[2] Vladimir Stravinskas, head of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Nizhny Novgorod region, called the case exceptional and unparalleled in modern forensics.
[8][9][10] In an article written shortly before his arrest, he attributed his interest in the dead to a childhood incident in which he witnessed a funeral procession for an eleven-year-old girl.
[14][15] A former lecturer in Celtic studies at Nizhny Novgorod Linguistic University,[12] Moskvin previously worked at the Institute of Foreign Languages.
[13] Moskvin is a philologist, linguist, and polyglot who speaks thirteen languages and has written several books, papers, and translations, all of which are well known in academic circles.
[8] In 2005, Oleg Riabov, a fellow academic and publisher, commissioned Moskvin to summarize and list the dead in more than 700 cemeteries in forty regions of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast.
[8][9] On his extensive travels, Moskvin was sometimes questioned by police on the suspicion of vandalism and theft, but was never arrested or detained after stating his academic credentials and purpose.
[9] The work itself remains unpublished but has been described as "unique" and "priceless" by Alexei Yesin, the editor of Necrologies, a weekly paper to which Moskvin was a regular contributor.
[8][13] Investigators from the Centre for Combating Extremism discovered the twenty-six bodies,[1][2] initially reported as twenty-nine,[8][11] in Moskvin's flat and garage.
[8] Video[18] released by police shows the bodies seated on shelves and sofas in small rooms full of books, papers and general clutter.
[2] In a hearing on 25 May 2012, the Leninsky District Court of Nizhny Novgorod deemed Moskvin unfit to stand trial, releasing him from criminal liability.
[22] In an interview after his arrest, Moskvin stated he felt great sympathy for the dead children and thought that they could be brought back to life by either science or black magic.
[13] As an expert on Celtic culture, Moskvin learned that the ancient Druids slept on graves in order to communicate with spirits of their dead.
[2][13] Moskvin often regretted that he never had children and at one point attempted to adopt a young girl against the wishes of his parents,[9] but his application was declined due to his low income.
He spoke to and interacted with the corpses, sang songs to them, watched cartoons with them, and even held birthday parties and celebrated holidays for their benefit.