A cannibal couple lured victims using dating sites before drugging, butchering and eating them.

Dmitry Baksheev, 35, and his wife Natalia, 42, have reportedly confessed to killing at least 30 people in Russia over two decades.

The couple were arrested after the dismembered remains of a young woman were found in the academy next to a bucket filled with body parts.

A road worker Roman Khomyakov found Baksheev’s Samsung mobile phone and noticed the hideous photographs. Once he realized what he was seeing he waited for a cop to ride by (as they do during road work) and gave it to him to take care of.

At first Baksheev denied killing the woman, claiming he had found the remains and taking photographs of himself with them before losing the phone but later admitted the murder along with another in 2012. 

Investigators are seeking to verify the claims after seven bags of body parts were found in their fridge and freezer. Many cans with steamed meat were found in their kitchen.

The couple are believed to live in the Military Aviation Academy, owned by the Russian Defence Ministry, where they both work as support staff.

“He took a selfie with the hand in his mouth, at the same time he put the fingers of the dead hand into his nose,” said a police report.

“Then he cut one finger with a knife.”

A local shopkeeper remembers him coming to top up his mobile and walking away with blood dripping from a cooler bag he was carrying.

His wife reportedly later admitted murdering up to 30 people since 1999.

The couple reportedly drugged their victims with a substance called Corvalol to subdue them before killing them. Their apartment reportedly smelt of the drug.

Local police reportedly discovered eight frozen body parts and flayed skin in the couple’s home along with 19 remains of human skin and a cache of footage called “video lessons for cannibals” and images.

One image, dated 29 December 1999, appears to show a human head served as Christmas dinner.

“The earliest date of their culinary experiment is 28 December 1999 – the date on one of the photographs.

We can see a cooked human head at the big plate surrounded by mandarins. “They put olives into the eyes and attached a lemon to the nose.

A police search found body parts in a rubbish container near the hostel where the pair lived and a red-haired woman’s head in a metal bucket, with human skin nearby. More human remains were found in a cellar.

A source told RIA Novosti that “at the moment, law enforcement had discovered a glass jar with a canned hand”.

Police fear Baksheev set up meetings with the victims after chatting to them on dating sites.

His wife is reported to have been shown the faces of missing women in southern Russia and identified dozens who she claimed were their victims.

A police source said: “Going through the photographs, the woman has recognised more than 30 victims that they killed and eaten together with her husband.

“A psychologist was sent from Nizhny Novgorod to make her talk.” Separate reports say Natalia was checked by a psychiatric hospital and found to be “mentally healthy”.

“In their home, many mobile phones of their victims were found, and also video lessons on how to cook meals from human meat,” said the police source.

Cops fear Natalia may have also fed human meat to student pilots in the Krasnodar military academy where she worked as a nurse

“This woman had been working in the military academy as a nurse and supposedly she was sharing these cans of steamed human meat with student pilots.”

One disturbing image showed a man’s head with a hand stuffed in its mouth.

Police say Baksheev was an orphan from Siberia who was adopted by a childless couple.

He was in his teens when his mother Svetlana died of cancer – and his adoptive father threw him out of the family home even though he was underage.

Some reports say Natalia took him in and married him when he was 18. Others say that she had other partners and the pair did not wed until four years ago.

A fellow worker at the academy said: “Each time we tried to enter their room, they started wild shouting and crying.

‘Natalia is a scandalous woman, aggressive, so we did not risk it.”

Russian officials confirmed they were investigating the case, saying the initial investigation is into the death of one woman, but declined to comment further.

The couple are being held in Krasnodar as cops investigate. I have seen no update on this case available, please comment or email me if you have any information regarding this case.