TRIGGER WARNING: THIS ARTICLE MENTIONS CHILD SEXUAL ASSAULT AND GRAPHIC DETAILS OF MURDER!
Welcome to the 2nd installment of true crime specials that will be featured on my blog. While sports are a passion of mine so is true crime. I thought these specials would be a good way to shake things up a bit, I do hope you enjoy. If you have liked reading these true crime articles let me know in the comment section!
We have all heard of the infamous basic bitches of serial killers; Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Richard Ramirez, Gary Ridgeway…I better stop or I will go on all day long. Andre Chikatilo is one that often flies under the radar. He is not as “popular” as those mentioned above, maybe because we live in America and he was not an American serial killer. Although, we all know about England’s Jack the Ripper. His name might not be well known on the “serial killer scene” but his crimes are just as gruesome.
Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo was born on October 16, 1936 in the village of Yabluchne in the Sumy Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR. Man, that is a mouth full. His lived with his farmer parents in a tiny one room hut. The Chikatilo family were very poor and often had to eat grass and leaves to prevent starvation. I suppose you go to do what you got to do to survive. Between 1941 and 1944 Chikatilo said he experience the horrors of Nazi occupied Ukraine. He often had to hide in a cellar to protect himself from bombings, fires, and mass shootings. Growing up Andrei was a chronic bed wetter and his mother would often berate and belittle him.
By his teens Chikatilo was a model student despite being self-aware and not building relationships with other students. At the onset of puberty Chikatilo suffered from chronic impotence and was shy in the company of women. I’m guessing cause his jang jang didn’t work. The same year this issue started, Chikatilo jumped upon an 11-year-old friend of his younger sister and wrestled her to the ground, ejaculating as the girl struggled in his grasp. That is not a good sign at all.
In 1963 he became a teacher and blah blah blah; I’m just going to move onto the stuff you came here to read. In 1973 Andrei Chikatilo committed his first sexual assault when he groped one of his 15-year-old students. He touched the girl’s breasts and genitals all while ejaculating as she struggled against his grip. That same year he sexually assaulted another female student after locking her in his classroom. He was not disciplined for either incident. So, this crap just got swept under the rug? How lovely. It is well known that on several occasions Chikatilo snuck into the girl’s dormitory in hopes of seeing them undress.You dirty bastard!
After numerous complaints from female students Andrei Chikatilo quietly stepped away from his position and found work at another school Novoshakhtinsk in January 1974. He lost his job at this school in September 1978 after there was cut back on funds. He once again found another job at a school in Shakhty, a coal-mining town close to Rostov-on-Don. I feel the “Butcher of Rostov” coming on, murders are about to happen my friends. In March 1981 his teaching career finally came to an end after multiple students came forward stating that Chikatilo had molested them. He quietly got a job as a supply clerk for a construction company based in Rostov. This job allowed Chikatilo to travel all across the Soviet Union.
In September 1978 after moving to Shakhty Andrei committed his first murder. On December 22 of that year Chikatilo lured 9-year-old Yelena Zakotnova to a house he had secretly purchased. Once there he attempted to rape her but was unable to get an erection. When Zakotnova tried to escape he strangled her then stabbed her in the stomach 3 times. The act of stabbing the child caused him to ejaculate. I said it before and I’ll say it again. YA’ DIRTY BASTARD! Yelena Zakotnova’s body was discovered in the Grushevka River 2 days later. Many pieces of evidence linked Chikatilo to Zakotnova’s murder: spots of blood had been found in the snow near the house Chikatilo had purchased; neighbors had noted that Chikatilo had been present in the house on the evening of December 22: and a witness had given police a detailed description of a man closely resembling Chikatilo, whom she had seen talking with Zakotnova at the bus stop where the girl had last been seen alive. Despite all this information, a 25-year-old laborer named Aleksandr Kravchenko (who had previously served a prison sentence for the rape and murder of a teenage girl) was arrested for the murder of Zakotnova.
