WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.100 Welcome back to the deep dive. I want to start 00:00:02.100 --> 00:00:05.900 today by asking you to picture a man just a A 00:00:05.900 --> 00:00:08.919 generic middle -aged man standing at a bus stop. 00:00:09.039 --> 00:00:11.759 Okay. He's wearing a slightly shabby gray suit, 00:00:11.939 --> 00:00:14.740 maybe a hat that's seen better days. He's clushing 00:00:14.740 --> 00:00:17.699 a beat -up leather briefcase, thick glasses. 00:00:18.059 --> 00:00:19.859 Right. You'd see him everywhere. Exactly. He 00:00:19.859 --> 00:00:21.960 looks like a high school math teacher or maybe 00:00:21.960 --> 00:00:24.640 a mid -level bureaucrat who stamps forms at the 00:00:24.640 --> 00:00:28.039 post office. He is the definition of nondescript. 00:00:28.100 --> 00:00:30.059 If you saw him, you wouldn't just forget him. 00:00:30.120 --> 00:00:31.679 You'd barely register he was there in the first 00:00:31.679 --> 00:00:34.920 place. And that invisibility, that sheer blandness. 00:00:35.020 --> 00:00:36.759 is the most terrifying part of the story we're 00:00:36.759 --> 00:00:38.979 covering today. Yeah. Because that man you're 00:00:38.979 --> 00:00:41.979 picturing, that is the face of one of the most 00:00:41.979 --> 00:00:45.079 prolific and savage serial killers in recorded 00:00:45.079 --> 00:00:47.859 history. We are talking, of course, about Andrei 00:00:47.859 --> 00:00:50.500 Chikatilo. The names attached to him are enough 00:00:50.500 --> 00:00:52.539 to make you want to turn the lights on. The Butcher 00:00:52.539 --> 00:00:54.920 of Rostov, the Red Ripper, the Forest Strip Killer. 00:00:55.079 --> 00:00:57.039 And the numbers. The numbers are just staggering. 00:00:57.280 --> 00:01:01.460 52 convictions. 56 confessions. And these happened 00:01:01.460 --> 00:01:05.079 over a 12 -year period from 1978 all the way 00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:07.819 to 1990. It's a case that really redefines the 00:01:07.819 --> 00:01:10.500 word nightmare. But you hit on something absolutely 00:01:10.500 --> 00:01:13.379 crucial in that opening image, the paradox. The 00:01:13.379 --> 00:01:15.700 paradox, right. How does a man commit more than 00:01:15.700 --> 00:01:18.799 50 murders? And we're talking about brutal, messy, 00:01:18.959 --> 00:01:22.560 chaotic murders while living a completely mundane 00:01:22.560 --> 00:01:26.659 life as a husband, a father of two and a loyal 00:01:26.659 --> 00:01:28.579 card carrying member of the Communist Party. 00:01:28.739 --> 00:01:31.400 That's the mission for this deep dive. We aren't 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:33.120 just here to recount the gore because, frankly, 00:01:33.200 --> 00:01:35.060 there's too much of it and it becomes almost 00:01:35.060 --> 00:01:37.680 numbing. We are here to understand the mechanism. 00:01:38.040 --> 00:01:41.439 Yes. How did the human mind break in such a specific 00:01:41.439 --> 00:01:44.140 way to create him? And maybe more importantly, 00:01:44.319 --> 00:01:46.709 how did the society around him break? way that 00:01:46.709 --> 00:01:48.950 allowed him to keep doing it for over a decade. 00:01:49.370 --> 00:01:51.629 That second question is, I think, just as important 00:01:51.629 --> 00:01:53.670 as the first. You have to look at the ecosystem 00:01:53.670 --> 00:01:55.829 he operated in. This was the Soviet Union in 00:01:55.829 --> 00:01:59.790 the 1970s and 80s, a closed society. And there 00:01:59.790 --> 00:02:03.150 was a very specific ideological belief held by 00:02:03.150 --> 00:02:05.909 the state that became a fatal blind spot. The 00:02:05.909 --> 00:02:07.829 belief was that serial killing was, and I quote, 00:02:07.950 --> 00:02:10.590 a capitalist disease. OK, stick a pin in that 00:02:10.590 --> 00:02:12.669 because that sounds absolutely insane to modern 00:02:12.669 --> 00:02:15.870 ears. They essentially believe that because they 00:02:15.870 --> 00:02:18.509 were a socialist country, they were immune to 00:02:18.509 --> 00:02:21.509 serial killers. Effectively, yes. The official 00:02:21.509 --> 00:02:24.430 party line was that these kinds of crimes, these 00:02:24.430 --> 00:02:27.169 sex maniacs as they call them, were a product 00:02:27.169 --> 00:02:29.729 of Western decadence. Caused by what? Pornography. 00:02:29.949 --> 00:02:32.830 Pornography, social inequality, the dog -eat 00:02:32.830 --> 00:02:35.590 -dog nature of capitalism. The Soviet Union, 00:02:35.770 --> 00:02:38.870 in contrast, was promoted as a harmonious society. 00:02:39.229 --> 00:02:41.449 Everyone had a job, everyone had housing, everyone 00:02:41.449 --> 00:02:44.379 had purpose. Therefore, Theoretically, there 00:02:44.379 --> 00:02:46.780 was no sociological trigger for a serial killer 00:02:46.780 --> 00:02:49.740 to even exist. So if your official map says monsters 00:02:49.740 --> 00:02:51.879 don't live here, but you start finding bodies, 00:02:52.159 --> 00:02:54.479 you don't look for a monster. You look for something 00:02:54.479 --> 00:02:56.620 else. You look for spies or foreign agents or 00:02:56.620 --> 00:02:59.340 just common hooligans, or you deny the pattern 00:02:59.340 --> 00:03:02.080 entirely. That ideological denial created this 00:03:02.080 --> 00:03:05.560 massive shadow. And in that shadow, Andre Chikatilo 00:03:05.560 --> 00:03:07.960 operated with near impunity. Well, let's turn 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:09.580 on the flashlight and look into that shadow. 00:03:10.020 --> 00:03:12.539 To understand the man in the gray suit, We have 00:03:12.539 --> 00:03:16.539 to go way, way back before the murders. We have 00:03:16.539 --> 00:03:19.759 to go back to Ukraine in the 1930s. And looking 00:03:19.759 --> 00:03:22.599 at the research, his childhood reads like a laundry 00:03:22.599 --> 00:03:24.659 list of the worst things that can happen to a 00:03:24.659 --> 00:03:26.639 human being. It's almost unbelievable. It's a 00:03:26.639 --> 00:03:29.900 perfect case study in trauma. Andrei Romanovich 00:03:29.900 --> 00:03:33.500 Chikatilo was born in October 1936 in a small 00:03:33.500 --> 00:03:36.900 village called Yablutny. Now, you have to think 00:03:36.900 --> 00:03:39.400 about that time and place. Ukraine in the mid 00:03:39.400 --> 00:03:42.659 -1930s. That puts him squarely in the shadow 00:03:42.659 --> 00:03:45.120 of the Holodomor, the terror famine. Exactly 00:03:45.120 --> 00:03:47.520 right. Now, the absolute peak of the Holodomor 00:03:47.520 --> 00:03:50.960 was 32, 33, a few years before he was born. But 00:03:50.960 --> 00:03:54.060 the devastation lingered for years. The agricultural 00:03:54.060 --> 00:03:56.919 backbone of the entire region was shattered by 00:03:56.919 --> 00:03:59.340 Stalin's forced collectivization. So the land 00:03:59.340 --> 00:04:01.939 was just destroyed. And then, as he's growing 00:04:01.939 --> 00:04:04.319 up, you have the onset of World War II. Food 00:04:04.319 --> 00:04:06.560 wasn't just scarce. For many, it was non -existent. 