Episode Transcript
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0:10
This episode may
0:12
contain content of
0:14
a graphic nature,
0:17
including descriptions
0:20
of physical and
0:23
sexual violence
0:25
against adults,
0:27
children, and
0:30
animals. Listener
0:32
discretion is
0:34
advised. And we
0:36
are Crimes and Consequences,
0:39
a hardcore true crime
0:41
podcast. Hey, Tanya, how are
0:43
you? Doing pretty good today.
0:46
How about you? Oh, it's
0:48
the Friday. I'm having a
0:50
good day. What about you?
0:52
Yeah, my day's fantastic. You
0:54
know, live in the dream.
0:56
And I can hear it in
0:59
your voice. Can't you? I
1:01
can. It's a wonderful day
1:03
in the neighborhood. So. Well. What
1:05
I'm going to do for us
1:08
is I'm going to finish up
1:10
that Andre Romana-Bicchikato-story, the Red Ripper,
1:12
that fucking horrible guy. Yes. And
1:14
I left you guys kind of
1:17
hanging halfway. I left you guys
1:19
with his works up to 92.
1:21
So we still have plenty of
1:23
years to go with his work.
1:26
Oh, great. But I'm going to
1:28
remind you of his monarchures of
1:30
the Red Ripper, the butcher of
1:32
Rostah. the Rostov Ripper, the forest
1:35
strip killer, and the mad beast.
1:37
He earned every single one of
1:40
those. I ended by letting everybody
1:42
know, you guys know, that in
1:44
1982, he had took the lives
1:47
of six more innocent people, and
1:49
the last person I had mentioned
1:51
was Olga Machinna, and that was
1:54
on December 11th. So we're gonna
1:56
start again with Olga's story. Okay.
1:58
So Olga, she had... and lowered into
2:01
a cornfield at the edge of
2:03
town where he overtook her. He
2:05
did what he wanted with her
2:08
while he stabbed her more than
2:10
50 times all over her body.
2:12
He gouged her eyes out as
2:15
well and he didn't stop there.
2:17
He decided to cut open her
2:19
stomach where he reached inside and
2:22
pulled out her bowels and uterus.
2:24
Then he just left her there.
2:26
Sadly, she wouldn't be found for
2:29
almost two whole months. Now police
2:31
were beginning to notice the culprit
2:33
they were looking for a head
2:36
developed and now followed a kind
2:38
of pattern. So far they knew
2:40
all of the victims had been
2:43
stabbed and cut up in very
2:45
gruesome ways. Whether that meant having
2:47
their eyes couched out of their
2:50
head, their genitals completely removed from
2:52
their body, or being disemboweled. The
2:54
bodies of victims had been found
2:57
in bodies of their victims had
2:59
been found in isolated yet heavily
3:01
wooded areas on the outskirts of
3:04
town, which were within walking distance
3:06
of buses and train stations. They
3:08
also noted that when their killer
3:11
was finished with the bodies, he
3:13
made a half-ass attempt at trying
3:15
to bury or conceal them in
3:18
any way. These were the facts,
3:20
and so that's what investigators started
3:22
with. They started a police operation
3:25
called Lesopolosa, aka forest path. After
3:27
all, this was where Andre did
3:30
his killing. And as for the
3:32
nature of the killings, they got
3:34
pretty bad. Police believed that the
3:37
culprit was prolonging his killings because
3:39
he was taking genuine pleasure from
3:41
the act, not just because of
3:44
the numerous stab wounds, sometimes upwards
3:46
30 or more, but many of
3:48
the bodies were horribly mutilated. Some
3:51
stomachs were completely ripped open while
3:53
some were, can you, this mess,
3:55
this diabolical, some were completely ripped
3:58
open while some were missing sex
4:00
organs that had been chopped off.
4:02
Mainly though, it was the eyes
4:05
that got them. Pretty much everybody
4:07
that had been found had stab
4:09
wounds around the eyes. They would
4:12
later learn that the reason he
4:14
removed the eyes was attributed to
4:16
a belief that his victims kept
4:19
an imprint of his face in
4:21
their eyes, even after death. But
4:23
the term serial killer was still
4:26
something new to the Soviet Union,
4:28
as they believed the term to
4:30
be a Western thing. Needless to
4:33
say, they weren't too keen on
4:35
admitting that they had a phenomenon
4:37
such as a serial killer on
4:40
their hands. Instead of alerting the
4:42
media and the people, they decided
4:44
to keep it quiet. Andre took
4:47
a break. for a bit, but
4:49
not long. In June of 1983,
4:51
Trey killed 15-year-old Laura Sarkozin, whose
4:54
body was never found. The police
4:56
only learned of this murder after
4:58
Andre was caught and confessed to
5:01
it years later. In July, Andre
5:03
killed 13-year-old Ira Doan and Kova,
5:05
and a 20-year-old... and a 24-year-old
5:08
woman named Loda Kotajoba. On August
5:10
8th, he took the life of
5:12
seven-year-old Igor Godovkop. Sometime that same
5:15
summer, he killed an 18-year-old girl
5:17
who still remains unidentified to this
5:20
day. At this point, the police
5:22
believed the killings to be done
5:24
by that of someone who was
5:27
mentally handicapped due to their ghastly
5:29
nature. So, acting on these assumptions,
5:31
they brought in their first two
5:34
suspects. Two young men named Killek
5:36
and Shaburah, who were residents of
5:38
a special hostile for the handicapped.