On September 3, 1981 Chikatilo came across 17-year-old Larisa Tkachenko while she was standing at a bus stop. Chikatilo was able to lure Tkachenko to a forest near the Don River with the pretext of drinking vodka and chatting. Once they got to the secluded area Chikatilo threw Tkachenko to the ground, ripped her clothes off, and attempted to rape her. He was once again unable to achieve an erection. He shoved mud into Larisa Tkachenko’s mouth to stifle her screams before bludgeoning and strangling her to death. What Chikatilo did next was horrifying. He mutilated the teenager’s body with his teeth and stick since he did not have a knife readily available. He covered the body with leaves, branches, and bits of newspaper before fleeing the scene. Larisa Tkachenko’s body was discovered the very next day.
On June 12, 1982, Chikatilo travelled by bus to the Bagayevsky District of Rostov to purchase vegetables. Having to change buses in the village of Donskoii, he decided to walk the rest of the day.While leaving the bus station, he encountered 13-year-old, Lyubov Biryuk, who was walking home from a shopping trip. Once the path both were taking together was shielded from view of the public eye, Chikatilo jumped on Biryuk, dragging her into nearby undergrowth. He tore off her dress, and killed her by stabbing and slashing her to death as he imitated the act of intercourse. Her body was found on June 27th, with 22 knife wounds inflicted to the head, neck, chest, and pelvic region.
I guess this is the murder that really opened up his homicidal tendencies because between July and September of 1982 Andrei Chikatilo killed 5 more victims, all of whom were between the ages of 9 and 18. All the victims had been stabbed to death and their bodies were mutilated. Knife wounds found near and around the victims’ eye sockets show that Chikatilo might have attempted to gouge their eyes out as well. On December 11, 1982 Andrei crossed paths with 10-year-old Olga Stalmachenok who was riding a bus to her parents’ home in Novoshakhtinsk. He was somehow able to persuade the girl to get off the bus with him. She was last seen by a fellow passenger, who reported that a middle-aged man had led the girl away firmly by the hand.Once off the bus Chikatilo lured the girl to a cornfield on the outskirts of Novoshakhtinsk, stabbed her nearly 50 times around the head and body, ripped open her chest and excised her lower bowel and uterus. I think I’m going to be sick; I can stomach some pretty nasty shit but this is pretty damn bad.
By January 1983 authorities realized they had a serial killer on their hands when they were able to link at least 4 murders to the same suspect. A team of 10 investigators was formed and “Operation Forest Path” was underway. Chikatilo laid low until June 1983, when he murdered a 15-year-old Laura Sarkisyan; her body was discovered close to an unmarked railway platform near Shakhty. He must have been back in the saddle again because by September 1983 he killed an additional 5 victims. On September 6, 1983 authorities announced that they were able to link all 6 victims to the serial killer they were investigating before hand.
On October 30, 1983 the eviscerated body of a 19-year-old prostitute, named Vera Shevkun, was found in Shakhty. It was determined that Shevkun had been killed around October 27th. Although the mutilations inflicted upon Shevkun’s body were otherwise characteristic of those found upon other victims linked to the unknown murderer, the victim’s eyes had not been slashed or otherwise wounded. On December 27th that same year, a 14-year-old schoolboy, named Sergey Markov, was lured off a train and murdered at a rural station near Novocherkassk. Markov’s genitals had been cut off and he suffered over 70 knife wounds to his neck and upper torso. Woah, calm the hell down Chikatilo, you can’t go around cutting other guys jang jangs off just because yours is malfunctioning.
In January and February 1984, Chikatilo killed two women in Rostov’s Aviators’ Park. On March 24, 1984, he lured a 10-year-old boy, named Dmitry Ptashnikov, away from a stamp kiosk in Novoshakhtinsk. While walking with the boy, Chikatilo was seen by several witnesses who were able to give investigators a detailed description of the killer. When Ptashnikov’s body was dicvoered 3 days later, police found a footprint left behind by the killer along with both semen and saliva samples on the victim’s clothing. Jesus Christ, this might have to be a 2-part article! This due was so twisted and there is just so much information that needs to be jammed in here. On 25 May, Chikatilo killed a young woman named Tatyana Petrosyan and her 10-year-old daughter, Svetlana, in a wooded area outside Shakhty; Both of whom had known Chikatilo for several years prior to the murder.
