Ekaterina Karaglanova

Russian blogger and content creator Ekaterina Karaglanova built a following of over 85,000 on Instagram, where she shared travel and fashion posts. She had also recently graduated in Medicine and worked as a physician. Her life was cut short in July 2019, when she was 24, after she vanished for several days following a date.

Her family, unable to reach her, asked the owner of her apartment for access and found her body inside a suitcase in the hallway. Her father called an ambulance, but she was already dead, her throat cut. Police said there was no evidence of a struggle and no weapons at the scene. Security camera footage later showed a former boyfriend visiting her home in the days before her disappearance.

Maxim Gareyev, 33, confessed to the murder. In a video released by the Investigative Committee, he said he stabbed her at least five times in the neck and chest after she insulted and humiliated him. He claimed he gave her money whenever they met and that at their last meeting she mocked him, saying he was ugly and that plastic surgery wouldn't help. He said she told him it would take a year to save enough to meet again, and he couldn't take it anymore. Gareyev was arrested and convicted. At the time of her death, Karaglanova had started a new relationship and was planning a trip to the Netherlands to celebrate her birthday, which would have been on July 30th.