5:41
They were initially brought in when
5:43
they were arrested for trying to
5:45
steal a car. Now that should
5:48
have been their only charges, but
5:50
the investigators going off of their
5:52
suspicions somehow managed to get two
5:55
confessions from both men claiming that
5:57
they had raped and killed a
5:59
number of women and children. This
6:02
has been a controversy since many
6:04
accused the police of quote unquote
6:06
infringement of legality while the two
6:09
men were being interrogated two more
6:11
bodies popped up so that's of
6:13
course he never yeah no he's
6:16
never stopping no now the infringement
6:18
of legality is that just a
6:20
fancy word for saying you bully
6:23
the confessions out of them yeah
6:25
I guess so that could probably
6:27
be it like a wrongful confession
6:30
confession Yeah. On October 27th, Andre
6:32
killed 19-year-old Bearestev Cohen, and on
6:34
December 27th, he killed a 14-year-old
6:37
boy named Sergei Markov. He stabbed
6:39
him more than 70 times and
6:41
sawed off his genitals with a
6:44
knife. God damn! So horrible! Geez!
6:46
So then, police brought in two
6:48
more guys from the same mentally
6:51
handicap hostile name Tapkin and Pana
6:53
Marov. Again, both men confessed quickly.
6:55
Of course, there were doubts once
6:58
again about how police extracted the
7:00
confessions. Wrapping up at the end
7:02
of 1983, Andre had taken the
7:05
lives of 17 people. However, only
7:07
six bodies had been recovered. This
7:10
was a huge concern for the
7:12
central Moscow militia as they were
7:14
alarmed by the number of dead
7:17
children that had surfaced. Oh, do
7:19
you think, right? Yeah, all these,
7:21
this is terrible. If I lived
7:24
in this community, I'd be like,
7:26
what the hell is the police
7:28
doing? Right? Yeah, beating people into
7:31
confessing bullshit? Yeah. Trying to sweep
7:33
everything under the rug and make
7:35
it easy for them. Do some
7:38
fucking footwork. Yeah, exactly. Like you
7:40
get these... confessions, these wrongful confessions
7:42
out of people and the killings
7:45
don't stop because you've got the
7:47
wrong fucking person. Yeah, you're trying
7:49
to make it so easy for
7:52
you. Right. That's all you're doing.
7:54
A new team was sent to
7:56
Rostov to take over the investigation,
7:59
which was headed by Major Michael
8:01
Fettisoff and his team. And after
8:03
reviewing all of the findings so
8:06
far, they confirmed that all six
8:08
murders were the work of the
8:10
same sex-crazed killer. While Moscow Headquarters
8:13
reluctantly accepted these findings, they weren't
8:15
about to begin calling the suspect
8:17
a serial killer just yet. After
8:20
all, this type of behavior was
8:22
simply not possible in Russian culture,
8:24
or so they thought. Police took
8:27
the samples of semen. which had
8:29
been taken from the victims
8:31
and it showed that the
8:33
killer had type AB blood.
8:35
During the police investigation, hundreds
8:38
of suspects were brought in
8:40
for questioning. If any of
8:42
the suspects matched, they were
8:44
detained for further questioning and
8:46
those that didn't were released.
8:48
In 1984, Andre was on
8:51
a rampage. From January to
8:53
September alone, 15 new murders
8:55
had been committed. On January
8:57
9, 1984, Andre killed 17-year-old
8:59
Attalia. Jalapinnya, her body was
9:01
found the next day by workers
9:04
in Aviators Park. Her body was
9:06
covered in stab wounds and her
9:08
nose and upper lip had been
9:11
cut off as well as one
9:13
of the fingers on her left
9:15
hand. On February 1st, Andre killed
9:18
a 44-year-old woman named Marta Rabidjanko.