By the end of July 1984, Andrei had killed three more young women between the ages of 19 and 21, as well as a 13-year-old boy. In the summer of 1984, Chikatilo was fired from his job as a supply clerk after he stole a roll of linoleum. The accusation had been filed against him the previous February, and he had been asked to resign quietly but had refused to do so, as he had denied the charges. Chikatilo quickly found another job as a supply clerk in Rostov on August 1st. The next day, Chikatilo killed 16-year-old, Natalya Golosovskaya, in Aviators’ Park (his old stomping grounds). On August 7th, he lured a 17-year-old girl, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, to the banks of the Don River on the pretense of showing her a shortcut to a bus station. Alekseyeva suffered 39 slash wounds to her body before Chikatilo mutilated and disemboweled her: intentionally inflicting wounds he knew would not be immediately fatal. Ok, now I’m really gonna vom. I can’t even put into words how heinous that is. Alekseyeva’s body was discovered the following morning, her upper lip had been stuffed inside her mouth. Hours after Alekseyeva’s murder, Chikatilo flew to the Uzbekistan for a business trip. By the time he had returned home on August 15, he had killed an unidentified young woman as well as a 10-year-old girl. Within two weeks, an 11-year-old boy named Aleksandr Chepel had was discovered on the banks of the Don River, strangled and castrated, with his eyes gouged out, just yards from where Alexeyeva’s body had been found. Chikatilo then killed Irina Luchinskaya,once again in Aviators’ Park on September 6th.
On September 13, 1984, Chikatilo was seen by two undercover detectives attempting to talk to young women at the Rostov bus station. The detectives followed him as he wandered through the city, trying to approach women and committing sexual acts in public places. Upon Chikatilo’s arrival at the city’s central market he was arrested. A search of his belongings revealed a knife with an 8-inch blade, several lengths of rope, and a jar of Vaseline. God only knows what he was going to with that. It had also been discovered to be under investigation for minor theft at one of his former employers, which gave the investigators the right to hold him for a prolonged period of time. While being held a sample of his blood was taken; the results revealed his blood group to be type A, semen samples found upon a total of six victims murdered by the unknown killer throughout the spring and summer of 1984 had been classified by medical teams to be type AB. Chikatilo’s name was added to the card index file used by investigators, however, the results of his blood type analysis largely discounted him as being the unknown killer. This dude got lucky, like really, really lucky. Don’t worry, his luck would soon run out.
Chikatilo was found guilty of theft of property from his previous employer and sentenced to one year in prison, but he was released on December 12,1984 after serving only three months (I swear his luck runs out…. I swear)! After his release from prison in December 1984, Andrei found new work at a locomotive factory in Novocherkassk and kept a low profile. On August 1, 1985 he would strike again while on a business trip in Moscow, where he encountered 18-year-old, Natalia Pokhlistova, at a railway platform near Domodedovo Airport. Pokhlistova was lured into the woods where she was bound, stabbed 38 times, then strangled to death. On August 27th, Chikatilo killed another young woman, Irina Gulyaeva, in Shakhty. As had been the case with Pokhlistova, the wounds inflicted upon the victim linked her murder to the already on-going hunt of a serial killer. DUN DUN DUN!
On August 8, 1986 (my brother’s birthday…well, a different year) a victim was found buried on a farm in the city of Bataysk. The body was that of 18-year-old Irina Pogoryelova. Her body bore all the trademark mutilations of the previous victims; her body had been slit open from the neck to the genitalia, with one breast removed and her eyes cut out. In 1987 Chikatilo killed 3 times. On each occasion the murder took place while he was on a business trip, and none of these murders were linked to the manhunt in Rostov. His first murder in 1987 was committed on May 16, when he encountered a 12-year-old boy, named Oleg Makarenkov, at a train station in the Urals town of Revda. Makarenkov was lured from the station with the promise of sharing a meal with Chikatilo; he was murdered in a wooded area near the station, his body would remain undiscovered until 1991. In July, he killed 12-year-old Ivan Bilovetsky, in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia, and on September 15th, he killed a 16-year-old student, named Yuri Tereshonok, in the woods on the outskirts of Leningrad.