00:04:06.750 --> 00:04:08.629 Chikatilo claimed later in his life that he didn't 00:04:08.629 --> 00:04:10.990 taste bread, actual bread, until he was 12 years 00:04:10.990 --> 00:04:14.830 old. That detail stopped me cold. 12 years old. 00:04:14.949 --> 00:04:16.970 Think about the developmental impact of that. 00:04:17.089 --> 00:04:19.310 We're talking about a developing brain, a developing 00:04:19.310 --> 00:04:22.709 nervous system, completely starved of basic nutrients 00:04:22.709 --> 00:04:25.670 for the first decade of its existence. It creates 00:04:25.670 --> 00:04:29.189 a baseline of pure survivalism. When you are 00:04:29.189 --> 00:04:31.990 that hungry for that long, empathy is a luxury 00:04:31.990 --> 00:04:34.649 you cannot afford. You're just operating on the 00:04:34.649 --> 00:04:38.839 lizard brain. Eat or die. His family reportedly 00:04:38.839 --> 00:04:41.720 survived by eating grass, leaves, and whatever 00:04:41.720 --> 00:04:43.660 roots they could dig out of the frozen ground. 00:04:43.920 --> 00:04:46.680 It's unimaginable. But there is a darker psychological 00:04:46.680 --> 00:04:48.980 scar related to this famine that we need to talk 00:04:48.980 --> 00:04:51.790 about. The story of his brother, Stepan. This 00:04:51.790 --> 00:04:53.470 is the part that, as you said earlier, sounds 00:04:53.470 --> 00:04:56.350 like a grim fairy tale. His mother, Anna, apparently 00:04:56.350 --> 00:04:58.470 told him he had an older brother named Stepon 00:04:58.470 --> 00:05:00.870 who was kidnapped and eaten. Eaten by who? By 00:05:00.870 --> 00:05:03.170 starving neighbors. That was the story she told 00:05:03.170 --> 00:05:05.949 him repeatedly. She would use it to terrify Andre. 00:05:06.449 --> 00:05:08.370 Don't go out of the yard or they'll eat you just 00:05:08.370 --> 00:05:10.790 like they ate Stepon. My God. Now, do we know 00:05:10.790 --> 00:05:12.970 if this actually happened? Because survival cannibalism 00:05:12.970 --> 00:05:15.009 was a real documented thing in those famines, 00:05:15.089 --> 00:05:17.490 wasn't it? It was a documented tragic phenomenon, 00:05:17.750 --> 00:05:21.500 yes. But here's the thing. Biographers and historians 00:05:21.500 --> 00:05:24.100 have never found a birth certificate or a death 00:05:24.100 --> 00:05:27.060 certificate for Esteban Chikatilo. So the brother 00:05:27.060 --> 00:05:29.379 might not have even existed? It's entirely possible 00:05:29.379 --> 00:05:31.699 he never existed, or if he did, he died of a 00:05:31.699 --> 00:05:34.420 common illness. But here is the crucial point 00:05:34.420 --> 00:05:36.959 for our profile. It doesn't matter if it was 00:05:36.959 --> 00:05:40.120 true. Because Andre believed it. Exactly. To 00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:43.300 him, it was an absolute terrifying fact. He grew 00:05:43.300 --> 00:05:45.839 up with this core belief that the world is a 00:05:45.839 --> 00:05:48.959 place where people eat people. that human bodies 00:05:48.959 --> 00:05:52.660 are not sacred vessels, but meat. And that he, 00:05:52.779 --> 00:05:55.660 specifically, was prey. That is a horrifying 00:05:55.660 --> 00:05:58.319 foundational brick for a child's psyche. And 00:05:58.319 --> 00:06:00.240 his mother doesn't exactly sound like a nurturing 00:06:00.240 --> 00:06:02.300 figure who helped him process that fear. Far 00:06:02.300 --> 00:06:06.019 from it. Anna was described as harsh, cold, and 00:06:06.019 --> 00:06:08.139 physically abusive. Chikatilo was a bedwetter 00:06:08.139 --> 00:06:10.620 chronic enuresis, which is very common in traumatized 00:06:10.620 --> 00:06:12.660 children. Right. In a one -room hut, where they 00:06:12.660 --> 00:06:14.740 often shared a bed for warmth, this was a major 00:06:14.740 --> 00:06:17.259 issue. And every single time he wet the bed, 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:20.420 she would beat him violently. So the person who 00:06:20.420 --> 00:06:22.339 is supposed to protect you from the eaters outside 00:06:22.339 --> 00:06:25.120 is actually the one hurting you inside. It's 00:06:25.120 --> 00:06:27.699 a total betrayal. A complete betrayal. And then 00:06:27.699 --> 00:06:29.800 just to add another layer of chaos to this childhood 00:06:29.800 --> 00:06:34.430 from hell, the Nazis' day. Of course. 1941. Operation 00:06:34.430 --> 00:06:37.790 Barbarossa. Chikatilo is five years old. He witnesses 00:06:37.790 --> 00:06:39.829 the German army rolling through his village. 00:06:40.029 --> 00:06:44.050 He sees bombings, fires, mass executions. He 00:06:44.050 --> 00:06:46.569 recalled hiding in ditches with his mother while 00:06:46.569 --> 00:06:49.149 their village literally burned around them. His 00:06:49.149 --> 00:06:51.829 entire worldview is shaped by fire and violence. 00:06:52.149 --> 00:06:54.050 What about his father? Was he in the picture 00:06:54.050 --> 00:06:56.730 at all during this? His father, Roman, was conscripted 00:06:56.730 --> 00:06:59.560 into the Red Army. Almost immediately, he was 00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:01.639 captured by the Germans and held as a prisoner 00:07:01.639 --> 00:07:04.339 of war. Now, in most countries, a POW returning 00:07:04.339 --> 00:07:06.899 home is treated as a hero or at least a victim 00:07:06.899 --> 00:07:09.860 of war. But in Stalin's Russia, under the infamous 00:07:09.860 --> 00:07:13.420 Order No. 270, Surrendering was considered treason. 00:07:13.439 --> 00:07:15.439 Right, the cowardice label. There is no such 00:07:15.439 --> 00:07:17.680 thing as an honorable surrender. So when Roman 00:07:17.680 --> 00:07:20.519 finally returned after the war, he wasn't welcome 00:07:20.519 --> 00:07:23.240 back. He was branded a traitor. He was socially 00:07:23.240 --> 00:07:26.240 ostracized. This meant the Cicatillo family was 00:07:26.240 --> 00:07:28.620 at the absolute bottom of the social hierarchy. 00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:32.399 Andre was the son of a traitor, poor, starving, 00:07:32.500 --> 00:07:35.240 and wearing rags. So he enters adolescence with 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:37.959 zero self -worth. He's bullied. He's an outcast. 00:07:38.649 --> 00:07:41.329 How does he cope? Because usually kids like that 00:07:41.329 --> 00:07:43.810 either crumble or they find some kind of shield. 00:07:43.990 --> 00:07:47.470 He built a shield out of ideology. If he couldn't 00:07:47.470 --> 00:07:50.129 be physically strong, he was very frail and sickly, 00:07:50.149 --> 00:07:52.550 and he couldn't be socially popular, he decided 00:07:52.550 --> 00:07:54.850 he would be the perfect Soviet citizen. He'd 00:07:54.850 --> 00:07:57.410 be the best communist. The very best. He buried 00:07:57.410 --> 00:08:00.149 himself in books. He memorized Marxist -Leninist 00:08:00.149 --> 00:08:02.610 theory. He became an ardent, almost fanatical 00:08:02.610 --> 00:08:04.750 young communist. He would lecture other kids. 00:08:04.930 --> 00:08:06.889 That's a classic overcompensation. You can make 00:08:06.889 --> 00:08:08.730 fun of my clothes, but you can't make fun of 00:08:08.730 --> 00:08:11.800 my devotion to the party. Precisely. It gave 00:08:11.800 --> 00:08:14.019 him a sense of power and righteousness that he 00:08:14.019 --> 00:08:16.319 couldn't find anywhere else. He eventually applied 00:08:16.319 --> 00:08:18.560 to law school, hoping to become part of the system. 