9:20
Five days later, police arrested a
9:22
man named Beskorski. who was not
9:25
far from the scene of the
9:27
crime. He too was slightly mentally
9:29
handicapped and had been taken in
9:32
after allegedly raping a tramp in
9:34
the woods nearby. And even though
9:36
there wasn't any solid evidence against
9:39
him, the coincidence was too great
9:41
for the police. As a result,
9:43
Bess Corsi was arrested with two
9:45
murders, which he had confessed to,
9:48
just like the four other people
9:50
before him. That were all innocent.
9:52
Yes. Then, just the same as
9:55
the others before him, he later
9:57
withdrew his confession claiming it was
9:59
obtained. while under duress. However, by
10:01
that time, he was already in
10:04
jail and it was too late.
10:06
But then, a month later, another
10:08
killing took place. Andre killed a
10:11
10-year-old boy named FEMA Pashnikov on
10:13
March 24th, and his body had
10:15
a crazy number of stab wounds,
10:18
54 altogether, on a 10-year-old boy.
10:20
and this made the police realize
10:22
the killer was still on the
10:25
loose. No shit Sherlock. Yeah. You
10:27
know you didn't get the right
10:29
confession. However, this time they found
10:32
a piece of evidence not far
10:34
from the body. A footprint found
10:36
in the muddy ground. It wasn't
10:39
much as it was an incomplete
10:41
print, but they could tell it
10:43
belonged to someone who wore a
10:46
large-sized shoe. His next murder was
10:48
an interesting one. Andre usually only
10:50
dealt with children and women who
10:53
were prostitutes, drugs, or druggies. Not
10:55
only that, but they were always
10:57
spontaneous kills. But at this time,
11:00
though, this time he made plans
11:02
to meet with his former mistress,
11:04
32-year-old Tanya Petrosian, and her 11-year-old
11:07
daughter, Petrosian. And this was on
11:09
May 25th. After getting off the
11:11
train together, the three walked for
11:14
about 10 minutes, closer to the
11:16
woods, Andre, coaxed Tanya to lay
11:18
down with him, and Spetta got
11:21
the hints. She began making her
11:23
way further into the woods to
11:25
leave them alone and to play.
11:28
And then, when alone, the two
11:30
began getting intimate. However, when they
11:32
tried to have intercourse, Andre couldn't
11:35
perform, just like he hadn't been
11:37
able to all those years before.
11:39
Except this time, Tanya made a
11:42
fateful mistake by beginning to mock
11:44
his impotence. Oh, dear. Yeah, right.
11:47
He reached into his bag, produced
11:49
a large knife, and he plunged
11:51
it right into the side of
11:54
her head. She began screaming, but
11:56
he didn't stop. He then started
11:58
beating her to death with a...
12:01
hammer. Obviously her daughter came running
12:03
but Andre had been waiting for
12:05
her. As soon as she approached
12:08
the scene of the crime Andrea
12:10
attacked her in the same manner
12:12
he did it her mother first
12:15
by stabbing and then by bludgening
12:17
with the hammer. It wasn't until
12:19
July 5th that the police would
12:22
find Spetta's decomposed body at least
12:24
most of it. Her head had
12:26
been completely severed off and it
12:29
lay in the undergrowth about five
12:31
yards away. Three weeks later Tanya's
12:33
body would be found in the
12:36
dense undergrowth. but only because people
12:38
picnicking in the area complained of
12:40
an awful smell. In June, Andre
12:43
killed 22-year-old Jalena. In July, he
12:45
killed 13-year-old boy named Dima Elarjanov
12:47
on the 10th, and he killed
12:50
a 19-year-old girl named Anna Lemaseva
12:52
on the 19th. and a 20-year-old
12:54
girl named Svetta, Sanna sometime in
12:57
July. At some point during the
12:59
summer months, he was fired from
13:01
his job for theft of property.
13:04
Andre started a new job in
13:06
Rostov on August 1st. He was
13:08
no longer just a supply clerk,
13:11
but head of a department with
13:13
five people working below him. And
13:15
this was a good change for
13:18
him, seeing as the bustling city
13:20
life helped him to blend into
13:22
the crowd. Plus, the two-hour train
13:25
ride it took from his home
13:27
and shockty to his new job
13:29
in Rostov gave him a good
13:32
excuse to come home late. Sometimes
13:34
he wouldn't come home at all,
13:36
claiming he had missed the last
13:39
train. He ended up spending some
13:41
of the nights in the main
13:43
railway station hunting for new victims.
13:46
He took advantage of his time.