Chikatilo killed 3 times again in 1988, murdering an unidentified woman in Krasny Sulin in April and 2 boys in May and July. His first murder victim was lured off a train at Krasny Sulin before Chikatilo bound her hands behind her back and stuffed her mouth with dirt, before severing her nose from her face. That is one way to get a nose job, I shouldn’t joke about such things. He also inflicted numerous knife wounds to her neck before bludgeoning her to death with a slab of concrete; her body was discovered on April 6th. Investigators noted that the knife wounds inflicted upon this victim were similar to those inflicted on the victims linked to the manhunt and killed between 1982 and 1985, but as the woman had been killed with a slab of concrete and had not been disemboweled, investigators were unsure whether to link this murder to the investigation. On July 14, 1988, Chikatilo killed 15-year-old Yevgeny Muratov at Donleskhoz station near Shakhty. Muratov’s murder was also linked to the investigation, although his body was not discovered until April 1989. Although his remains were largely skeletal, Muratov’s autopsy revealed he had been emasculated, and suffered at least 30 stab wounds.
Chikatilo did not kill again until March 1, 1989 (dang, I was only like 2 weeks old), when he killed a 16-year-old girl in his OWN daughter’s empty apartment. He dismembered her body and hid the remains in a sewer. As the victim had been dismembered, police did not link her murder to the investigation. Between May and August, Chikatilo would go on to kill 4 more victims, With the resurfacing of victims definitively linked to the manhunt and the fact the majority of these victims’ bodies had been discovered close to train stations, investigators assigned numerous plain clothed officers to discreetly film and photograph passengers on trains throughout the Rostov Oblast. Multiple trains were also fitted with hidden cameras with the intention of filming or photographing a victim in the company of the murderer.Chikatilo isn’t done killing yet, guys he was a f****** lunatic.
All was quiet until January 14, 1990 when Chikatilo encountered 11-year-old Andrei Kravchenko standing outside a Shakhty theater. Kravchenko was lured from the theater under the assumption that he was going to be shown imported Western films Chikatilo claimed to have at his residence; his extensively stabbed, dismembered body was found in a secluded section of woodland the next month. On March 7th that same year Andrei (the killer not the 13-year-old) 10-year-old, named Yaroslav Makarov, from a Rostov train station to Rostov’s Botanical Gardens. His eviscerated (you like that SAT word) body was found the following day. By March 1990, a further 6 victims had been linked to the killer being studied by the police. In addition, following the introduction of greater media freedom as a result of glasnost, the Soviet news was much less repressed than it had been in the early years of the manhunt and as such, the media started to cover the case extensively. Chikatilo had killed 3 further victims by August 1990. On April 4th, he lured a 31-year-old woman, named Lyubov Zuyeva, off a train and killed her in wooded area near Donleskhoz station. Her body was not found until August 24th. On Jusly 28th that year, he lured 13-year-old, Viktor Petrov, away from a Rostov railway station and killed him in Rostov’s Botanical Gardens; and on August 14th, he killed an 11-year-old boy, named Ivan Fomin, in the reeds near Novocherkassk beach. Noticing his trend here? He loves to find his victims at train stations.
On November 6, 1990, Chikatilo would commit his murder. He killed and mutilated a 22-year-old woman, named Svetlana Korostik, in wood covered area near Donleskhoz station. On his way back to the railway platform, he was observed by an undercover officer named Igor Rybakov, who observed Andrei Chikatilo approach a well where he washed his hands and face. When he approached the station, Rybakov also noted that Chikatilo’s coat had grass and soil stains on the elbows. He also had a small red smear on his cheek and what appeared to be a severe wound on one of his fingers. Of course, Rybakov believed the red smear to be blood and knew that something wasn’t too kosher about this dude. Don’t be suspicious, don’t be suspicious. Igor Rybakov stopped Andrei and asked to check his papers, but had no formal reason to arrest him. Once he returned to his office, he filed a routine report, containing Chikatilo’s name, and the possible blood smear observed on his cheek.
