Girl foils robbery and rapes robber for 48 hours

In what is either the weirdest Russian crime story of the year so far or a new low in yellow crime journalism, a male hair stylist in the Kaluga region is suspected of holding an armed robber in captivity as a sex slave for two days after she unsuccessfully tried to knock over her beauty salon.

Attentive Crime Watch readers will need little more than the first paragraph of this post to understand that this bizarre saga was relayed by the intrepid crime hacks over at the web site Life.ru, which, together with newspaper Tvoi Den, is setting the bar extremely high for sensationalist scoops.

According to Life.ru, the events unfolded on the evening of March 14 as the stylist was wrapping up his shift at the salon in the Kaluga region town of Meshchovsk.

The robber, a 32-year-old woman identified by Life.ru as "Olga," burst into the salon at around 5 p.m. waving a pistol and ordered all of the stylists and clients to hit the floor and toss her their money.

At this point, 28-year-old Viktor, whom Life.ru describes as a "delicate" man trained in martial arts, was apparently still standing when he offered to hand over his cash. But when Olga tried to accept his contribution, Viktor surprised her with a quick punch to the chest, knocking the wind out of her before he flipped her to the ground.

Viktor proceeded to tie Olga up with a hair-dryer cord, gagged her and dragged her into a storage room.

Curiously, Life.ru reports, Viktor instructed the others to keep working, telling them that the police would soon arrive.

But this feel-good moment for the good guy proved ephemeral. Things soon turned ugly, according to Life.ru.

The police did not come. And after the other stylists and clients went home for the evening, Viktor told Olga to "take off her underwear" and, with apologies to John Cougar Mellencamp, let him do as he pleases, lest he call the cops, Life.ru said.

He tied her to the radiator with handcuffs covered in frilly pink fabric and had his way with her several times over the next 48 hours.

First, she went to the hospital to have her injured genitals treated; then she went to police and filed a complaint asking that Viktor be brought up on criminal charges for committing "actions of a sexual nature" that left her with injured sexual organs, according to a copy of the complaint posted on Life.ru.

Viktor was apparently incensed when he learned of the complaint. He had, after all, even tried to be nice to his purported captive.

"What a jerk," Life.ru quoted him as saying. "Yeah, there were a few times. But I bought her new jeans, gave her food and drink, and gave her 1,000 rubles when he left."

The following day, Viktor filed a complaint with police, asking that Olga be charged in the salon robbery. Life.ru posted a copy of her statement as well.

"I don't know what's going to happen now," the web site quoted a local police officer as saying. "We could put both of them behind bars: her for robbery, him for rape and assault."

I'm exhausted.