13:48
Andre killed a 16- Andre killed
13:50
a 16-year-old girl named Natasha Golasova
13:53
on August 2nd while on a
13:55
business trip to Uzbekistan. A 17-year-old
13:57
girl named Lota Alex Deva on
14:00
August 7th. She suffered 39/wounds before
14:02
he mutilated and disembarkated. fouled her.
14:04
Her body was found the next
14:07
day with her upper lip inside
14:09
of her mouth. An unknown woman
14:11
between the 8th and the 11th,
14:14
a 12-year-old girl named Akmarel Shada
14:16
Shaba on August 13th, and a
14:18
boy named Sasha Chappelle on August
14:21
28th, and a 24-year-old girl named
14:23
Irena Loshinka on September 6th. That
14:25
is so busy, I can't even
14:28
believe, and how he would just
14:30
mutilate their bodies. And how is
14:32
he not getting caught? This is
14:35
the, probably denial, you know, oh
14:37
we don't have serial killers? Yeah,
14:39
grow up. Yeah, that's part of
14:42
it, right? Yes. Like some of
14:44
this stuff I'm thinking it's in
14:46
public. It's in public. People would
14:49
have, there has to be witnesses.
14:51
There has to be. So, well,
14:53
on September. 13th, two undercover detectives
14:56
roamed around the bus station dressed
14:58
as normal everyday people and watched
15:00
everyone talking to everyone. It didn't
15:03
take long for them to notice
15:05
Andre who they noticed would start
15:07
combos with random women. They also
15:10
noted that he had some gray
15:12
hair, which matched that found at
15:14
the crime scene. They began following
15:17
him into town and saw how
15:19
he approached all types of different
15:21
women. Most importantly, they saw him
15:24
play with himself in random public
15:26
places. We got our boy. We
15:28
got our guy right here. Yeah,
15:31
amen. They eventually approached him and
15:33
they arrested him on September 14th.
15:35
During his search, the police found
15:38
a knife with an eight inch
15:40
blade, bundles of rope, and a
15:42
jar of Vaseline. We got our
15:45
guy. Yeah, right? Once at the
15:47
police station, Andre's history painted an
15:49
unfortunate picture for him. They learned
15:52
all they needed to know to
15:54
be suspicious. Not to mention, he
15:56
was also suspected of robbing one
15:59
of his previous employers, which allowed
16:01
them to keep his... them detained
16:03
longer. They decided to draw his
16:06
blood in order to try and
16:08
match it to the six seaman
16:10
samples that they had collected. Unfortunately,
16:13
Andre's blood type came back as
16:15
type A, while the semen samples
16:17
were type A-B. What the investigators
16:20
didn't know at the time was
16:22
that Andre had an extremely rare
16:24
condition, a rare genetic condition. He
16:27
was a non-secretor, which meant that
16:29
while his blood and saliva samples
16:31
were type A, his semen was
16:34
type A-B. Since they didn't have
16:36
the modern day DNA DNA testing
16:38
I do today. they could never
16:41
make the connection. And so that
16:43
made Andre no longer a main
16:45
priority. And the only real evidence
16:48
that they had left were the
16:50
contents of his briefcase and the
16:52
police report of his activities at
16:55
the train station. Incredibly, the knife
16:57
and other items were lost when
16:59
a local police lieutenant mishandled them
17:02
by mistake. Having insufficient evidence to
17:04
charge him for the murders, he
17:06
was later charged with the stealing
17:09
offenses and sentenced to one year
17:11
in prison and kicked out of
17:13
the communist party. After only serving
17:16
three months of his original sentence,
17:18
Drey was released on December 12th,
17:20
1984, and he started a new
17:23
job in a locomotive factory in
17:25
nearby Novachersik, just as he was
17:27
used to, this position also required
17:30
him to travel. Kostoyev, director of
17:32
Moscow's department for violent crime, aka
17:34
the killer department, he took over
17:37
the case, which was reorganized into
17:39
three separate teams of investigators. One
17:41
focused on Shakti, the second on
17:44
Rostov, and the third, Novoshaktant. Their
17:46
plan was to investigate each murder
17:48
while focusing on the surrounding areas
17:51
of each one. Now Andre lay
17:53
low for a little while before
17:55
he struck again in the...
17:58
summer of 1985.
18:00
On August 1st,
18:02
1985, Andre killed
18:05
an 18 -year -old
18:07
girl named Natasha
18:09
Pashlostova during a business trip to
18:11
Moscow. He had lured her off
18:13
the train with the promise of
18:15
something to smoke, which she had
18:17
approached him for and tried to
18:20
have sex. When he couldn't perform,
18:22
he stabbed her 38 times before
18:24
finally strangling her. When he was
18:26
done, he covered her with the
18:28
green raincoat she had been wearing
18:30
and left her in the woods.
