Woman allegedly decapitates husband, head found in barrel inside family barn

A woman from Serbia allegedly killed her husband and hid his head in a barrel inside the family barn before killing herself three years later on June 26 this year, according to local media reports.

The gruesome crime came to light after the police searched the premises in Veliko Trnanje, Serbia, post Biljana Stojanovic's death last week. She allegedly committed suicide by consuming poison.

Stojanovic had told her children that their father, Ivan Stojanovic, was working in Russia and living with a new partner. She had locked the family barn and told her children that she had buried treasure inside it.

According to a report in The Mirror, the man's cousin believes that Stojanovic killed her husband after he came back from a two-year stint working in Russia. She allegedly put him to sleep before killing him and dismembering his body. The man's head was found set in concrete in a barrel inside the barn.

The day before she killed herself, she had reportedly told her children that their father was coming back and that they would live happily together in their new house in Belgrade.

The family found out about her death through a text from an unknown number. "What you are looking for is right inside the barn. Your mother committed suicide, she took medication," read the message to her 19-year-old daughter.

The police have not been able to ascertain if Stojanovic had help from anyone when she committed the alleged crime. An investigation into her death has also been launched.

In a similar incident reported from the US recently, a novelist who once wrote an online essay titled "How to Murder Your Husband," was sentenced to life in prison for murdering her own husband.

The 71-year-old romance author Nancy Crampton Brophy shot her husband, Daniel Brophy, dead for a $1.5m (£1.2m) life insurance pay-out. He used to work as a chef and was a teacher at the now-closed Oregon Culinary Institute.