them in a suitcase which he later threw into the water.
According to information sourced by Bild, the suspect is said to have been abusive towards his wife who had fled to a women's shelter twice before her murder.
The situation appears to have worsened when Ekaterina, from Saint Petersburg, Russia, filed for divorce and was planning to return to her home country with the couple's six-year-old daughter, Viktoria.
The woman's mum Svetlana, 53, told the outlet the suspect even took away the woman's bank cards and forbade her from meeting anyone.
Prosecutors suggest the man's motive was to prevent his wife from "getting sole custody".
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Walter B proposed to Ekaterina a week after they had met while on holiday in Turkey, back in 2009.
They got married in Bremerhaven the following year and their daughter was born in 2017.