18:32
And she was found the next
18:34
day by a man picking mushrooms.
18:36
On October 27th, Andre killed an
18:38
18 -year -old named Irina Gul
18:40
Yayeva. She was a
18:42
vagrant with no place to go. They
18:44
had met at the bus station
18:46
and he offered her to stay at
18:48
his cottage. Of course, that cottage
18:50
didn't exist and she became his next
18:53
victim. He left her naked body
18:55
about 500 yards from the bus stop.
18:57
Now come December, the police organized
18:59
for all of the trains in the
19:01
three districts to be patrolled by
19:03
officers in plain clothes. They had instructions
19:05
to stop and check the documents
19:07
of anyone who looked suspicious to them.
19:09
Little did they know that Andre used
19:11
his credentials as a freelance employer
19:13
of the Department of Internal Affairs
19:15
and had been helping the militia
19:17
as they patrolled the trains. He
19:19
now knew to kill in different
19:21
areas, but also to take a
19:23
little break, which he did and
19:25
he didn't kill for all of
19:27
1986. Wow, that must have been
19:29
really hard for him. I would
19:31
think so that struggle because if
19:33
you're like mass killing that you
19:36
are bloodlust, you can't get enough.
19:38
I'm sure, yeah, I'm sure it's
19:40
adrenaline. He's like probably an
19:42
adrenaline junkie. You know, he's probably
19:44
the rush of it. I mean, I'm
19:46
sure it was really hard. It's
19:48
probably probably similar to like being addicted
19:50
to drugs for him. That's what
19:52
I didn't think that's what I compare
19:55
it to too. Just from the
19:57
search alone, the police turned out 5
19:59
,845 men with previous 10,000 potentially dangerous
20:01
mentally ill people are
20:04
119 homosexuals, 163 drivers.
20:06
They managed to solve
20:08
1,060 crimes including 95
20:10
murders and 45 rapes,
20:12
140 cases of serious
20:15
bodily harm. So back
20:17
in this time, and
20:19
I don't even know
20:21
really if it's true
20:23
today, but back in.
20:26
that these men would
20:28
be punished for homosexual
20:31
acts. So, three more murders
20:33
were recorded in 1987. On
20:35
May 16th, during a trip
20:37
to the town of Reveda in
20:39
the Euro Mountains, he killed
20:41
a 13-year-old boy named Olag
20:43
Makarankov. During another trip to
20:46
Zaprowzi in the Ukraine, Andre
20:48
killed a 12-year-old boy named
20:50
Ivan Bolitski. on July 29th.
20:52
The attack was so brutal
20:54
that a part of his
20:56
knife blade broke off and
20:58
was later found at the
21:00
scene by police. Later in
21:02
court, the mother would say
21:04
the following, The day I
21:06
buried my son, I gave
21:09
him my word that I would try
21:11
to live long enough to see his
21:13
killer with my own eyes. I wanted
21:16
to see the man who could rip
21:18
open my son's stomach and then stuffed
21:20
mud in his mouth so that he
21:22
would not cry out. I want to
21:25
know what he looked like to know
21:27
which mother could bear such an animal
21:29
and now I see him. Wow, that's
21:32
pretty powerful. Yeah, that is. Then during
21:34
a trip to Leningrad on September 15th,
21:36
Andre killed a 16-year-old boy named Jora
21:39
Zarathas Sadak. The investigators were stumped.
21:41
They could see why prostitutes and
21:43
the like would go off with
21:45
the killer. but they couldn't understand
21:47
the young children. Why did they
21:50
follow him and what did he
21:52
say? Then again, he presented himself
21:54
as an educated, ill-dressed man who
21:56
would sympathize with their situation, whatever
21:58
it may be. On April 6,
22:01
1988, the police found the body
22:03
of an unidentified 12 -year -old girl who
22:05
had been killed two to five
22:07
days earlier. Then, on May 14, Andre
22:09
killed a nine -year -old boy named
22:11
Loja Veronco. Then exactly two months later,
22:13
he killed a 15 -year -old boy
22:16
named Zaneza Morotov. This case was a
22:18
puzzle to police. They couldn't understand
22:20
why this boy would go off with
22:22
the killer so willingly. He wasn't
22:24
a runaway or a likely suspect. Later
22:26
on after the case was over,
22:29
a Rostov psychiatrist cruised the streets as
22:31
a middle -aged, solidly built man and
22:33
tried to lure children in his
22:35
car with the promise of food or
22:37
drink. He was shocked and horrified
22:39
at the number of children that accepted
22:42
his offer and willingly climbed into
22:44
the passenger seat to head to an
22:46
unknown destination. They found the boy's
22:48
bones eight months later. More than seven
22:50
months later, Andre would kill again.
