The ex-boyfriend of Ekaterina Karaglanova, a fashion and travel Instagram influencer in Russia, confessed to killing her, said Russian police.
Maxim Gareyev allegedly stabbed her to death and her body was found in a suitcase in her Moscow apartment.
A prominent Russian Instagram influencer has been found dead with knife wounds in a suitcase in her rented apartment in Moscow, police say.
Ekaterina Karaglanova, 24, was discovered on Friday after her family raised the alarm when she failed to contact them for several days. pic.twitter.com/HtcSF0UAhg— MR Jonathan Nielson (@JonNielson1) July 30, 2019
The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, the highest law enforcement body in Russia, released a video where Gareyev confesses to stabbing 24-year-old Karaglanova, “at least five times in the neck and chest,” reported Leadership.
It is not clear if Gareyev had a lawyer.
“She repeatedly insulted me, humiliated my sexual dignity,” the YouTube video shows 33-year-old Gareyev saying, “Minimized financial opportunities. And I could not stand it. I stabbed her at least five times with a knife in my neck and chest. I regret it. I will cooperate with the investigation.”
Karaglanova had recently graduated as a doctor had about 86,000 followers on Instagram.
Her landlord discovered her body after her distressed parents contacted him, saying they hadn’t been able to reach her for several days, reported the Telegraph.
According to the Mirror, Karaglanova had planned to go to the Netherlands to celebrate her 25th birthday with a 52-year-old man.
Mirror reported that her friend, Oksana, told Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper: “She wrote that she could be killed.”
“But I was comforting her, [telling her] that they would do nothing to her.
“I cannot believe that Katya [Ekaterina] not here any more.”
Fashion and Travel Instagram Influencer Ekaterina Karaglanova Found Stabbed to Death in a Suitcase https://t.co/oLVFZbFydx
— People (@people) July 31, 2019
Another friend, Svetlana, said that Karaglanova kept her private life concealed and her blog started to become very popular after she had a nose job when she was 21 years old.
Committee official Yulia Ivanova said previously that the case was being investigated to “establish all the circumstances of the committed crime and at detaining the person involved in it.”
Karaglanova was a beauty pageant contestant in Moscow and was licensed by the prestigious Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University. Based on an Instagram image, she seemed to graduate as a doctor specializing in dermatology.
Russian #Instagram star found dead inside suitcase in her Moscow apartmenthttps://t.co/i1IJ7vtJEn
— DEXERTO.COM (@Dexerto) July 30, 2019
Her last post on July 22 mentions how she liked to travel a lot and didn’t like to stay for more than three to five days in the same place.
Social Media Addiction
Social media is also enjoyable because platforms are designed for maximum attractiveness.
“It’s a social-validation feedback loop. … It’s exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology, ” former Facebook President Sean Parker said about the social media giant he helped create.
According to a report by Engineering and Tech magazine, Parker, who also co-founded Napster, said in a speech in 2017 that this exploitation was intentional.
“The thought process that went into building these [social networks]—Facebook being the first of them to really understand it—that thought process was all about: How do we consume as much of your time and conscious attention as possible?” he said.
“And that means that we need to sort of give you a little dopamine hit every once in a while, because someone liked or commented on a photo or a post or whatever. And that’s going to get you to contribute more content, and that’s going to get you more likes and comments.”
These little dopamine rushes can add up to an addiction.
According to an article by researchers at Harvard University, “Platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram leverage the very same neural circuitry used by slot machines and cocaine to keep us using their products as much as possible.”
The Epoch Times reporter June Fakkert contributed to this report.