On November 13, 1990, the body of Svetlana Korostik’s body was discovered; she was the 36th known victim linked to the manhunt. Police called the officer in charge of surveillance at Donleskhoz station, and asked him to examine the reports of all men stopped and questioned in the previous week. Not only was Chikatilo’s name among those reports, but it was familiar to several officers involved in the case, because he had been questioned in 1984 and had been placed upon a 1987 suspect list compiled and distributed throughout the Soviet Union. After checking with Chikatilo’s current and previous employers, investigators were able to place him in various towns and cities at times when several victims linked to the investigation had been murdered. Questioning of former staff from Chikatilo’s teaching days revealed that he had been forced to resign from 2 teaching positions due to repeated complaints of lewd behavior and sexual assault made by his students. On November 14th Police placed Andrei under 24-hour surveillance. On several occasions, particularly while on trains or buses, he was observed approaching young women or children who were traveling alone, and engaging them in conversation. If the woman or child ended the conversation, Chikatilo would wait a few minutes and then seek another partner to share conversation with. On November 20th, after 6 days of surveillance, Chikatilo left his house with a large jar, which he had filled with beer at a small kiosk in a local park (he was trying to get TURNT) before he wandered around Novocherkassk, attempting to pick upwith children he met on his way. Upon leaving a cafe, Chikatilo was arrested by 4 plainclothes police officers. IN YOUR F****** FACE MOTHER F*****!
Once in custody, Chikatilo gave a statement claiming that the police were mistaken, and complained that he had also been arrested in 1984 for the same series of murders and that his name had been cleared. A strip-search of Chikatilo revealed a further evidence of his crimes: one of Chikatilo’s fingers had a flesh wound (‘tis but a scratch). Medical examiners concluded the wound was from a human bite. Although a finger bone was later found to be broken, and his fingernail had been bitten off, Chikatilo had never sought medical treatment for his injuries. You don’t say, I wonder why he didn’t just go to the doctor. A later inspection of Chikatilo’s belongings revealed he had been in possession of a folding knife and two lengths of rope. A sample of Chikatilo’s blood was taken, and he was placed in a cell inside the KGB headquarters with a police informer, who was instructed to engage Chikatilo in conversation and get any information regarding the case that he could. The next day, formal questioning of Andrei Chikatilo began. The strategy chosen by the police to elicit a confession was to lead Chikatilo to believe that he was a very sick individual in need of mental healthl help. The intention was to give Chikatilo hope that if he confessed, he would not be prosecuted by reason of insanity.Sneaky sneaky! Police knew their case against Chikatilo was largely based off of circumstantial evidence, and under Soviet law, they had 10 days in which they could legally hold a suspect before making the decision to either charge or release them.
Chikatilo repeatedly denied that he had committed the murders obviously, but did confess to molesting his pupils when he was a teacher. He also produced several written essays that, evaded specific details of the actual murders, but did reveal psychological symptoms consistent with those predicted by Dr. Bukhanovsky back in his 1985 psychological profile he had worked up for the investigators. Andrei Chikatilo finally broke down on November 29,1990, when at the request of Burakov and Fetisov, Dr. Alexandr Bukhanovsky was invited to assist in the questioning of the suspect. Bukhanovsky read pieces from his 65-page psychological profile to Chikatilo. Within 2 hours, Chikatilo burst into tears and confessed to Dr. Bukhanovsky that he was guilty of the crimes he was being accused of committing. After talking well into the evening, Bukhanovsky reported to authorities that Chikatilo was ready to confess. Armed with the handwritten notes Dr. Bukhanovsky had prepared, Issa Kostoyev prepared a formal accusation of murder dated for November 29, 1990.The next morning, Kostoyev resumed the interrogation. According to the official protocol, Chikatilo confessed to 34 of the 36 murders police had linked to him, although he denied being part of 2 other murders committed in 1986 the police had initially believed he had committed.