22:52
He was at the railway station
22:54
when he saw a 16 -year -old Tatiana
22:57
Reziova with her dirty clothes, her
22:59
unkempt hair, and of course, the smell
23:01
of alcohol on her. He approached
23:03
her and offered her food and drink,
23:05
knowing that he had his daughter's
23:07
keys to her empty apartment. She had
23:10
recently gotten a divorce and Andre
23:12
was in charge of trying to swap
23:14
the apartment with two smaller ones
23:16
so his daughter and son -in -law could
23:18
live separate lives. Once at the
23:20
apartment, Andre offered her some vodka before
23:23
seducing her. He couldn't perform once
23:25
again, which made the girl get loud
23:27
so he pulled out a knife
23:29
and stabbed her in the mouth. He
23:31
then violated her body. He knew
23:33
he had to dispose of the body,
23:36
but it would be tricky trying
23:38
to get her out of the
23:40
flat, so he decided to take a
23:42
knife from the kitchen and start
23:44
sawing off her head and limbs. He
23:46
then wrapped her in rags and
23:49
pieces of clothing and put her in
23:51
the cellar while he finished cleaning
23:53
up the blood. Then he went and
23:55
found a sled outside, which he
23:57
tied the girl's remains to. moving
24:00
her away from the house, but once
24:02
he neared the railway crossing, he got
24:04
the sled stuck. A passerby started... coming
24:07
towards him, which made him panic. However,
24:09
the other man simply bent down and
24:11
helped him lift the sled over the
24:14
track. Once the man disappeared from out
24:16
of sight, Andre began to stuff the
24:18
body parts into some large pipes that
24:21
ran near the railway, and her body
24:23
was found nine days later. By this
24:25
time, everything pointed to the railway, whether
24:28
it was that victims were found close
24:30
or that... They were last seen
24:32
alive at the railway. They began
24:35
manning the railways with plainclothes investigators
24:37
times and upwards of 5 to
24:39
600 officers patrolling. Some were acting
24:41
like passengers while others were in
24:44
the surrounding woods pretending to pick
24:46
mushrooms, which was a favorite Russian
24:48
pastime. Some of the women were
24:51
posing as prostitutes, but he never
24:53
took the bait. When he was
24:55
interviewed after his capture, Andre made
24:57
clear that he never set out
25:00
in search of specifically a man
25:02
or a woman. If the victim
25:04
turned out to be an adult
25:06
woman, all was well. But it
25:08
was just as good if it
25:10
was a prepubescent girl or a
25:12
14-year-old boy. He was the ultimate
25:14
opportunist. The main thing for him
25:16
was to kill. On May 11th,
25:18
1989, Andre was shopping on the
25:20
edge of town when he first
25:22
saw an eight-year-old boy named Sasha
25:24
Jack. Nakanov. He was in his
25:26
school uniform and he was walking
25:28
alongside the main road. Normally, he
25:30
would lure the boy somewhere, but his
25:33
desire was so strong that he merely
25:35
waited for the boy to be covered
25:37
by a row of bushes. And once
25:39
he was, Andre jumped up from behind
25:42
him and began stabbing him. The bustle
25:44
of the city covered the boy screams.
25:46
He left the boy just 20 yards
25:48
from the road, but even then he
25:51
wasn't found till 55. Wow, did you
25:53
say his name was... Jackinoff? Mm-hmm. That's
25:55
a lot of, I think they're yachinoff.
25:58
I think the J, the DJ. might
26:00
be a yuck, I'm not sure,
26:02
or jia. I know I'm like,
26:04
what? What? What did I just
26:07
hear? Yeah. So then he killed
26:09
a 10 year old boy named
26:11
Losia, Mojes, on June 20th, teen
26:13
89. And I'm going to tell
26:16
you right now, these Russian and
26:18
Ukrainian names are very hard to
26:20
sound out. Right. Like a little
26:22
compassion of my pronunciation. I know
26:24
I'm like, oh, some of these
26:27
are just, oh. I gotta edit
26:29
that. Yeah. On August 19th, 1989,
26:31
Andre was waiting at a bus
26:33
stop on his way to celebrate
26:36
his father's birthday party when he
26:38
saw a 19-year-old, Yelena Varga. He
26:40
offered to walk her home and
26:42
on the way he lured her
26:45
into the woods where he began
26:47
stabbing her. After cutting out her
26:49
uterus and slicing up. Part of
26:51
her face, he wrapped what was
26:54
left of her in clothing and
26:56
left for the party. On August
26:58
28th, 1989, Andre met a 10-year-old
27:00
boy named Aliosa Chabata, who was
27:02
fascinated by horror films. Of course,
27:05
Andre used that knowledge to his
27:07
advantage. Andre told the boy he
27:09
could show him some great horror
27:11
films and asked him to come
27:14
with him to see. What's crazy
27:16
about this murder is Andre was
27:18
originally planning to commit suicide due
27:20
to his bouts of depression, so
27:23
he had actually dug a grave
27:25
for himself in Rostov Cemetery earlier
27:27
that week. And instead, he ended
27:29
up leading this boy to it.
