Andrei Chikatilo killed over 50 people before finally being arrested in 1990. He remains the worst serial killer in Russia’s history.

 The Rostov region had one of the highest crime rates in the country. It had always done; it was a matter of simple geography—a kind of frontier town, it attracted all sorts, good and bad. An average of three hundred people were killed every year in the region. That meant almost one a day. But Biryuk was different. She was a child. And then there were the injuries: more than thirty deep stab wounds, as well as horrible blows around the eyes. The policeman who was called to the scene had never seen anything like it.

When Andrei Chikatilo was first taken into custody in 1984, he had already killed 32 people. He was picked up by police while trying to lure a woman away from a bus station, and he matched the description of the man last seen with 10-year-old Dmitry Ptashnikov before the boy was found murdered. But Chikatilo’s blood type did not match evidence found at various unsolved murder sites, so he was released.

Chikatilo, Andrei Romanovich’. A strange kind of name; Ukrainian, perhaps. It certainly wasn’t an Ivanov or a Yakovlyev. According to his passport, he was married with two kids and was head of the supply department in one of the city’s main factories. He was also a graduate of the philological faculty of the city’s university

A serial killer was back on the loose, and he would murder dozens more before finally being apprehended in 1990—a full six years later.

After more than thirty murders of unparalleled cruelty, one of the world’s most prolific and yet unlikely serial killers had finally been arrested. It had taken more than six years to track him down as he criss-crossed the south of Russia leaving a trail of death behind him. Now, it was 14 September 1984 and it was all over. Andrei Chikatilo, a soft-spoken grandfather aged 48, and a former literature teacher, was under lock and key. And that, it seemed, was that.

Chikatilo is the most horrific serial killer in Russia’s history—killing over 50 people—and was able to continue his spree mostly due to lack of technology at that time. It was determined only two years prior to his final arrest that blood type could differ from semen and saliva type in some rare cases, and that knowledge eventually led to his capture and conviction.

Peter Conradi’s definitive true crime account, The Red Ripper, covers everything from Chikatilo’s personal life to his horrific killings, and the hunt for a monster.