Would a Loving God Allow This?

Knifed 666 times each and eaten

By LYNSEY HAYWOOD

The gang of Devil worshippers butchered their victims and roasted them on a bonfire before devouring their flesh.

Horror ... the upturned cross marks where the remains were found

Horrified cops found body parts dumped in a pit beside an upside-down cross, a symbol used in Satanic worship.

The victims all suffered 666 knife wounds — the number associated with the Beast, or Antichrist, and featured in horror films such as The Omen.

The pals, three girls and a boy aged 16 or 17, were all Goths.

They were lured one by one to a cottage and forced to get drunk before being butchered.

Hair from them was found in the embers of a fire the gang lit under a tree.

Suspects ... Ksenia Kuznetsova and Nikolai Ogolobyak

Police believe the teenagers were cooked in the flames before their flesh was devoured.

Their private parts had also been cut off in the sickening ritual in a rural area of Russia.

After police arrested eight suspected members of the ring, one boasted how they had previously dug up the grave of a newly-dead girl and eaten her heart.

Another said he did not expect to be punished, saying: “Satan will help me to avoid responsibility. I made lots of sacrifices to him.”

And a third said he had got fed up with God for not making him rich and that “things improved” after he started praying to the Devil.

The discovery in Yaroslavl, 300 miles from Moscow, sent a shudder across Russia — where Satanists are feared to have committed a string of mutilations and killings.

Number ... 666 is Devil's

The victims, who all disappeared in June, were named as Anya Gorokhova, Olga Pukhova, Varya Kuzmina and Andrei Sorokin.

The upside-down cross marking what was left of their bones and scalps had a small animal nailed to it.

Police began tracing the gang after finding out that all the victims had made phone calls to alleged leader Nikolai Ogolobyak.

Locals said they all knew Ogolobyak, whose grandmother revealed he had sung in the local church choir as a boy.

The rest of the cult were described by ex-teachers as having been of low intelligence and moody at school.

Three were named by police as Ksenia Kuznetsova, Alexander Voronov and Anton Makovkin.

The dad of victim Andrei said: “My son said he had Goths and Satanists among his friends.

“I wasn’t scared. I thought, ‘Well, let him spend his time sitting around a cemetery — there’s not much harm in that, is there?’"

Russia has seen a series of gruesome murders, rapes and desecrations linked to Satanic cults.

Moscow alone has 15 whose worship is thought to revolve around symbols such as 666, an upturned five-pointed star within a circle and the swastika.

Devil worshippers believe in putting themselves first and their core values include pride, indulgence, ambition and meeting sexual desires.

In Britain, about 400 people list their religion as Satanism. Followers meet at a “Grotto” for rituals with candles and swords run by witches and warlocks.