27:32
And after hitting the boy in
27:34
the head, he jumped on the
27:36
boy and began attacking him. He
27:38
bit off his tongue and cut
27:41
off his sexual organs, and then
27:43
he threw the boy in the
27:45
pit and covered it with dirt.
27:47
The body wasn't found until well
27:49
after... Andre was eventually arrested. As
27:52
time went on police recovered more
27:54
and more bodies with missing body
27:56
parts. Most females were missing their
27:58
uterus and nipples while the males
28:01
were missing their genitals and sometimes
28:03
had their tongue sliced or bitten
28:05
off completely. Andre and his killings
28:07
were evolving and truly becoming so
28:10
much worse with the passing days.
28:12
Police learned that their killer enjoyed
28:14
intensifying the suffering of victims by
28:16
performing little operations on them while
28:19
they were still alive. Photographs in
28:21
the files of the investigators showed
28:23
the state of the corpse after
28:25
each were found. Even those that
28:27
were fresh were virtually unrecognizable as
28:30
a result. not just of stabbing
28:32
and slashing, but of deep wounds
28:34
in the belly through which he
28:36
extracted their internal organs. By now
28:39
his knowledge of human anatomy was
28:41
such that he knew what they
28:43
were, which he wanted, and exactly
28:45
where to cut in order to
28:48
get at them most easily. The
28:50
agony of his victims must have
28:52
been incredible. Many must have died
28:54
literally of shock as the crazed
28:57
surgeon made his incisions, said the
28:59
investigators. Another part of his routine
29:01
became him cutting off and chewing
29:03
on the genitals. He didn't swallow,
29:05
but it doesn't matter at this
29:08
point. He was obsessed with uterus
29:10
and got really good at cutting
29:12
them out. Quote, I did not
29:14
want to bite them so much
29:17
as chew them. Andre later said,
29:19
They were so beautiful and elastic.
29:21
This is like an ant, like
29:23
you can't hardly hear the fucking
29:26
words out of his mouth. I
29:28
know, what the hell. I am
29:30
so disturbed by the story, I'm
29:32
speechless. As it was just at
29:35
the end of the 20th century,
29:37
the 1900s. I mean, this is
29:39
just right in our backyards. Yeah,
29:41
exactly. So in 1990 marked the
29:43
last year. Finally, of Andre's freedom,
29:46
and he definitely has lived it
29:48
up by killing eight more people.
29:50
On January 14th, he killed 11-year-old
29:52
boy named Andrei Cropchenko, a 10-year-old
29:55
boy named... Marzalov, Mark Kharov, Markarov,
29:57
on March 7th, a 31-year-old woman
29:59
named Lobov Zoyeva, in April, a
30:01
13-year-old boy named Vida Petrov, on
30:04
July 28th, an 11-year-old boy named
30:06
Ivan Fomen, on August. 14th, a
30:08
16-year-old boy named Vadem Gromov on
30:10
October 17th, a 16-year-old boy named
30:13
Vida Chichinko on October 30th. Andre
30:15
would later describe the murder of...
30:17
that in Gromov to be among
30:19
his most brutal killings. Konradi writes,
30:21
after they had gone on for
30:24
some 300 yards together, he suddenly
30:26
began to shake and to feel
30:28
sexually aroused. Taking the boy completely
30:30
by surprise, he jumped on him
30:33
from behind and forced him to
30:35
the ground, ripping off his trousers.
30:37
As his victim lay pinned on
30:39
his face, Andre stripped off his
30:42
own trousers and under pants, and
30:44
he rubbed his penis against Gromov's
30:46
buttocks until he ejaculated. At that
30:48
moment, with the last ounce of
30:51
his energy, the boy tried to
30:53
escape. Andre was too fast and
30:55
too strong. Taking a length of
30:57
rope from his bag, he tied
31:00
the boy's hands and turning him
31:02
onto his back, began to strip
31:04
off the rest of his clothes.
