Andrei Chikatilo, known as the "butcher of Rostov", was the greatest serial killer of the Soviet Union. He was proven 43 murders, although the operational material mentioned 65 victims. The sluggishness of the militia meant that the degenerate killed in 12 years - from 1978 to 1990.
On December 22, 1978, 42-year-old Andrei Chikatilo, a tutor at the dormitory of the Shakhta Vocational School (Rostov Oblast), planned his first murder - the victim was 8-year-old Elena Zakotnova. In order to lure the little girl to his hideout (it was a dilapidated house he had bought in secret from his wife), the man told her that he would get a foreign chewing gum. As soon as Elena was in the cottage, Chikatilo ripped her clothes off. The girl started screaming, which excited the criminal even more. Experiencing sexual fulfillment, the man punched her in the stomach and then strangled her. He threw the body into the river.
The police immediately began searching for the killer. One witness testified that he saw the victim in the company of a strange-looking man and helped draw up a memorial portrait identifying Chikatila. However, the criminal's wife gave him an alibi, and the attention of the policemen turned to Alexander Kravchenko, who served 10 years for the murder of a 10-year-old girl. Kravchenko was arrested. In order to force him to admit his guilt, the keepers of order put him in a cell with an aggressive drug addict. Kravchenko, constantly beaten by his neighbor, was ready to say whatever the policemen asked of him. Thus, the perpetrator of a brutal murder was quickly "discovered". Kravchenko was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment, and a year later - after the appeal of the relatives of the killed woman - this innocent man was shot.
Andrei Chikatilo was also called the Rostov butcher
The Roots of Evil
Having avoided punishment, Chikatilo continued this practice. What pushed him to commit terrible crimes? Years later, when the degenerate was imprisoned, court experts compiled a list of factors that could affect his personality.
First, the psyche of the criminal born in 1936 was imprinted with the experiences of the Great Patriotic War . At the end of 1942, in the village where the boy lived, the Germans murdered several dozen local residents. Curious children watched the execution, not suspecting that after shooting the adults, the Nazis would open fire on them. As this happened, the terrified 6-year-old Andrei fell and hit his head against a stone. The Germans found him dead and threw him into a pit full of dead bodies. Chikatilo woke up only at night and - to his horror - found himself lying among dead bodies. The villagers only released the boy in the morning.
A blow to the head, congenital hydrocephalus and the horror Andrey suffered during the execution made the boy suffer from urinary incontinence. In addition, this child was weak, suffered from dizziness, often lost consciousness, had problems with memory and cried during lessons. That is why my schoolmates laughed at him, beat him and called him "a woman". "People have always had me for nothing," Chikatilo would say years later. Besides, Andrei was terrified that he would be… eaten. His fear was that during the war, hungry neighbors caught his brother Stepan, cooked him and ate him.
Given Chikatila's childhood experiences, it is no wonder that the man had a mental disorder in his adult life. It was especially difficult for him to meet women. When he finally got to know a lady, he couldn't have sex with her due to erection problems, which made him feel enormous. Nevertheless, he managed to get married with his sister's friend. The couple became parents of two children, although Chikatilo still had problems in bed.
Mental disorders
In 1970, the man graduated from the University of Rostov and received a teaching diploma of the Russian language. It was then that he realized that he was attracted to teenagers, both girls and boys. So he started working at a school, from which he had to quit because of accusations of molesting schoolgirls. Another place of work for Chikatila was the school dormitory. One of his duties was to supervise the students, even in their spare time.
Once, when he was watching some schoolgirls playing on the beach, he felt an overwhelming urge to touch a pupil who was swimming in the river. He jumped into the water, pretending to save the drowning girl. The student was terrified and defended herself against her tutor. Then the man discovered that he was aroused by the fear and opposition of the victims.
Remains of the cottage where Chikatilo killed
Years later, when Chikatilo was arrested, psychiatrist Dmitry Vedishchev described the criminal's sexual preferences as follows:
He was unable to feel pleasure during intercourse with a woman (...) There was a need to humiliate and beat the objects of his desire, which led him to develop sadistic traits. Feelings of guilt and shame gradually faded away; his emotional coldness was increasing.
Blood Crimes
This is how Chikatilo got to the point where he understood that in order to achieve sexual fulfillment, he must kill. His first victim was the aforementioned Elena Zakotnowa. When it turned out he got away with the murder, he felt very confident.
The next victim was a 17-year-old vocational student who he took to his secret house, promising her a payment for sex. The man did not have an erection, so the girl started mocking him. Angry, Chikatilo first wounded her with a knife, then bit off her nipples and pushed the mud into her mouth, making it impossible to breathe. The 17-year-old died in agony.
Gruszewski Bridge, where Elena Zakotnowa's body was found
The number of homicides increased year by year. In 1982, the criminal murdered 7 children aged 9 to 16. In 1984, 17 people were killed.
For his victims, the degenerate chose unattended children at stations, stops and on suburban trains. He tempted potential victims with foreign treats. When they reached his house, he abused them:he cut off his genitals and limbs, broke bones, and cut out internal organs. Chikatilo ate the sexual organs of his victims in the hope of improving potency. He took some parts of the body of the dead with him, cut their clothes and shoes into pieces and scattered them around the area. As he admitted years later, having committed the crime, he felt happy and ... howled like a wild animal.
Sluggish militia
At that time, the police were slow to investigate. One day in 1984, Chikatilo - hanging around at the train station and trying to make friends with teenagers - caught the attention of policemen patrolling the station. The man was arrested, examined and… released quickly. This is because Chikatilo had blood type A, and the perpetrator, whose sperm was found on one of the victims, - AB. As it turned out after the arrest of the degenerate - and it was a phenomenon on a global scale - his sperm had the AB group, and his blood - A. This discrepancy allowed him to avoid punishment.
In the second half of the 1980s, the militia intensified their efforts, incl. patrolling suburban trains and stations near Rostov. An interesting fact is that Czikatło, who had been a team for many years, also took part in these activities who is a member of the civilian support unit of the militia.
Monument to one of the victims - Irina Korabielnikowa - erected by her father at the place of her daughter's death.
Chikatilo committed the last crime on November 6, 1990, killing a prostitute in the forest. When he was leaving the crime scene, he was identified by a policeman who was surprised by the fact that the man was wearing a suit. The officer noted the name of Czikatiła and described the incident in a report. Soon one of the investigating officers associated that Chikatilo had been seen near the crime scenes and participated in the search for the killer. On November 20, the criminal was arrested and pleaded guilty in an interview with an expert psychiatrist.
The trial of the killer began on April 14, 1992. He was considered sane, sentenced to death and shot on February 14, 1994.
Documentaries:
- "По следу сатаны", НТВ, 1997
- "Остановить Чикатило", Первый канал, 2013