A homeless man with a criminal record is to blame for defrosting a morgue in Vladivostok, an incident described as a “pending biological disaster,” police said on Thursday.
The suspect, a 49-year-old Azerbaijani native, stole pipes transmitting refrigerants to the body storage area in order to sell them for scrap metal, local news agency PrimaMedia.ru reported, citing a spokesman for police in the far eastern Russian city.
The incident took place on Monday, but the theft was not discovered until the next day, when temperature in the morgue rose above zero degrees Celsius, causing bodies to spoil, LifeNews.ru online tabloid said earlier.
Several corpses had to be buried immediately, said Vladivostok region’s chief forensic expert Alexander Golubev, who described the incident as a “disaster.” Morgue employees had to don hazmat suits to clean up the mess caused by the thawing.
The suspect, who made a living collecting scrap metal, simply entered the unlocked room that housed refrigerator equipment and cut away the metal pipes, letting all the Freon leak from the system before calmly walking away with the loot, PrimaMedia.ru said. The man then sold the pipes to a scrap metal yard next door, from where they were eventually recovered by police.
The man, who previously served prison terms for hooliganism and sexually abusing a minor, now faces up to five years in prison if charged and convicted of theft.
Ironically, the suspect, whose name was withheld, is himself a refrigerator repair man by profession, police said.
