WARNING: Contains graphic details

Ukrainian rapper Alexander Yusko – aka Andy Cartwright – was allegedly murdered and fed to rodents by his wife, it has been reported.

According to The Mirror, new forensic evidence suggests that Cartwright, 30, was still alive when his wife Marina Kokhal, 37, began dismembering him at their home in St Petersburg, Russia. The late artist had reportedly been having an affair with a fan around the time of his death.

Kokhal admitted to cutting up Cartwright’s corpse before storing some body parts in her fridge, but maintains that her husband died of a drugs overdose.

She said she dismembered his body with a knife and hacksaw so his fans “would never find out he died such an inglorious death”, and planned to claim that he had gone missing. Kokhal denies murder.

She was released from detention jail to house arrest last October, but remains the only suspect in the murder investigation.

New high-tech forensic tests have now indicated that Cartwright died as a result of oxygen starvation, according to legal sources cited in a report by gazeta.ru. It is claimed that the dismembering of his body “occurred shortly – a few minutes, dozens of minutes – before death”.

Cartwright “was in a state of pronounced hypoxia” [oxygen deficiency] before he died, according to the outlet. His death may have taken several hours.

It is alleged that Kokhal fed Cartwright’s fingertips to rats, while other body parts were found in her fridge and in bin liners. Forensic experts said they were unable to find eight key organs.

No drugs were found in the rapper’s system. Investigators previously thought he died from an injection of a hard-to-trace insulin substitute drug, which is intended to treat diabetics.

Detectives had also accused Kokhal of “drinking her dead husband’s blood and having sex with his corpse”, her lawyers said after she was held.

Kokhal will remain under house arrest pending further investigations, while a new court case is scheduled for later this month.

Marina Kohhal’s mother Elena Kokhal, 68, had been held as a suspect, but is no longer accused of any involvement in the murder. She has since been released.