00:08:18.740 --> 00:08:22.519 But his father's traitor status likely caused 00:08:22.519 --> 00:08:25.480 his rejection. So he pivoted to engineering and 00:08:25.480 --> 00:08:27.720 communications. But as he's trying to build this 00:08:27.720 --> 00:08:31.160 normal life, this new devastating problem emerges, 00:08:31.500 --> 00:08:34.580 one that shattered his attempts to be a normal 00:08:34.580 --> 00:08:37.700 man. maybe the central psychological wound. We're 00:08:37.700 --> 00:08:40.039 talking about the impotence. Yes. Chronic psychological 00:08:40.039 --> 00:08:43.620 and physiological impotence. As he reached puberty, 00:08:43.639 --> 00:08:46.240 he found he could not achieve an erection. He 00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:48.620 was physically incapable of conventional sex. 00:08:48.820 --> 00:08:50.980 And in a culture that values strength, stoicism, 00:08:51.100 --> 00:08:53.600 and virility, that has to be just a crushing 00:08:53.600 --> 00:08:56.539 private humiliation. It was the ultimate humiliation. 00:08:56.559 --> 00:08:58.500 He tried to date. He tried to form connections. 00:08:58.879 --> 00:09:01.980 But every attempt at intimacy ended in abject 00:09:01.980 --> 00:09:05.100 failure and shame. There is a story that a local 00:09:05.100 --> 00:09:07.799 girl he was infatuated with spread rumors about 00:09:07.799 --> 00:09:10.480 his condition, mocking him to the entire village. 00:09:10.679 --> 00:09:12.519 And he tried to kill himself over it. Right. 00:09:12.639 --> 00:09:15.399 I read that somewhere. He attempted to hang himself. 00:09:15.960 --> 00:09:19.120 His mother found him and cut him down. But think 00:09:19.120 --> 00:09:22.120 about the lesson he learns here. Intimacy equals 00:09:22.120 --> 00:09:26.360 shame. Women are sources of humiliation. And 00:09:26.360 --> 00:09:29.200 he has no control over his own body. This really 00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:31.720 feels like the fuse is lit right here. You have 00:09:31.720 --> 00:09:34.679 rage, shame, and a desperate desire for control. 00:09:35.019 --> 00:09:38.360 But he doesn't explode yet. He manages to create 00:09:38.360 --> 00:09:41.220 this mask of sanity. An incredibly effective 00:09:41.220 --> 00:09:43.419 one. He even gets married, which, given what 00:09:43.419 --> 00:09:46.139 you just said, is baffling. It is baffling until 00:09:46.139 --> 00:09:48.200 you look at the mechanics of it. He moves to 00:09:48.200 --> 00:09:51.679 Rostov -on -Don in the 1960s. His sister, Tatyana, 00:09:51.879 --> 00:09:54.620 basically plays matchmaker. She introduces him 00:09:54.620 --> 00:09:57.580 to a woman named Fyodosia Odnacheva. And Fyodosia, 00:09:57.639 --> 00:10:00.440 she didn't know about his issues. Not at first. 00:10:00.919 --> 00:10:02.759 But she found out very, very quickly on their 00:10:02.759 --> 00:10:04.899 wedding night. However, this was the Soviet Union 00:10:04.899 --> 00:10:07.820 in the 60s. Divorce was deeply stigmatized. She 00:10:07.820 --> 00:10:09.879 wanted a family. He wanted the appearance of 00:10:09.879 --> 00:10:11.720 normalcy. So they came to some kind of arrangement. 00:10:11.980 --> 00:10:13.879 A very strange clinical arrangement. They had 00:10:13.879 --> 00:10:16.600 two kids, a son and a daughter. How is that possible 00:10:16.600 --> 00:10:19.259 if he was impotent? Feodosia later testified 00:10:19.259 --> 00:10:22.419 about this. It was, well, bleak is the word. 00:10:22.929 --> 00:10:25.509 Chikatilo would achieve ejaculation through masturbation, 00:10:25.549 --> 00:10:28.309 which was often difficult for him, or other external 00:10:28.309 --> 00:10:30.690 stimulation, and they would manually insert the 00:10:30.690 --> 00:10:33.490 semen to ensure conception. That is incredibly 00:10:33.490 --> 00:10:36.490 bleak, but for him it worked. He got the props 00:10:36.490 --> 00:10:38.710 he needed. Look, I have a wife, I have kids, 00:10:38.809 --> 00:10:41.049 I am a normal man. And he kept building the mask. 00:10:41.309 --> 00:10:44.190 He got a degree in Russian literature and philology 00:10:44.190 --> 00:10:46.549 from Rostov University. He became a teacher. 00:10:46.879 --> 00:10:49.740 A teacher? Yeah. You're putting a man who struggles 00:10:49.740 --> 00:10:53.340 with dominance and has these deep -seated issues 00:10:53.340 --> 00:10:55.860 with youth in a classroom. I mean, that just 00:10:55.860 --> 00:10:58.559 seems like a recipe for disaster. It was a catastrophe 00:10:58.559 --> 00:11:01.240 from day one. He was a terrible teacher. He had 00:11:01.240 --> 00:11:03.620 no command of the room. He was awkward, weak. 00:11:03.899 --> 00:11:06.419 The students, sensing this weakness, just tore 00:11:06.419 --> 00:11:08.629 him apart. They mocked him. played pranks on 00:11:08.629 --> 00:11:10.450 him. So he was being bullied again, but this 00:11:10.450 --> 00:11:12.830 time by children. Exactly. And this is where 00:11:12.830 --> 00:11:16.149 the behavior starts to shift from weird and isolated 00:11:16.149 --> 00:11:18.710 to actively criminal. He started acting out. 00:11:18.769 --> 00:11:20.990 He worked in boarding schools, which gave him 00:11:20.990 --> 00:11:23.710 constant access to dormitories. He would loiter 00:11:23.710 --> 00:11:25.409 in the hallways at night. He would watch the 00:11:25.409 --> 00:11:27.649 children sleep. He would fondle himself under 00:11:27.649 --> 00:11:30.289 his desk during class. And then the touching 00:11:30.289 --> 00:11:33.549 started. Groping students. Yes. And here is the 00:11:33.549 --> 00:11:36.730 first massive catastrophic failure of the system 00:11:36.730 --> 00:11:40.809 that allowed him to escalate. In 1973, parents 00:11:40.809 --> 00:11:43.929 and students complained. He was caught red -handed 00:11:43.929 --> 00:11:48.970 groping students. So police, arrest, jail. Nothing. 00:11:49.350 --> 00:11:51.789 The school administration did not want a scandal. 00:11:51.950 --> 00:11:54.789 It reflected poorly on the school, on the party, 00:11:54.909 --> 00:11:58.049 to have a deviant teacher in their ranks. So 00:11:58.049 --> 00:12:00.409 they simply asked him to resign quietly. Unbelievable. 00:12:00.960 --> 00:12:02.820 It gets worse. They give him a positive reference 00:12:02.820 --> 00:12:04.559 just to get rid of him. They pass the trash. 00:12:05.320 --> 00:12:07.879 Repeatedly. He moved from school to school, vocational 00:12:07.879 --> 00:12:10.159 college to vocational college. Every time he 00:12:10.159 --> 00:12:11.379 crossed the line, he was just shuffled along. 00:12:11.840 --> 00:12:14.179 This taught him a very, very dangerous lesson. 