Russian man serving 22-year prison sentence for murder and cannibalism reportedly released to fight in war against Ukraine

Denis Gorin, a resident of Russia’s Sakhalin region who was sentenced to 22 years in prison on charges of murder and cannibalism in 2018, has reportedly been released to fight in the war in Ukraine, the Telegram channel Sakhalin Against the War wrote on Wednesday.

According to a neighbor of Gorin who spoke to the RFE/RL affiliate Sibir.Realii, Gorin is currently in a hospital in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk with a moderate injury. “But I don’t think he’ll be free for long. His victims’ relatives all remember him,” the neighbor added.

In 2003, Gorin was convicted of premeditated murder and “subsequently desecrating the corpse of his victim.” He was sentenced to 10 years in prison but released on parole in 2010 for good behavior. That same year, according to court records, Gorin murdered an acquaintance before deciding to “remember the old days” by consuming pieces of his victim. Then, in 2012, Gorin and his brother stabbed a man 29 times outside of a store. Six years later, Gorin was sentenced to 22 years in prison for the stabbing. Documents from his trial indicate that he ate the flesh of that victim as well.