Chikatilo would go on to give a full, detailed description of each murder on the list of charges, all of which were consistent with known facts regarding each killing. He remembered each and every murder he committed, now that is a sick and twisted individual. When asked, he could draw a rough sketch of various crime scenes, indicating the position of the victim’s body and various landmarks in the vicinity of the crime scene.Dude, what the hell, I’m gonna be sick all over again. Further details provided undoubful proof of his guilt: one victim on the list of charges was 19-year-old Anna Lemesheva, whom Chikatilo had killed on July 19, 1984 near Shakhty station. Chikatilo recalled that as he had fought to overpower her,and that told him that a man named “Bars” (“Leopard”) would come after him for attacking her. It was later found out that Lemesheva’s fiance had the nickname “Bars” tattooed on his hand. In many cases, particularly with his male victims, Chikatilo stated he would tie the victims’ hands behind their back with a length of rope before he would start to kill them. He would typically inflict multiple stab wounds upon the victim; starting pff by inflicting shallow stab wounds to the chest areabefore inflicting deeper stab and slash wounds usually 30 to 50 in total,before proceeding to dismember the victim as he “writhed atop his or her body until he achieved orgasm.” He stated, that he had become very skilled at avoiding blood spatter from his victims’ bodies as he inflicted the stab wounds and dismembered them, and would regularly sit or squat next his victims until their hearts had stopped beating, adding that the victims’ “cries, the blood and the agony gave me relaxation and a certain pleasure.”
Ok guys, this is hard to stomach, well, all of this has been hard to stomach but this is particularly disgusting. Chikatilo also stated that he had often tasted the blood of his victims, and said that he “felt chills” and “shook all over” while doing so. He confessed to tearing at victims’ genitalia, lips, nipples and tongues with his teeth. In multiple cases, Andrei would cut or bite off the tongue of his victim as he performed his mutilations, then he would either at or shortly after the point of death run around the body as he held the tongue in his hand.Guys, I can’t make this shit up. Although he also admitted that he had chewed upon the removed uterus of his female victims and the testicles of his male victims, he stated he had later gotten rid of these body parts. Nonetheless, Chikatilo did confess to having swallowed the nipples and tongues of some of his victims. On November 30, 1990, Andrei Chikatilo was formally charged with each of the 34 murders he had confessed to, all of which had been committed between June 1982 and November 1990.
While waiting to go on trial, Chikatilo confessed to 22 more killings which had not been connected to the case, either because the murders had been committed outside the Rostov Oblast, because the bodies had not been found, or, in the case of Yelena Zakotnova, because an innocent man had been convicted and executed for the crime (that is just terrible). Chikatilo was able to provide details of these additional killings only the murderer could have known.. Chikatilo recalled that he had killed Volobuyeva in a millet field, and that he had approached the girl as she sat in the waiting rooms at Krasnodar Airport. In December 1990, Andre Chikatilo led police to the body of Aleksey Khobotov, a boy he had confessed to killing in August 1989 and whom he had buried in wooded area near a Shakhty cemetery, proving that he was undeniably the killer. He later led investigators to the bodies of two other victims he had confessed to killing. He would ultimately confess to killing a total of 56 women and children. Only 3 of the 56 bodies were not able to be found or identified, but Andrei Chikatilo was charged with killing all 53 victims between 1978 and 1990.
On August 20 1991, after police had completed their interrogation,Chikatilo was transferred to the Serbsky Institutee in Moscow to undergo a 60-day psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he was mentally competent to stand trial. Chikatilo was studied by senior psychiatrist, Dr. Andrei Tkachenko. Tkachenko did note Chikatilo suffered from many physiological problems which he attributed to prenatal brain damage, but concluded that although suffering from borderline personality disorder, Andrei Chikatilo was fit to stand trial. Chikatilo would go to trial on April 14, 1992.