00:12:14.340 --> 00:12:16.639 That there are no consequences. None. I could 00:12:16.639 --> 00:12:18.720 do what I want, and the system will protect itself 00:12:18.720 --> 00:12:21.679 rather than stop me. That impunity. It leads 00:12:21.679 --> 00:12:25.360 us directly to 1978, the year the dam finally 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:27.879 breaks, the year of the first murder. Walena 00:12:27.879 --> 00:12:31.379 Sakitnova, nine years old. And this wasn't a 00:12:31.379 --> 00:12:33.299 crime of opportunity in the woods, was it? This 00:12:33.299 --> 00:12:36.620 was planned. It was planned in the sense that 00:12:36.620 --> 00:12:39.860 he had prepared a location. He had secretly purchased 00:12:39.860 --> 00:12:43.659 a small, run -down Shaka Kata in the town of 00:12:43.659 --> 00:12:46.259 Shappi without telling his wife. It was his private 00:12:46.259 --> 00:12:49.440 lair. His own little world. On December 22nd, 00:12:49.440 --> 00:12:52.379 he lured Yelena there. His intent, as far as 00:12:52.379 --> 00:12:55.299 we can tell, was sexual assault. But, as always, 00:12:55.440 --> 00:12:57.740 his body failed him. He couldn't perform. And 00:12:57.740 --> 00:12:59.860 the frustration. The frustration that had been 00:12:59.860 --> 00:13:02.480 building for 40 years, the famine, the bullying, 00:13:02.559 --> 00:13:04.899 the impotence, the mocking students, it all just 00:13:04.899 --> 00:13:07.080 converged in that shack. He went into a frenzy. 00:13:07.100 --> 00:13:09.279 And he attacks her. He strangled her and stabbed 00:13:09.279 --> 00:13:11.120 her. And in that moment of extreme violence, 00:13:11.220 --> 00:13:13.220 as he was stabbing her, he ejaculated. This is 00:13:13.220 --> 00:13:15.279 the aha moment for him, isn't it? But in the 00:13:15.279 --> 00:13:17.899 most horrific way possible. It's the moment of 00:13:17.899 --> 00:13:20.909 complete rewiring. He realized that for him, 00:13:20.970 --> 00:13:23.950 violence was sex. The stabbing provided the release 00:13:23.950 --> 00:13:26.549 that normal intercourse never could. He didn't 00:13:26.549 --> 00:13:28.809 need an erection. He needed blood. He needed 00:13:28.809 --> 00:13:32.029 total dominance over a dying victim. That discovery 00:13:32.029 --> 00:13:35.750 changed him from a predator into a monster. But 00:13:35.750 --> 00:13:38.250 the tragedy of Yelena Zakhanova's death didn't 00:13:38.250 --> 00:13:40.990 end with her murder. What happened next is honestly 00:13:40.990 --> 00:13:43.289 one of the most infuriating parts of this entire 00:13:43.289 --> 00:13:46.690 story, the investigation. The police were under 00:13:46.690 --> 00:13:49.500 immense pressure. A dead child is a big deal, 00:13:49.620 --> 00:13:52.639 even in a system that wants to deny crime. They 00:13:52.639 --> 00:13:54.679 needed to solve it fast. So they grabbed the 00:13:54.679 --> 00:13:57.059 first likely suspect. They found a man named 00:13:57.059 --> 00:13:59.539 Alexander Kravchenko. He's a young man with a 00:13:59.539 --> 00:14:01.879 prior conviction for a sexual crime. He was the 00:14:01.879 --> 00:14:04.279 usual suspect. Did they have any evidence linking 00:14:04.279 --> 00:14:06.679 him to this murder? Absolutely none. In fact, 00:14:06.679 --> 00:14:08.700 he had a solid alibi. He was home with his wife. 00:14:08.879 --> 00:14:11.159 So how do you charge a man with an alibi? You 00:14:11.159 --> 00:14:13.960 destroy the alibi. The police brought in Krivchenko's 00:14:13.960 --> 00:14:17.220 wife. They interrogated her for hours. They likely 00:14:17.220 --> 00:14:19.100 threatened to charge her as an accomplice or 00:14:19.100 --> 00:14:21.980 take her children away. They bullied her until 00:14:21.980 --> 00:14:24.259 she broke and changed her story. And once the 00:14:24.259 --> 00:14:26.639 alibi was gone? They went to work on Krivchenko. 00:14:26.759 --> 00:14:29.840 They beat him. They tortured him. Until he signed 00:14:29.840 --> 00:14:32.120 a confession to a crime he didn't commit. And 00:14:32.120 --> 00:14:35.299 based on that coerced confession? Alexander Kravchenko 00:14:35.299 --> 00:14:37.200 was sentenced to death and executed by firing 00:14:37.200 --> 00:14:40.639 squad. An innocent man was killed for Chikatilo's 00:14:40.639 --> 00:14:43.220 first murder. Yeah, Chikatilo is watching all 00:14:43.220 --> 00:14:45.519 of this unfold. He knows he killed that girl. 00:14:45.659 --> 00:14:48.879 He knows Kravchenko didn't. What goes through 00:14:48.879 --> 00:14:51.279 his mind when he sees the state execute someone 00:14:51.279 --> 00:14:54.059 else for his crime? It was the ultimate validation. 00:14:54.700 --> 00:14:56.940 It proved to him that he was smarter than them. 00:14:57.000 --> 00:14:59.019 It proved that the system didn't care about the 00:14:59.019 --> 00:15:01.179 truth. It only cared about closing the file. 00:15:01.419 --> 00:15:04.879 It made him feel invisible. invincible. It's 00:15:04.879 --> 00:15:07.399 like the state gave him a permission slip. Go 00:15:07.399 --> 00:15:10.700 ahead. We're too incompetent or too ideologically 00:15:10.700 --> 00:15:14.059 committed to stop you. And so the forest strip 00:15:14.059 --> 00:15:17.299 killings began. Let's talk about that term, forest 00:15:17.299 --> 00:15:20.960 strip. This relates directly to his modus operandi, 00:15:21.100 --> 00:15:23.500 which became terrifyingly consistent. By the 00:15:23.500 --> 00:15:26.100 early 80s, Chikatilo had changed careers again. 00:15:26.480 --> 00:15:29.179 He was no longer a teacher. He was a supply clerk 00:15:29.179 --> 00:15:31.320 for a manufacturing firm. This was the perfect 00:15:31.320 --> 00:15:34.299 cover. Why perfect? His job required him to travel 00:15:34.299 --> 00:15:36.159 constantly to different factories and suppliers 00:15:36.159 --> 00:15:39.179 across the entire Rostov Oblast. He was always 00:15:39.179 --> 00:15:41.960 on a train, always on a bus. He had a legitimate 00:15:41.960 --> 00:15:44.679 reason to be anywhere and everywhere. He became 00:15:44.679 --> 00:15:47.600 a drifter with a purpose. Exactly. He would hang 00:15:47.600 --> 00:15:50.000 around train stations and bus stops and look 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:52.519 for the vulnerable. Runaways, children skipping 00:15:52.519 --> 00:15:56.129 school, women traveling alone, prostitutes. People 00:15:56.129 --> 00:15:58.370 on the margins. And he used his harmless intellectual 00:15:58.370 --> 00:16:01.330 persona to lure them. He was brilliant at it. 00:16:01.429 --> 00:16:03.429 He would offer to show them a shortcut through 00:16:03.429 --> 00:16:06.029 the woods. He would offer chewing gum, which 00:16:06.029 --> 00:16:08.690 was a rare coveted item in the USSR at the time. 00:16:08.769 --> 00:16:11.230 Really? Chewing gum? Oh, yeah. Or foreign stamps 00:16:11.230 --> 00:16:14.809 or a ballpoint pen from America. He appealed 00:16:14.809 --> 00:16:17.129 to their curiosity or their greed, but mostly 00:16:17.129 --> 00:16:18.909 he relied on the fact that he looked like a harmless 00:16:18.909 --> 00:16:21.129 grandfather. He didn't look like a threat, so 00:16:21.129 --> 00:16:23.889 they walk with him into the forest strip. These 00:16:23.889 --> 00:16:25.970 are the windbreaks between agricultural fields, 00:16:26.129 --> 00:16:28.710 right? Yes, thick rows of trees planted to stop 00:16:28.710 --> 00:16:31.370 soil erosion. They are everywhere in rural Russia. 00:16:31.710 --> 00:16:34.230 They provided instant privacy just a few hundred 00:16:34.230 --> 00:16:36.970 yards from civilization. Once they were deep 00:16:36.970 --> 00:16:39.649 in the trees, he would attack. And the violence. 00:16:40.330 --> 00:16:42.470 We don't need to be gratuitous, but we need to 00:16:42.470 --> 00:16:44.470 understand the signature. It wasn't just killing. 