Andrei Chikatilo

Andrei Chikatilo (born October 16, 1936, Yablochnoye, U.S.S.R. [now Ukraine]—died February 14, 1994, Moscow, Russia) was a Soviet serial killer who murdered at least 50 people between 1978 and 1990. His case is noteworthy not only because of the large number of his victims but because efforts by Soviet police to issue warnings to the public during their investigation were hampered by the country’s official ideology, which asserted that serial murder was impossible in a communist society.

Chikatilo grew up in the aftermath of the great Ukrainian famine of the 1930s, during which millions of people died and many resorted to cannibalism to survive. During his childhood, he was told constantly by his mother that he had an older brother who had been kidnapped and eaten by neighbours. The story, which cannot be verified, apparently motivated Chikatilo to cannibalize some of his victims. Chikatilo was an avid reader with a particular interest in stories that described how German prisoners were tortured by their Soviet captors during World War II.

After completing his military service, Chikatilo became a telephone engineer near Rostov-na-Donu, where he married in 1963. In 1971 he received a degree from Rostov Liberal Arts University and became a teacher. He was forced to resign his position, however, after some parents complained of sexual assaults by Chikatilo on their children.

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Chikatilo began his killings in 1978, preying on young victims whom he met at rail stations and bus depots around Rostov-na-Donu and other cities to which he traveled in his various jobs. Because all the victims displayed characteristic mutilations, the police soon became aware that a serial killer was active in the region. Nevertheless, Chikatilo was able to evade detection for many years, in part because his crimes exploited weaknesses in the decaying society of the Soviet Union. Poverty made young people eager to leave their homes for the city, but, since they often had no friends or contacts there and little money, they could easily be lured into dangerous situations, and their disappearances would often go unnoticed.

In 1984 Chikatilo was arrested by a police officer who witnessed him molesting a girl at a train station. Although the briefcase he was carrying was found to contain a long knife and other suspicious instruments, police misidentified his blood type, which their tests showed did not match the type indicated by semen found at one of the crime scenes. Chikatilo was subsequently charged with theft of materials from a former employer and sentenced to one year in prison, though he was released after three months.

After his release Chikatilo resumed killing, and the subsequent police investigation, which included 24-hour surveillance of bus and train stations in one district, was intensive. In 1990 he was identified as the chief suspect in the crimes and arrested; at the time of his arrest, he was carrying a briefcase containing items similar to those in his possession when he was detained six years earlier. While in custody, Chikatilo confessed, and later he was transported to various crime scenes to demonstrate his methods to police. Convicted of 52 murders and sentenced to death, he was executed in a Moscow prison. Citizen X, a television movie based on Chikatilo’s life, was aired in 1995.