In St. Petersburg, 21-year-old Stepan Skazka was arrested on charges of murdering his adoptive mother and brother.

Stepan Skazka, accused of murdering his adoptive mother and brother in St. Petersburg, explained his act by envy of the relationship between his younger brother and mother, according to a report from the press service of the city courts.

Earlier, the Main Investigative Directorate of the Investigative Committee for St. Petersburg reported that on Saturday the bodies of a woman and a child with stab wounds were found in an apartment on Nalichnaya Street; a man was detained on suspicion of committing a crime. Law enforcement agencies clarified that the suspect is the woman’s 21-year-old adopted son, and the second victim was her eight-year-old adopted son. A criminal case has been opened for the murder of two persons.

“The accused committed a crime while intoxicated, using a minor reason in the form of envy of the relationship between his younger brother and his mother,” the press service of the courts reports.

According to the report, in his testimony Skazka admitted that he had been systematically abusing alcohol for two years and was undergoing treatment for alcohol addiction, which did not give a positive result. The press service noted that the accused, in his own words, is subject to spontaneous outbursts of anger and displays of aggression towards people around him.