He was charged with 53 counts of murder and 5 charges of sexual assault against minors committed when he had been a teacher. He was tried in Rostov, before Judge Leonid Akubzhanov. Chikatilo’s trial was the first major media event of liberalized post-Soviet Russia. Shortly after his psychiatric evaluation at the Serbsky Institute, investigators held a press conference in which a full list of Chikatilo’s crimes was released to the press, alongside a 1984 but would not release his full name or a photograph. The media saw him for the first time on the 1st day of his trial, as he entered the court room in an iron cage specifically constructed to protect him from being attacked by the enraged and often hysterical relatives of his victims (much like the cage Joseph DeAngelo “The Golden State Killer” was in during his time in court). Shit, I say let them at him, it’s not like he didn’t deserve it. In the opening weeks of Chikatilo’s trial, the Russian press regularly published over the top headlines about the murders, referring to Chikatilo being a “cannibal” or a “maniac”. They also stated that his shaved skull made him look like a demon. On April 21, 1992, Chikatilo’s defence lawyer requested that Dr. Bukhanovsky be allowed to testify as to the contents of the 1985 psychological profile he had written, and his later consultations with Chikatilo following his arrest. This request was denied. That same day, Chikatilo began to refuse to answer any questions from the judge, the prosecutor and even his own defense attorney. He refused to answer any questions for the next 2 days. He would start talking again, stating his presumption of innocence had been violated by the judge and that he intended to give no further testimony.The following day, proceedings were adjourned for 2 weeks.
The trial came to an end on August 10, 1992, after both sides gave their closing arguments (the defenses lasted a total of 91 minutes). On October 14th, the court reconvened to hear formal sentencing. Judge Akubzhanov began sentencing by announcing that Andrei Chikatilo had been found guilty for 52 of the 53 murders for which he had stood trial. Chikatilo was also found guilty on all 5 counts of sexual assault committed during the time he worked as a teacher in the 1970s. In reciting his findings, the judge read the list of murders again, before criticizing both the police and the prosecutor’s department for various mistakes in the investigation which had allowed Chikatilo to remain free until 1990. It’s true though if they had been more through Andrei Chikatilo would have been captured the first time around and countless lives would have been saved.
Immediately following his sentencing Chikatilo filed an appeal, it was denied in the summer of 1993. Following the denial of his appeal with the Russian Supreme Court, Chikatilo filed a final appeal for clemency with Russian President Boris Yeltsin. President Yeltsin denied Chikatilo plea for clemency on January 4, 1994. On February 14, 1994, Andrei Chikatilo was taken from his death row cell to a soundproofed room at Novocherkassk prison. He was executed with a single gunshot behind the right ear. Man, what the hell? He got off way to easy! A gunshot to behind the ear, he was 57 years old. That is like instant death, they should have tortured him and made him suffer. Dude was a freakin’ animal. Actually, he wasn’t an animal, animals don’t treat people the way he did. He was a piece of shit monster. Andrei Chikatilo is buried in an unmarked grave at the prison cemetery as nobody ever came forward to claim his body. May he rot in hell.
Well, there you have it, the sick tale of Andrei Chikatilo; The Butcher of Rostov. I guess now you know how he got the name, he is also known as The Red Ripper. I thank you all for hanging in there with me and reading this long article. It was hard for me to write just because it was so heinous. So, I can imagine that it was difficult to read. I have researched a lot of serial killers; read books, and watched documentaries about them. I can sit through the goriest of details and hear about the most horrific crimes. I am being 100% honest when I say Andrei Chikatilo’s story not only made me sick to my stomach but it bothered me as a human being. I have researched Ted Bundy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Dennis Rader, John Wayne Gacy, James Deangelo, and Richard Ramirez countless times. But I don’t think I can research Andrei Chikatilo again. I read about him once to learn who he was and again to write this article. I think that is more than enough for me and all my mind can handle.
Sources:
Andrei Chikatilo – Murderpedia
Andrei Chikatilo – Britannica
The Dark Side Of Life 
Man o man, this dude was truly a butcher.
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