Historian kept 29 dolled-up mummies at home, police say

Russian police said Monday that a historian arrested last week for desecrating several Nizhny Novgorod cemeteries had kept 29 female mummies at home and dressed them up like dolls.

The 45-year-old local resident was detained last week and accused of digging up dead bodies at the local cemeteries over the past two years.

A search of his apartment came up with 29 self-made dolls made of mummified human remains and dressed up in clothes of the buried women. Police said that several plaques from gravestones, maps of local cemeteries and doll-making manuals had been retrieved during the search. Forensic experts matched the man’s fingerprints and footprints with the ones lifted from disturbed graves at the Nizhny Novgorod cemeteries....