00:16:44.490 --> 00:16:47.169 It was mutilation. It was a frenzy. It was absolute 00:16:47.169 --> 00:16:50.799 frenzy. Dozens of stab wounds. But there is one 00:16:50.799 --> 00:16:53.840 specific detail that speaks to his twisted, superstitious 00:16:53.840 --> 00:16:57.419 mind. He would gouge out the victim's eyes. Why? 00:16:57.460 --> 00:17:00.860 Why the eyes? Was this just pure sadism? It was 00:17:00.860 --> 00:17:04.180 fear. Chikatilo believed in a very old, scientifically 00:17:04.180 --> 00:17:07.359 debunked theory called optography, the idea that 00:17:07.359 --> 00:17:09.640 the last image a person sees before they die 00:17:09.640 --> 00:17:11.420 is permanently imprinted on their retina like 00:17:11.420 --> 00:17:13.740 a photograph. That sounds like something from 00:17:13.740 --> 00:17:16.160 a Victorian Gothic novel. I mean, Jack the Ripper 00:17:16.160 --> 00:17:19.589 stuff. It is. But Chikatilo, the man with the 00:17:19.589 --> 00:17:21.829 university degree in literature, believed that 00:17:21.829 --> 00:17:23.910 if the police looked into the dead victim's eyes, 00:17:24.069 --> 00:17:26.950 they would see his face reflected there. So he 00:17:26.950 --> 00:17:30.390 cut them out. It shows this bizarre clash in 00:17:30.390 --> 00:17:33.089 his mind between his education and his primitive 00:17:33.089 --> 00:17:35.990 magical thinking. So bodies start turning up. 00:17:36.289 --> 00:17:40.029 Mutilated bodies, eyes gouged out. All near train 00:17:40.029 --> 00:17:43.009 stations and bus stops. Surely someone puts the 00:17:43.009 --> 00:17:45.950 pieces together. Eventually, yes. The body count 00:17:45.950 --> 00:17:48.630 became impossible to ignore. This led to the 00:17:48.630 --> 00:17:51.730 creation of Operation Forest Path. It was a massive 00:17:51.730 --> 00:17:54.910 undertaking. Major Mikhail Fedosov and a brilliant 00:17:54.910 --> 00:17:57.849 forensic expert named Viktor Burakov were put 00:17:57.849 --> 00:17:59.650 in charge. They recognized they were hunting 00:17:59.650 --> 00:18:01.930 a single predator. But they were hunting with 00:18:01.930 --> 00:18:03.670 one hand tied behind their back because of the 00:18:03.670 --> 00:18:05.450 ideology we talked about at the start. Right 00:18:05.450 --> 00:18:07.859 back to the capital's disease. The higher -ups 00:18:07.859 --> 00:18:10.539 in Moscow refused to publicize the case. They 00:18:10.539 --> 00:18:12.440 didn't want to admit a serial killer was operating 00:18:12.440 --> 00:18:14.980 in the Soviet paradise. This meant the public 00:18:14.980 --> 00:18:17.099 couldn't be properly warned. People had no idea 00:18:17.099 --> 00:18:19.220 this was happening. And the police were looking 00:18:19.220 --> 00:18:21.279 in all the wrong places. They rounded up the 00:18:21.279 --> 00:18:23.700 usual suspects, the intellectually disabled, 00:18:23.940 --> 00:18:26.500 the homeless known homosexuals who were criminals 00:18:26.500 --> 00:18:29.980 in the USSR. They were looking for a freak, not 00:18:29.980 --> 00:18:32.339 a card -carrying party member with a family. 00:18:32.599 --> 00:18:36.009 But despite all of that... Despite all the wrong 00:18:36.009 --> 00:18:40.349 turns, they actually catch him. In 1984, this 00:18:40.349 --> 00:18:41.849 is the part that makes you want to just throw 00:18:41.849 --> 00:18:43.690 your headphones across the room. This is the 00:18:43.690 --> 00:18:48.750 pivotal tragedy of the entire case. 1984. Chikatilo 00:18:48.750 --> 00:18:51.569 is at a bus station in Rostov. He's acting weird. 00:18:51.750 --> 00:18:53.970 He's soliciting women, rubbing up against them. 00:18:54.049 --> 00:18:56.769 Police arrest him for a minor public order offense. 00:18:57.690 --> 00:19:00.529 Fraudism, essentially. They search his bag. What's 00:19:00.529 --> 00:19:02.430 in the briefcase? A kitchen knife with a long 00:19:02.430 --> 00:19:05.549 blade. A length of rope. And a jar of Vaseline. 00:19:05.809 --> 00:19:08.650 Come on. That is literally a serial killer starter 00:19:08.650 --> 00:19:10.609 kit. You couldn't make it more obvious. It's 00:19:10.609 --> 00:19:12.650 damning. Absolutely damning. How does he even 00:19:12.650 --> 00:19:14.769 try to explain that? He was quick on his feet. 00:19:14.849 --> 00:19:16.670 He said the knife was for his work, for cutting 00:19:16.670 --> 00:19:18.829 rubber gaskets. The rope was for tying packages. 00:19:19.190 --> 00:19:21.970 The Vaseline. He said he had dry skin or used 00:19:21.970 --> 00:19:24.369 it for shaving. It was a weak, flimsy excuse, 00:19:24.549 --> 00:19:26.809 but he stuck to it. But the detectives weren't 00:19:26.809 --> 00:19:29.170 buying it, right? They must have had a gut feeling. 00:19:29.349 --> 00:19:32.400 They knew he was their guy. Burkoff knew. He 00:19:32.400 --> 00:19:34.680 fit the description. He traveled to all the murder 00:19:34.680 --> 00:19:37.160 sites for his job. He was perfect for it. So 00:19:37.160 --> 00:19:40.000 they decided to rely on science to nail him. 00:19:40.240 --> 00:19:43.319 They compared his blood type to the semen found 00:19:43.319 --> 00:19:45.119 on the victims. And this is where we need to 00:19:45.119 --> 00:19:47.420 get a little technical, because this bit of science 00:19:47.420 --> 00:19:50.140 is what let a monster walk free. Okay, here's 00:19:50.140 --> 00:19:52.980 the breakdown. In forensics at the time, they 00:19:52.980 --> 00:19:57.200 relied on ABO blood typing. The semen found on 00:19:57.200 --> 00:20:00.740 several victims was type AB. Okay. And Chikatilo? 00:20:01.259 --> 00:20:03.259 What was his blood type? They drew his blood. 00:20:03.279 --> 00:20:05.859 He was type A. A does not equal AB. Therefore, 00:20:06.019 --> 00:20:08.420 the semen isn't his. Therefore, he isn't the 00:20:08.420 --> 00:20:11.220 killer. Case closed. That was the conclusion. 00:20:11.740 --> 00:20:13.960 But it gets weirder. The scientists came up with 00:20:13.960 --> 00:20:15.880 an explanation for why the police were so convinced 00:20:15.880 --> 00:20:17.619 it was him, even though the blood didn't match. 00:20:17.880 --> 00:20:20.680 They called it paradoxical secretion. What on 00:20:20.680 --> 00:20:23.200 earth does that mean? The theory was that a person 00:20:23.200 --> 00:20:25.960 could have one blood type in their, say, type 00:20:25.960 --> 00:20:28.460 A, but secrete a different blood type marker, 00:20:28.559 --> 00:20:31.519 like type AB, in their bodily fluids, like saliva 00:20:31.519 --> 00:20:34.940 or semen. Is that real? Is that a real medical 00:20:34.940 --> 00:20:38.359 thing? No, absolutely not. Modern science tells 00:20:38.359 --> 00:20:40.579 us that is not how it works. People are either 00:20:40.579 --> 00:20:43.549 secretors. meaning their blood type antigen shows 00:20:43.549 --> 00:20:46.529 up in their fluids, or non -secreters, meaning 00:20:46.529 --> 00:20:48.589 it doesn't. You don't secrete a different blood 00:20:48.589 --> 00:20:51.250 type. So how did they get type AB from the crime 00:20:51.250 --> 00:20:53.470 scenes? What happened? Most likely, the samples 00:20:53.470 --> 00:20:55.970 were contaminated. They were old. They were mixing 00:20:55.970 --> 00:20:58.089 the killer's fluids with the victim's blood or 00:20:58.089 --> 00:21:00.690 other fluids. Or the testing itself was just 00:21:00.690 --> 00:21:03.529 fundamentally botched. But the result was catastrophic. 