A 62-year-old man buried alive for four days was rescued after cops heard his muffled cries for help coming from underground.
The horror came to light only after they were investigating the death of a 74-year-old woman found in her own home by a relative on Monday (May 13).
Forensic specialists were called to the scene and found she had died from multiple wounds.
Later that day an 18-year-old man, in a state of drunkenness, was arrested at his home in the same village of Ustia in northwest Moldova.
During questioning, the youth reportedly gave confusing and inconsistent statements, and when officers searched his home, they heard cries for help coming from nearby.
As officers approached the noise they soon realised it was coming from nearby, and once they started digging they discovered the entrance to a makeshift basement.
Police footage of the rescue shows the man being pulled from the ground. He was conscious and had a neck wound.
He later told police that he and the teenager had been drinking together when they started arguing, which led to the boy wounding him, locking him in the basement and covering the entrance with soil.
Officers believe the young man allegedly murdered the elderly woman on Sunday (May 12) night or in the early hours of Monday.
He has been remanded into custody as police and prosecutors continue to investigate him for murder and attempted murder, and faces life in prison if found guilty.
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The rescued man is receiving treatment in hospital.
One local said about the deceased victim: ‘She was a very decent woman, no one ever had any problems with her.’
News of his rescue comes just days after a man was found living underneath a sheep pen for 27 years after being kidnapped and held prisoner.
The victim, named only as Omar Bin Omran, disappeared in the Algerian city of Djelfa 27 years ago when he was just 17 years old.
It was thought he had been killed during the country’s civil war, but it later emerged he had been living just 200m away the entire time, in a hole in the ground covered by stacks of hay underneath his neighbour’s sheep pen.
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