British 'satanist' slays Russian wife and grandmother

A British man has been arrested in Russia on suspicion of murdering his wife and her grandmother. It's reported the husband and wife, who only married last month, were practising satanists. Police say William Cocks confessed to the crime, but provided no

Thirty-two-year-old Irina was found with forty knife wounds while her grandmother, 82, was stabbed in the neck four times.

Irina and William Cocks married in the town of Udomlya in Russia's Tver region in November.  They were due to begin a new life together in Britain in January. The couple had already booked plane tickets for the UK.
 
Devil worship

Relatives claim the wife Irina was withdrawn and liked to dress in black. Newspapers say the couple were obsessed with the occult and into devil-worship.

Irina and William met three years ago in Spain where the young woman was working as a pole-dancer. William saw her performance and fell in love. Eventually they were married on 2 November this year.
 
After their wedding, the couple stayed in Irina's flat. Two weeks before the tragedy, they shaved their heads to say good bye to their past, Cocks claimed.

Cocks suffered a mental breakdown last year, brought on by the death of his first wife and son.
 
Irina's past was also far from happy. She's reported to have had a stormy relationship with her grandmother, who lived with her.

Once she even broke the old woman's arm in a fight, her father says.
 
“Irina didn't believe in God.  She'd always take down the icons that her granny put up,” Aleksander Malikov, her father said.

Relatives and neighbours shocked

“I didn’t sleep that night… I was deeply shocked… Some say that the man had seen spirits before the murder… well what if he'd seen me or my kids as spirits instead?” neighbour Lubov Potapova said.
 
William Cocks, the husband and main suspect, was found at the scene with slashed wrists.  He had apparently tried to commit suicide.
 
He could face life in prison if found guilty of murder.

“God forbid seeing such a sight! It was all swimming with blood. As if they'd been slaughtering pigs… That night, I drank a whole bottle of vodka… but still I stayed sober,” one of Irina’s relatives said.
 
Reports say Cocks claimed he had a cigarette before the incident, and felt a “derangement, like he was being programmed”.
 
Police say it's likely that the man was acting under the influence of drugs.

He is currently being treated in a prison hospital.  A forensic investigation is under way at the crime scene.

It's a dream of many girls in remote Russian areas like Udomlya to marry a foreigner and leave the country. Irina was happy. She thought she has found her prince and the couple were due to move to the UK on January 13. Irina didn't know that the dream would turn into her worst nightmare.