00:21:04.089 --> 00:21:07.329 The lab report said, he is type A. The killer 00:21:07.329 --> 00:21:10.059 is type AB. It cannot be him. And because of 00:21:10.059 --> 00:21:12.640 that one piece of paper, they ignored the knife, 00:21:12.700 --> 00:21:15.660 the rope, the travel logs, and their own detectives' 00:21:15.680 --> 00:21:18.599 instincts. They had to. In the rigid Soviet system, 00:21:18.859 --> 00:21:21.480 the word of the scientific expert was absolute. 00:21:21.779 --> 00:21:23.900 They released him. They actually sent him to 00:21:23.900 --> 00:21:25.980 prison for a few months on a petty theft charge. 00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:28.440 He'd stolen a roll of linoleum from his work 00:21:28.440 --> 00:21:30.420 just to pin something on him, but they cleared 00:21:30.420 --> 00:21:32.640 him of the murders. They let him go, and he went 00:21:32.640 --> 00:21:35.200 on to kill for six more years. Six more years. 00:21:35.680 --> 00:21:38.339 More than 20 victims died after he was released 00:21:38.339 --> 00:21:41.720 in 1984. 20 lives that should have been saved. 00:21:42.420 --> 00:21:45.599 And to Cotillo, he felt untouchable. He felt 00:21:45.599 --> 00:21:48.119 like he was protected by destiny itself. But 00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:50.480 Viktor Burakov, the detective, he didn't give 00:21:50.480 --> 00:21:52.440 up, did he? He knew something was fundamentally 00:21:52.440 --> 00:21:56.039 wrong. Burakov was haunted by this case. He was 00:21:56.039 --> 00:21:58.460 obsessed. He knew the standard police methods 00:21:58.460 --> 00:22:01.200 were failing. So in 1985, he did something radical 00:22:01.200 --> 00:22:03.680 for the Soviet Union. He went outside the police 00:22:03.680 --> 00:22:06.220 system. Here he go. He contacted a psychiatrist 00:22:06.220 --> 00:22:08.920 named Dr. Alexander Bukhanovsky. Why was that 00:22:08.920 --> 00:22:11.160 so radical? I mean, we've had criminal profiling 00:22:11.160 --> 00:22:15.140 in the West for ages. Because in the USSR, psychiatry 00:22:15.140 --> 00:22:17.160 was often used as a political weapon. If you 00:22:17.160 --> 00:22:18.740 disagreed with the party, you were diagnosed 00:22:18.740 --> 00:22:21.700 with sluggish schizophrenia and locked away in 00:22:21.700 --> 00:22:23.859 a mental institution. It wasn't really used for 00:22:23.859 --> 00:22:26.059 legitimate criminal profiling. It was seen as 00:22:26.059 --> 00:22:28.900 a kind of Western pseudoscience. So Burakov asking 00:22:28.900 --> 00:22:31.119 for a profile was basically him admitting that 00:22:31.119 --> 00:22:33.619 the entire system wasn't enough? Exactly. He 00:22:33.619 --> 00:22:36.319 was desperate. He gave Bukhanovsky all the files, 00:22:36.500 --> 00:22:38.940 the gruesome crime scene photos, the reports. 00:22:39.579 --> 00:22:41.819 Bukhanovsky spent nights poring over the material. 00:22:42.019 --> 00:22:44.160 And he wrote a document called The Prospective 00:22:44.160 --> 00:22:48.079 Portrait. And what did it say? It was eerily, 00:22:48.079 --> 00:22:51.660 chillingly accurate. He didn't describe a raving 00:22:51.660 --> 00:22:54.019 lunatic. He described it as a psychological mistake 00:22:54.019 --> 00:22:57.079 of nature. He said the killer was likely a man 00:22:57.079 --> 00:23:00.779 between 45 and 50. A family man. Seemingly normal. 00:23:01.309 --> 00:23:04.029 but suffering from profound sexual impotence. 00:23:04.049 --> 00:23:06.609 Wow. He said he wasn't killing for hate or for 00:23:06.609 --> 00:23:08.470 pleasure in the normal sense, but for sexual 00:23:08.470 --> 00:23:11.269 substitution. The violence was his orgasm. He 00:23:11.269 --> 00:23:13.690 absolutely nailed him. He described Chikatilo 00:23:13.690 --> 00:23:15.990 perfectly without ever having met him or even 00:23:15.990 --> 00:23:18.410 knowing he existed. It was a game changer. It 00:23:18.410 --> 00:23:20.529 gave the investigation a new lens. They stopped 00:23:20.529 --> 00:23:22.309 looking for the crazy person and started looking 00:23:22.309 --> 00:23:24.309 for the invisible person. But even with the profile, 00:23:24.630 --> 00:23:27.190 Chikatilo was a ghost. And the killing continued. 00:23:27.759 --> 00:23:30.200 The spree actually intensified in the late 80s. 00:23:30.200 --> 00:23:32.099 And he started targeting boys more frequently. 00:23:32.519 --> 00:23:34.720 Why this shift in victimology? Part of it was 00:23:34.720 --> 00:23:36.940 likely opportunity, but part of it was probably 00:23:36.940 --> 00:23:39.200 that as he got older, he felt physically weaker. 00:23:39.619 --> 00:23:42.519 Boys were perhaps easier to lure or overpower 00:23:42.519 --> 00:23:44.859 than adult women. And he was traveling even more 00:23:44.859 --> 00:23:46.880 for his job. It was like a production schedule 00:23:46.880 --> 00:23:49.359 of death tied to his work trips. But every spree 00:23:49.359 --> 00:23:52.940 has to end. 1990, the net finally, finally tightens. 00:23:53.079 --> 00:23:55.710 The police decide to flood the zone. Operation 00:23:55.710 --> 00:23:58.289 Forest Path placed officers, both uniformed and 00:23:58.289 --> 00:24:00.789 undercover, at every major train station and 00:24:00.789 --> 00:24:03.410 bus stop in the entire region. They were watching 00:24:03.410 --> 00:24:06.710 everyone. And on November 6, 1990, an officer 00:24:06.710 --> 00:24:08.970 named Igor Rybakov is at the Dunlis -Guz station. 00:24:09.390 --> 00:24:11.869 It's a small rural station, not a major hub. 00:24:12.450 --> 00:24:15.029 Rybakov sees this man walking out of the woods. 00:24:15.230 --> 00:24:17.470 The man is wearing a suit and a hat, but he just 00:24:17.470 --> 00:24:20.009 looks wrong. Wrong how? He's carrying a nylon 00:24:20.009 --> 00:24:22.430 sports bag. There's a red smear on his cheek. 00:24:22.849 --> 00:24:24.690 It could be anything, but it looks like blood. 00:24:25.339 --> 00:24:28.019 Rybakov stops him. Comrade, can I see your papers? 00:24:28.220 --> 00:24:31.539 The man hands over his ID. Andre Chikatilo. And 00:24:31.539 --> 00:24:33.440 Rybakov asks him what he was doing in the woods, 00:24:33.519 --> 00:24:35.720 dressed like that. Chikatilo gives a strange 00:24:35.720 --> 00:24:38.519 answer. He says, I'm picking mushrooms. In November. 00:24:38.980 --> 00:24:42.160 In a suit. Rybakov is not an idiot. He knows 00:24:42.160 --> 00:24:44.200 there are no mushrooms in November. And then 00:24:44.200 --> 00:24:46.559 he notices Chikatilo's finger. It's wrapped in 00:24:46.559 --> 00:24:49.240 a rag, crudely bandaged. It looks like a fresh 00:24:49.240 --> 00:24:51.200 wound. Does he arrest him right then and there? 00:24:51.339 --> 00:24:53.839 No. Being weird in the woods with a bad mushroom 00:24:53.839 --> 00:24:56.599 story isn't a crime, unfortunately. He has no 00:24:56.599 --> 00:24:58.799 grounds for arrest, so he hands the ID back. 00:24:59.960 --> 00:25:02.400 But, and this is the single moment that changes 00:25:02.400 --> 00:25:05.599 history, Rybakov writes a report. He documents 00:25:05.599 --> 00:25:08.900 the stop. Stopped Andre Chikatilo. Suspicious 00:25:08.900 --> 00:25:12.160 behavior. Finger bandaged. He filed it. And a 00:25:12.160 --> 00:25:14.660 few days later. They find the body as Fetlana 00:25:14.660 --> 00:25:17.140 Karostik in those same woods. The investigators 00:25:17.140 --> 00:25:19.440 check the station logs. They see Rabikov's report. 