A Russian man suspected of slaughtering and dismembering his six young children and pregnant wife has been arrested, investigators said Wednesday. Fifty-one-year-old suspected "child slaughterer" Oleg Belov was detained in central Russia late on Tuesday night, a spokesman for the Russian Investigator's Committee said, according to Tass news agency.
"Oleg Belov, suspected of murdering six children, was detained as a result of joint efforts implied by officers from the Investigation's Committee, the Interior Ministry and the Federal Security Service (FSB). He is currently subjected to investigative measures," the spokesperson said.
The dismembered bodies of Belov's six young children, all under the age of seven, and his wife were found in an apartment in the Volga city of Nizhny Novgorod on Tuesday.
Kindergarten employees went to police after the children stopped attending classes since July 25. Police forcibly entered the apartment after no one answered the door and found the dismembered remains of the children, the Russian Prosecutor's Office said in a statement, according to RT.com.
"The remains of the mother, Yulia Belova, were found together with the children's bodies at the site of the tragedy. She was five months pregnant," police sources told Tass news agency.
All six children and their mother had been hacked to pieces with an axe and bundled into bags, police officials said, according to Daily Mail.
"Fights often happened in the family. The father [Belov] constantly beat up his wife and children. Yulia kept sending me photos of her bruises," Belova's mother Valentina Zaitseva told Russian media, according to The Moscow Times. "I've been calling [their apartment] for several days now, but no one picked up the phone. It was only today that I found out what had happened."
