10 Disturbing Facts about The Rostov Ripper, Andrei Chikatilo that may Haunt You!
Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo was a Soviet serial killer also known as the Butcher of Rostov, the Red Ripper or the Rostov Ripper. He was born on 16th October 1936 and was executed for his crimes on 14th February 1994.
He has been accused of sexual assault, murder and mutilation of at least 52 women and children. He had confessed to 56 murders but was tried for 53 of these killings. He was convicted for 52 of them, as mentioned previously.
A lot of disturbing and disconsolate occurrences have happened to him and because of him. A few of them are:
The Witness of his Mother’s Rape
A very disturbing aspect of the war would be the rape of many young women by German soldiers during the war at Ukraine during Joseph Stalin’s forced collectivization. Andrei Chikatilo’s mother had given birth to his younger sister Tatyana around 1943 but his father at that time was conscripted.
So he couldn't have been the father to the child. So it was speculated that she would be the child of a German soldier. Andrei Chikatilo and his mother lived in tight quarters, a one-room hut, so this must have occurred in his presence.
Building Tension of his Impotence
Andrei Chikatilo loathed himself for being timid. He also suffered from chronic impotence which further worsened his social awkwardness and self-hatred. He was shy in the company of women, thus not being able to approach them.
He hadn't had any sexual encounters in those years, but when he was 17, 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.
Sexual Assault on his Students
Chikatilo became a teacher of Russian language and literature in Novoshakhtinsk. His first known sexual assault was on one of his pupils. In this incident, he swam towards a 15-year-old girl and groped her breasts and genitals, ejaculating as the girl struggled against his grasp.
Months later, Chikatilo sexually assaulted another teenage girl whom he had locked in his classroom. He was not disciplined for either of these incidents nor for the occasions in which fellow teachers observed Andrei fondling himself in the presence of his students. Such indiscretions had him fired from his job.
Murder of Yelena Zakotnova
Andrei Chikatilo’s first documented murder was of a 9-year old girl named Yelena Zakotnova. He had lured her into an old house which he had secretly purchased earlier. He attempted to rape her but failed to achieve an erection. When the girl struggled, he choked her and stabbed her three times in the abdomen, ejaculating while stabbing the child. He then threw her body into the nearby Grushovka River, Shakhty.
Treacherous murder of Larisa Tkachenko
On 3rd September 1981, Andrei Chikatilo encountered a 17-year-old boarding school student, named Larisa Tkachenko who he lured into a forest with the pretext of drinking vodka and relaxing. When they reached a secluded area, he threw the girl to the ground before tearing off her clothes and attempting intercourse.
When he failed to achieve an erection, he forced mud inside her mouth to stifle her screams before battering and strangling her to death. As he had no knife, Chikatilo mutilated the body with his teeth and a stick. He further tore one nipple from Tkachenko's body with his teeth before loosely covering her body with leaves, branches, and torn pages of the newspaper.
Olga Stalmachenok
Andrei Chikatilo had his sadistic ways of murder. Another disturbing incident of his would include him luring 10-year-old Olga Stalmachenok to a cornfield on the outskirts of Novoshakhtinsk. He had stabbed her over 50 times around the head and body, ripped open her chest and excised her lower bowel and uterus.
Assault of Children of Both Sexes
Andrei Chikatilo also has a history with boys, usually children. He had been accused of killing an 11-year-old boy named Alexander Chapel who had been found on the banks of the Don River, strangled and castrated, with his eyes gouged out.
Brutal Murder of Lyudmila Alekseyeva
On 7th August Andrei Chikatilo lured a 17-year-old girl, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, to the banks of the Don River on the pretence of showing her a shortcut to a bus terminal. Alekseyeva was known to have suffered 39 slash wounds to her body before Chikatilo mutilated and disembowelled her intentionally inflicting wounds he knew would not be immediately fatal. Her body was found in the following morning. She excised upper lip inside her mouth.
Andrei Chikatilo’s Sexual Sadism
Chikatilo was only able to achieve sexual arousal and orgasm only through stabbing and slashing women and children to death. He later claimed that the urge to relive the experience had overwhelmed him.
Nonetheless, Chikatilo did stress that, initially, he had struggled to resist these urges, often cutting short business trips to return home rather than face the temptation to search for a victim. But after a point, he no longer attempted to resist his homicidal urges.
Chikatilo would typically attempt intercourse with his victims, male or female, but he would usually be unable to achieve or maintain an erection; this would send him into a frenzy, particularly if the woman mocked his impotence. He would achieve orgasm only when he stabbed and slashed the victim to death.
Andrei Chikatilo’s Barbaric Ways
Chikatilo had created a trademark of wounds he's inflicted on his victims. There were manhunts led out to find the felon. Their leads would be victims bearing marks such as their body being slit open from the neck to the genitalia, one breast removed and their eyes cut out. It was a pattern he used to follow. He tried to keep it under wraps to avoid getting caught but in vain.
He was one of the most controversial Russian serial killers in the 1980s. There have been movies based on his killing sprees and their investigations like Citizen X and Ghoul. His killing instincts could have been developed due to his abusive and unconsent childhood that built up rage he didn't know how to overcome.
