Russia’s Granny Ripper with a Chilling Secret, Tamara Samsonova

She was polite.
 Private.
 And completely unassuming.

Tamara Samsonova looked like any other elderly woman in St. Petersburg.
 But inside her modest apartment, she was documenting more than daily life…

She was writing a diary of death.

From the bathtub murder of her roommate to possible links to other disappearances, Samsonova’s story is one of Russia’s most unnerving cases—where the killer wore slippers, kept handwritten records, and calmly watched it all unfold.

In this episode of GBRLIFE Of Crimes, we dive deep into the case of Tamara Samsonova, a woman whose quiet demeanor masked a dark, methodical mind.

🎧 In this episode, we explore:

• How Tamara earned the nickname “The Granny Ripper”
• The haunting murder of Valentina Ulanova
• The role her diary played in unraveling the truth
• Why investigators believe she may have killed before
• The psychological profile of a woman who lived in silence—and took lives in secret
• Her behavior during the investigation and court proceedings
• And where she is now, years after her shocking arrest

🧠 This case isn’t just about murder—it’s about loneliness, control, and the mask of normalcy.
 Because sometimes, the most terrifying monsters are the ones you’d never expect.

📍 Tamara Samsonova. A quiet building. A bathtub. And a chilling diary of death.

✨ New episodes every week on GBRLIFE.com or your favorite podcast platform.

Transcript

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A narrow street in St. Petersburg, Russia. It's early morning, the kind of light that makes everything look pale and washed out. Security footage from an apartment building shows a petite woman in a headscarf and a heavy coat stepping through the door. She walks slowly, dragging a bulky black bag behind her, a bag that looks far too heavy for her small frame. She disappears from the frame, and then returns with another. Trip after trip, calm, methodical. Those bags would soon be pulled from the pond nearby filled with body parts, and the woman carrying them? Her name was Tamara Samsonova. To her neighbors, she was Baba Tamara, a quiet, polite, grandmotherly figure. But to the police, she would soon become the Granny Ripper. Welcome to GBRLIFE Transmissions. I'm your host, Kaitlyn, and you are listening to GBRLIFE of Crimes, where we explore not just what happened in crimes committed by women, but why they happened and the psychology behind them. Today, we're stepping into the story of a woman who looked like anyone's sweet elderly neighbor and uncovering the decades of violence she may have hidden in plain silence. Tamara Samsonova was born in 1947 in the Soviet Union. She grew up in a time and place where privacy was a luxury. And survival meant keeping your head down. Friends from her youth described her as intelligent, neat, and always a little reserved. As a young woman, she married a man named Alexei Samsonov. The two settled in St. Petersburg, living in a modest apartment. They seemed like an ordinary couple, quiet, hardworking, and friendly enough with neighbors. But in 2000, after decades of marriage, he disappeared. Tamara told people he had gone away. She filed a missing persons report and then never spoke of him again. There was no public search and no appeals for help, and police eventually closed the case without answers. To this day, his body has never been found. Looking back, investigators believe his disappearance may have been Tamara's first known killing. After Alexei was gone, Tamara continued living in their apartment. Over the years, she began renting out her spare room. She took in boarders, single men, elderly women, friends of friends, People who needed a place to stay. It seemed like an act of generosity. But something strange kept happening. Her tenants kept vanishing. Sometimes she'd say they moved away suddenly. Other times she claimed they'd gone back to family in another city. No one questioned it too much. St. Petersburg was a big city and people came and went all the time. But the pattern was there, hidden in plain sight. And in early 2015. Tamara began living with 79-year-old Valentina. Valentina owned the apartment, and Tamara rented a room from her. It was a practical arrangement. Tamara helped with chores and errands, and in return, she had a stable home. At first, the two women coexisted peacefully. But over time, small disagreements became more frequent and more heated. Neighbors began hearing raised voices through thin apartment walls, and tensions came to a head in July. And on the 23rd, the argument was about something so small, when Tamara could use the kitchen. But in Tamara's mind, it was the final straw. She decided Valentina would not live to see another day. So Tamara went to the local pharmacy and purchased Phenazepam, a powerful sedative. And back at the apartment, she made Valentina's favorite salad. She crushed the tablets and mixed them into the dressing, serving it to her with dinner. Within hours, Valentina was unconscious. By the next morning, she was dead. Tamara waited until nightfall. She gathered knives, a hacksaw, and a roll of plastic bags. And in the small bathroom, she methodically cut Valentina's body into pieces, wrapping each in multiple layers of plastic and sealing them with tape. And when the city was still and most people were sleeping, she began moving the bags out of the apartment. But security cameras caught her making several trips, each time dragging another heavy black bag down the street. She carried them to a nearby pond. and by the time the sun came up, Valentina's remains were resting in the water. However, two days later, a local resident noticed a torso floating near the shore. Police quickly found additional body parts and Valentina's head, hands, and feet, they were still looking for them. Ultimately, they were never recovered. The investigation led them straight back to the apartment and to Tamara. And inside her bedroom, police found her diaries. No matter how kind she was when she allowed them to enter the home, those diaries told the whole story. They weren't the sentimental kind. These were thick, handwritten journals spanning decades, written in Russian, English, and in German. They documented her daily life in meticulous detail. In between notes about chores, meals, and errands, there were confessions. I killed my tenant, cut him to pieces in the bathroom, washed the floor, made soup, killed my tenant. Investigators linked at least 11 disappearances to the people she mentioned in those pages. Many were her tenants. Some were her friends. And police believed her victims did include her husband, multiple male boarders whose names and initials matched diary entries, and elderly acquaintances with no close family. Some killings may have occurred as far back as the early 1990s. Tamara's murders weren't impulsive acts of rage They were planned She often drugged her victims before killing them And then she dismembered their bodies to make disposal easier And she kept the details in her diaries Not out of guilt, but as a personal record And after her arrest, they did psychiatric evaluations And diagnosed her with paranoid schizophrenia In court, she was calm, even cheerful She was calm smiling at reporters and blowing kisses at them. At one hearing, she told the judge, I knew you would come for me. I've been waiting. Tamara's case is rare not only for her age but for her methodical approach because she had organized predation where she selected victims that she could dominate and control, often those who depended on her for housing. Plus, she showed clear emotional detachment in the casual tone found in diary entries along with the complete lack of empathy. And while it may be a bit missed, she did want control over her environment because she killed in her own home, a space where she controlled every variable. And there was possible delusional thinking suggested with her mental illness. Ultimately, it may have influenced her perception, but it didn't erase her ability to plan or execute complex crimes, nor did it cause her to commit the crimes, only aid in the crime itself. And in 2015, Tamara was declared mentally unfit for trial and committed indefinitely to a secure psychiatric facility. Today, that's where she still remains. The exact number of her victims will likely never be known. Her diaries hold the truth, but many names are incomplete and some entries are just too vague to confirm. What is certain is that for years she lived among her neighbors, grocery shopped, smiled in the stairwell, and quietly carried the weight of her crimes in black plastic bags, but not in her heart. This has been GBRLIFE of Crimes, part of GBRLIFE Transmissions and I'm Kaitlyn reminding you that understanding the darkness helps us appreciate the light. Join me next time as we uncover another case that challenges everything we thought we knew about the criminal mind.