00:25:19.640 --> 00:25:21.579 They run the name Chikatilo. And the computer, 00:25:21.660 --> 00:25:24.440 or more likely the card catalog, lights up. We 00:25:24.440 --> 00:25:26.519 arrested this guy in 1984. He was the suspect 00:25:26.519 --> 00:25:28.519 with the knife and the rope. The bells go off. 00:25:28.700 --> 00:25:30.900 Everywhere. They realize they let him slip through 00:25:30.900 --> 00:25:32.759 their fingers once. They're not going to do it 00:25:32.759 --> 00:25:34.900 again. They put him under 24 -hour surveillance. 00:25:35.259 --> 00:25:37.500 They watch him move through the city. They see 00:25:37.500 --> 00:25:39.920 him acting predatory, approaching boys at bus 00:25:39.920 --> 00:25:42.500 stops, trying to lure them away. They see him 00:25:42.500 --> 00:25:44.599 buying beer and trying to get children to drink 00:25:44.599 --> 00:25:47.400 with him. They have enough. November 20, 1990. 00:25:47.740 --> 00:25:49.519 He leaves the cafe. He's walking toward a beer 00:25:49.519 --> 00:25:52.019 stall. The Alpha team, the elite unit, moves 00:25:52.019 --> 00:25:54.500 in. They grab him. They shove him into a Volga 00:25:54.500 --> 00:25:57.450 police car. The Red Ripper is finally in custody. 00:25:57.670 --> 00:25:59.890 But arresting him is one thing, convicting him 00:25:59.890 --> 00:26:01.890 is another. Remember, they still have that wrong 00:26:01.890 --> 00:26:04.609 blood test from 1984 hanging over their heads 00:26:04.609 --> 00:26:08.029 like a guillotine. Exactly. And they didn't have 00:26:08.029 --> 00:26:10.230 DNA testing readily available yet, not like today. 00:26:10.509 --> 00:26:12.809 They had a lot of circumstantial evidence. The 00:26:12.809 --> 00:26:16.630 knife, again. The rope, again. But the real smoking 00:26:16.630 --> 00:26:19.430 gun was that finger. The bandaged finger that 00:26:19.430 --> 00:26:22.529 Officer Rybakov saw. What happened to it? During 00:26:22.529 --> 00:26:24.950 a struggle with one of his last victims, a 16 00:26:24.950 --> 00:26:27.529 -year -old boy named Victor Tishchenko, Victor 00:26:27.529 --> 00:26:30.549 had fought back fiercely. He'd bitten Chikatilo's 00:26:30.549 --> 00:26:33.170 finger down to the bone. It was a vicious defensive 00:26:33.170 --> 00:26:36.230 wound. When the police arrested Chikatilo and 00:26:36.230 --> 00:26:39.130 stripped him, they found the healing wound. It 00:26:39.130 --> 00:26:42.569 was a direct physical link to a victim who had 00:26:42.569 --> 00:26:46.250 fought for his life. That is heroic. Victor Tishchenko, 00:26:46.390 --> 00:26:48.930 in his last moments, essentially marked his own 00:26:48.930 --> 00:26:51.789 killer for the police. He did. But Chikatilo 00:26:51.789 --> 00:26:54.710 was tough. He was a practiced liar. He sat in 00:26:54.710 --> 00:26:56.910 the interrogation room with Issa Kostoyev, the 00:26:56.910 --> 00:27:00.369 lead investigator, and he said nothing. Or he 00:27:00.369 --> 00:27:02.430 rambled on about being a good communist, a grandfather. 00:27:02.589 --> 00:27:04.730 He played the victim. And the clock is ticking. 00:27:04.910 --> 00:27:07.450 In the Soviet legal system, you can't just hold 00:27:07.450 --> 00:27:09.869 a suspect forever without a charge. Ten days. 00:27:10.069 --> 00:27:11.990 They had ten days to get a confession or charge 00:27:11.990 --> 00:27:14.099 him with what they had. Without a confession, 00:27:14.299 --> 00:27:16.180 the case was shaky because of the blood type 00:27:16.180 --> 00:27:19.259 confusion from 84. Kostoyev tried everything. 00:27:19.440 --> 00:27:21.240 He played good cop, bad cop. He showed him the 00:27:21.240 --> 00:27:23.740 photos of the victims. Chikatilo just stared 00:27:23.740 --> 00:27:25.819 at the wall. Day eight, day nine. They must be 00:27:25.819 --> 00:27:28.500 getting desperate. They are. Kostoyev realizes 00:27:28.500 --> 00:27:30.500 he can't bully a confession out of this man. 00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:32.859 He needs a different key. He needs to unlock 00:27:32.859 --> 00:27:36.640 his mind. So he calls Dr. Bukhanovsky. The profiler. 00:27:37.400 --> 00:27:39.539 Psychiatrist. Bukhanovsky walks into the room. 00:27:39.700 --> 00:27:42.420 It's a small, drab interrogation room. He sits 00:27:42.420 --> 00:27:45.099 down across from the monster. But he doesn't 00:27:45.099 --> 00:27:47.079 treat him like a monster. He treats him like 00:27:47.079 --> 00:27:49.700 a patient. What does he say to him? He essentially 00:27:49.700 --> 00:27:53.779 reads the profile to him out loud. He says, Andre, 00:27:54.019 --> 00:27:56.880 I know you. I know you aren't a wolf or a beast. 00:27:57.019 --> 00:27:59.940 You are a man in pain. I know about the impotence. 00:27:59.960 --> 00:28:01.859 I know about the shame. I know that you are a 00:28:01.859 --> 00:28:03.779 mistake of nature and that you suffer immensely 00:28:03.779 --> 00:28:05.960 because of it. He empathized with him. He didn't 00:28:05.960 --> 00:28:08.359 condemn him. He validated his internal pain. 00:28:08.619 --> 00:28:11.349 It was the perfect key. Chikatilo had spent 50 00:28:11.349 --> 00:28:13.750 years feeling like a broken, misunderstood thing 00:28:13.750 --> 00:28:16.329 that nobody could possibly comprehend. Suddenly, 00:28:16.410 --> 00:28:18.349 here was a man of science looking him in the 00:28:18.349 --> 00:28:22.130 eye and saying, I understand you. Chikatilo just 00:28:22.130 --> 00:28:25.029 broke. He started to weep. He looked up and said 00:28:25.029 --> 00:28:27.450 the words, I am that person. And the floodgates 00:28:27.450 --> 00:28:30.440 just opened? Completely. He confessed to everything, 00:28:30.619 --> 00:28:33.019 and I mean everything. He talked for days on 00:28:33.019 --> 00:28:35.440 end. He filled volumes with details. He drew 00:28:35.440 --> 00:28:37.460 sketches of where the bodies were buried. He 00:28:37.460 --> 00:28:39.440 corrected the police on details they had wrong 00:28:39.440 --> 00:28:43.000 in their own files. And he confessed to the cannibalism, 00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:45.240 to the blood drinking. Yes, he admitted that 00:28:45.240 --> 00:28:47.700 he would chew on the tongues of victims. He admitted 00:28:47.700 --> 00:28:50.299 to drinking their blood. He claimed it gave him 00:28:50.299 --> 00:28:53.180 energy. He also explained the eye gouging. He 00:28:53.180 --> 00:28:54.819 said he eventually realized the optogram theory 00:28:54.819 --> 00:28:57.500 was probably fake, but by then it was just part 00:28:57.500 --> 00:28:59.720 of his ritual. It's chilling that he confessed 00:28:59.720 --> 00:29:03.980 not out of guilt, but out of what? A sense of 00:29:03.980 --> 00:29:07.920 relief. Relief and I think a deep -seated narcissism. 00:29:08.319 --> 00:29:10.140 Finally, someone was paying attention to his 00:29:10.140 --> 00:29:12.720 life's work. He wanted to be studied. He wanted 00:29:12.720 --> 00:29:15.000 to be important, even if it was for being a monster. 00:29:15.240 --> 00:29:18.779 So we go to trial. April 1992, the Soviet Union 00:29:18.779 --> 00:29:21.339 has just collapsed. It's a new, chaotic Russia. 