AndreyChikatilo was born in the fall of 1936 in a small village in the Kharkiv region with a population of about 1000 people. He grew up withdrawn and shy. Suffering from myopia, he nevertheless did not wear glasses. 

Classmates even without them called him bespectacled because of his deep-set eyes and often mocked him. However, the adolescent’s compensatory mechanism worked as it should: he balanced the failure in communication with success in his studies, having finished school with excellent marks.

Having trained as a railway transport engineer, Chikatilo went to serve. In the 60s, he married his sister’s friend and graduated from philology, receiving a diploma in Russian language and literature in 1970.

In the summer of the same year, a young specialist gets a job at a boarding school as a headteacher. According to psychologists and psychiatrists, it was during this period that Chikatilo developed the very same mental abnormalities that became the “trigger” for the beast inside him. Sexual harassment of the young headteacher quickly became public and was said goodbye “of his own free will.”

In the late 70s, Chikatilo and his family moved to the city of Shakhty in the Rostov region, where he got a job as a teacher at a vocational school, continued to harass the pupils, and in the 1980s he began to kill. You can see all details on Black Bullet Season 2.

Death herald

In total, in the period from 1982 to 1990, Chikatilo killed at least 43 people, mostly women, and children.

It is believed that the investigation was delayed due to the fault of local police officers. That only the famous “case of fools” is worth it: the police were looking for the killer among persons registered with psychiatrists, since it was believed that the murder was committed by a mentally unbalanced person.

Another significant episode is the investigation into the murder of a 9-year-old girl, committed in 1978. The murder was “hung” on Alexander Kravchenko, who lived not far from the crime scene and was previously convicted of rape. 

The man was arrested and systematically beaten. Under torture, Kravchenko wrote a confession, was convicted and shot. Then Chikatilo was tried in the same case.

In the fall of 1984, Chikatilo was detained for the first time at the Central Market in Rostov-on-Don – the local precinct officer and his partner found the man’s behavior suspicious. 

In the killer’s briefcase, they found a rope, a can of petroleum jelly, a knife, and soap. He was able to explain the presence of all this, and the blood taken for analysis did not coincide with the group of seminal fluid found on the victims. Chikatilo was calmly released.

In 1985, real professionals took up the investigation of the brutal murders, the case was transferred to the federal prosecutor’s officeAsmongold Girlfriend, and an interdepartmental group headed by IssaKostoev flew out from Moscow to the Rostov region.

What is known about IssaKostoev?

After graduating from university with a degree in jurisprudence, Kostov began his career in the prosecutor’s office. He served in North Ossetia, Chechnya, and Ingushetia, and later moved to work in the capital at the Prosecutor General’s Office.

Before the search for Chikatilo, Kostov had already successfully captured a serial maniac: he headed the investigation team that caught Vladimir Storozhenko in 1981.

Nothing is more important than the “Forest Belts”

In order to catch the maniac, a special operation “Best Smoke Spots Dust 2” was launched. During the investigative measures, more than 200 thousand people were checked. 

The railway tracks and forest belts of the Rostov region were patrolled by militiamen and vigilantes (including Chikatilo himself, who “helped” to catch himself).

An investigator for especially important cases IssaKostoyev was in charge of the special operation “Lesopolos”. 

“There is no case in the country that is more important than Lesopolos,” – said at one of the first meetings the deputy. Prosecutor of the RSFSR Ivan Zemlyanushin. Psychiatrist Alexander Bukhanovsky put forward the theory that the killer is an ordinary citizen with a stable job, wife, and children. From here was born one of his main nicknames – “Citizen X”.

The maniac was arrested at the end of 1990. Comparison of the reports of the police officers on duty helped to get on the trail. Chikatilo was caught checking documents near crime scenes – in 1984 and in 1990.

Spawn of evil

The image of the Soviet maniac was reflected in foreign film adaptations. The most popular and successful of them is the film “Citizen X” by Chris Gerolmo, released a year after Chikatilo’s death. The story is based on real events (they did not even change the names of the characters), as well as on the book of the writer Robert Cullen “The Division of Murders”.

A slightly less successful attempt to present the image of Chikatilo was the 2004 film “Log Horizon season 3“. It was filmed by Italian debutant David Greco and starred by Malcolm McDowell.

Of the domestic attempts to tell about Chikatilo, it is worth mentioning the series “Consultant” with Kirill Kyaro and Maxim Drozd. The scenario of the project is based on the exposure and capture of a Soviet maniac. However, the names of the characters have been changed, and the authors do not attempt to adhere to documentary accuracy.

Chikatilo here and now

SarikAndreasyan’s series is an attempt to tell the gripping story of the capture of the most famous maniac in the Soviet Union. The investigation is headed by TimurKesaev, an investigator for especially important cases of the USSR Prosecutor General’s Office, performed by Konstantin Lavronenko. 

Rostov’s colleagues convince that everything is under control, Chikatilo manages to hide for many years, but he himself goes to the crime scene and gets to the elusive killer.

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