00:29:21.559 --> 00:29:24.140 The trial is a complete media circus. It was 00:29:24.140 --> 00:29:26.440 one of the first major media events of the post 00:29:26.440 --> 00:29:28.740 -Soviet era. It was held in a massive hall to 00:29:28.740 --> 00:29:30.940 accommodate the public and the press. And for 00:29:30.940 --> 00:29:33.339 Chikatilo's safety, they built a literal iron 00:29:33.339 --> 00:29:35.619 cage in the middle of the courtroom. To protect 00:29:35.619 --> 00:29:38.259 him from the victim's families? Oh, yes. The 00:29:38.259 --> 00:29:40.180 parents of the murdered children were there. 00:29:40.339 --> 00:29:42.660 They were screaming, fainting, throwing things 00:29:42.660 --> 00:29:45.160 at the cage. If he hadn't been in there, they 00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:46.799 would have torn him to pieces with their bare 00:29:46.799 --> 00:29:49.579 hands. In Chikatilo, he puts on a show inside 00:29:49.579 --> 00:29:53.240 the cage. A complete circus act. He decided to 00:29:53.240 --> 00:29:56.299 play the insanity card. He shaved his head. He 00:29:56.299 --> 00:29:59.339 wore an athletic suit. And he just acted deranged. 00:29:59.420 --> 00:30:01.559 He would shout gibberish. He would lower his 00:30:01.559 --> 00:30:03.759 pants and expose himself to the judge. He would 00:30:03.759 --> 00:30:06.180 scream, I am a pregnant woman. He also sang right. 00:30:06.279 --> 00:30:09.549 He would sing the old communist anthem. The top 00:30:09.549 --> 00:30:11.890 of his lungs. Singing the communist anthem in 00:30:11.890 --> 00:30:16.289 1992, right after the fall of the USSR. There's 00:30:16.289 --> 00:30:19.170 a dark, pathetic irony there. He's singing the 00:30:19.170 --> 00:30:21.490 song of the dead system that enabled him. It 00:30:21.490 --> 00:30:23.710 was pure theater. He thought if he looked crazy 00:30:23.710 --> 00:30:25.130 enough, they would just send him to a hospital 00:30:25.130 --> 00:30:27.450 for the rest of his life. But Bukhanovsky and 00:30:27.450 --> 00:30:29.890 other psychiatrists testified. They said, do 00:30:29.890 --> 00:30:32.069 not be fooled. He is sane. He knows right from 00:30:32.069 --> 00:30:35.089 wrong. This is a calculated act. And the judge, 00:30:35.309 --> 00:30:37.730 a man named Akubzanov, he wasn't fooled either. 00:30:38.160 --> 00:30:41.480 Not for a second. The verdict was read. It took 00:30:41.480 --> 00:30:43.339 days to read the full verdict because there were 00:30:43.339 --> 00:30:45.559 so many individual counts. He was found guilty 00:30:45.559 --> 00:30:49.420 of 52 murders. The judge sentenced him to death 00:30:49.420 --> 00:30:53.579 for each one. 52 separate death sentences. And 00:30:53.579 --> 00:30:55.740 the judge took the opportunity to publicly slam 00:30:55.740 --> 00:30:58.880 the system. He called out the paradoxical secretion 00:30:58.880 --> 00:31:00.940 error. He called out the school administrators 00:31:00.940 --> 00:31:03.660 who just passed him along. He made it crystal 00:31:03.660 --> 00:31:06.920 clear. Chick -Aidle held the knife. But the system 00:31:06.920 --> 00:31:09.779 held the door wide open for him. Chikatilo appealed, 00:31:09.799 --> 00:31:12.039 of course. He even wrote a letter to Boris Yeltsin, 00:31:12.140 --> 00:31:14.700 the new president. He asked for mercy. He claimed 00:31:14.700 --> 00:31:16.819 he was a victim of the Stalinist era, that his 00:31:16.819 --> 00:31:19.819 mind was broken by his childhood. Yeltsin denied 00:31:19.819 --> 00:31:24.039 the appeal instantly. So February 14, 1994, Valentine's 00:31:24.039 --> 00:31:26.619 Day of all days. They took him to Novichokask 00:31:26.619 --> 00:31:29.640 Prison. They led him down a corridor into a soundproof 00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:33.630 room, a stark concrete room. An executioner stepped 00:31:33.630 --> 00:31:35.829 up behind him and fired a single pistol shot 00:31:35.829 --> 00:31:37.910 into the back of his head, just behind the right 00:31:37.910 --> 00:31:40.390 ear. Were there any last words? He was reportedly 00:31:40.390 --> 00:31:43.029 in shock. He was told he was being moved for 00:31:43.029 --> 00:31:45.329 another medical exam. He didn't know it was the 00:31:45.329 --> 00:31:47.710 end until the gun was against his head. And just 00:31:47.710 --> 00:31:50.430 like that, the Red Ripper was gone. Buried in 00:31:50.430 --> 00:31:53.269 an unmarked grave in the prison yard. Erased 00:31:53.269 --> 00:31:55.509 from the world. You know, when we do these deep 00:31:55.509 --> 00:31:58.829 dives, we usually try to find an aha moment or 00:31:58.829 --> 00:32:03.640 a clear takeaway. But this one, it just leaves 00:32:03.640 --> 00:32:07.119 this heavy, awful residue. It does. It forces 00:32:07.119 --> 00:32:09.799 us to confront the fact that evil doesn't always 00:32:09.799 --> 00:32:12.160 look like a monster from a movie. It looks like 00:32:12.160 --> 00:32:13.740 a math teacher. It looks like your neighbor. 00:32:13.900 --> 00:32:16.019 It looks like nothing at all. And it forces us 00:32:16.019 --> 00:32:18.420 to look at the systems we trust. The science, 00:32:18.519 --> 00:32:21.539 the police, the government, that whole structure. 00:32:21.759 --> 00:32:24.200 That's the real horror story here, I think. It's 00:32:24.200 --> 00:32:26.579 not just the man with the knife. It's the arrogance 00:32:26.579 --> 00:32:29.359 of an ideology that said, we are perfect, therefore 00:32:29.359 --> 00:32:31.779 this can't be happening. That arrogance cost 00:32:31.779 --> 00:32:34.339 dozens and dozens of lives. I just keep coming 00:32:34.339 --> 00:32:37.640 back to that blood test in 1984. The paradoxical 00:32:37.640 --> 00:32:39.680 secretion, that one moment. It's the hinge of 00:32:39.680 --> 00:32:42.000 history for so many people. The single point 00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:44.019 where everything could have been stopped. It 00:32:44.019 --> 00:32:46.339 makes me wonder, and this is the thought I kind 00:32:46.339 --> 00:32:50.359 of want to leave you with today. We trust forensics. 00:32:50.460 --> 00:32:53.319 We trust DNA now, of course. We trust the file 00:32:53.319 --> 00:32:55.779 in the cabinet, the report from the lab. But 00:32:55.779 --> 00:32:59.960 human beings... make those files. Human beings 00:32:59.960 --> 00:33:03.299 run those labs. And we are all fallible. Right. 00:33:03.400 --> 00:33:05.720 So how many monsters are out there right now 00:33:05.720 --> 00:33:08.619 walking free? Not because they are criminal geniuses, 00:33:08.619 --> 00:33:11.740 but because someone somewhere mislabeled a vial 00:33:11.740 --> 00:33:14.980 or because a form got lost in the mail or because 00:33:14.980 --> 00:33:16.740 a police department didn't want to admit they 00:33:16.740 --> 00:33:18.720 had a problem they couldn't solve. That is a 00:33:18.720 --> 00:33:21.799 terrifying thought. The idea that clerical error. 00:33:22.160 --> 00:33:23.819 Could be the best friend a serial killer ever 00:33:23.819 --> 00:33:26.559 had. On that incredibly uplifting note, we are 00:33:26.559 --> 00:33:28.339 going to wrap up this deep dive. Stay vigilant 00:33:28.339 --> 00:33:29.859 out there. And we'll see you next time.