31:06
Then, as the animal in him
31:08
took over, he bit off the
31:11
tip of the boy's tongue and
31:13
began to strike at him wildly
31:15
in the head and stomach with
31:17
his knife. Gromov died within second...
31:20
and in a gruesome finale, Andre
31:22
took the blade and cut off
31:24
his genitals, tossing them away into
31:26
the undergrowth. As the euphoria faded,
31:29
he untied the hands, removed the
31:31
few scraps of clothing still left
31:33
on him, and dragged the naked
31:35
body off to the bushes where
31:38
he covered it with leaves. He
31:40
used the clothes to clean the
31:42
blood of his hands, then they
31:44
too. were tossed into the bushes.
31:46
After straightening his own clothes, he
31:49
left as calmly as he had
31:51
arrived, going back to the station
31:53
and taking the train home to
31:55
Novo. The police took their policing
31:58
to the next level and used
32:00
all of the officers they had
32:02
to man. every bus stop and
32:04
train station across all the usual
32:07
killing areas. I'm going to say
32:09
maybe post some officers in the
32:11
fucking underbrush. Yeah. That he keeps
32:13
throwing things in. I know, right?
32:16
Yeah, that might be a good
32:18
spot. The undergrowth, yes. They were
32:20
forced to suspect anyone and anything
32:22
and asked for information immediately upon
32:24
first interaction. So it made things
32:27
even worse when Andre managed to
32:29
kill yet again. Lastly on November
32:31
6. Andre killed a 22-year-old woman
32:33
named Svetlana Karostek. She went with
32:36
him to the woods near Les
32:38
Kaus Station and was beaten, stabbed,
32:40
mutilated and missing her genitals. Andre
32:42
removed the tip of her tongue
32:45
and both nipples and ate them
32:47
at the scene before he covered
32:49
her naked body with leaves and
32:51
branches. And as he returned to
32:54
the dull Les Kaus Station, an
32:56
officer spotted Andre coming out of
32:58
the woods. He was a middle-age
33:00
man. probably in his feet, wearing
33:02
a gray suit, tie, glasses, and
33:05
carrying a bag with a shoulder
33:07
strap. At the opposite end of
33:09
the platform, there was a water
33:11
hydrant, which the man stopped to
33:14
use to clean himself up. Now,
33:16
this wasn't all too unusual because,
33:18
like I said before, mushroom picking
33:20
in these parts as a big,
33:23
you know, you know, people were
33:25
doing it, and they would often
33:27
come out looking dirty and stopping
33:29
at the hydrant to clean up.
33:32
However, as the officer Rybakov... got
33:34
closer to the man in question.
33:36
He noticed a bandage on the
33:38
man's fingers along with a red
33:41
stain on his cheek. Rivokov approached
33:43
the man and asked for his
33:45
papers. And wouldn't you know it?
33:47
It was Andre. Of course, this
33:49
officer didn't know anything about Andre
33:52
or his past run-ins with the
33:54
law. in relation to this case.
33:56
He took down the name and
33:58
later after leaving his post at
34:01
the station he wrote a report
34:03
about this encounter with Andre. Now
34:05
who knows what happened to that
34:07
report. On November 13th 40 police
34:10
officers and 20 dogs combed the
34:12
nearby area. only to find that
34:14
Spetta's body was there. Officers were
34:16
blown away as that meant that
34:19
Andre had to have slipped past
34:21
their men at the station. This
34:23
made them go back and look
34:25
at the reports, and that's when
34:27
they found the write-up about the
34:30
last Andre encounter, and they began
34:32
to follow him. So on November
34:34
20th, Andre left work to have
34:36
his finger checked out by a
34:39
doctor, which he had gotten when
34:41
one of his victims bit his
34:43
finger. nearby clinic he left with
34:45
a broken finger. Not long after
34:48
arriving home he took off again
34:50
to have a beer but on
34:52
his way he couldn't help but
34:54
to talk to a young boy
34:57
he saw. However the young boy
34:59
was scared off when a woman
35:01
approached the two of them. He
35:03
continued to walk down the road
35:05
until he bumped into another young
35:08
boy whom he started a conversation
35:10
with. This young boy was eventually
35:12
called away by his mother. And
35:14
this didn't seem to sway Andre
35:17
because he just kept on his
35:19
way scoping out potential victims. Oh
35:21
yeah, because he will kill anybody,
35:23
so it doesn't matter. After he's
35:26
already been pulled in for questioning
35:28
and that didn't stop, only stopped
35:30
him for a year, he won't
35:32
be stopped. Yes, you're right. That's
35:35
when three men in leather jackets
35:37
walked up to him and identified
35:39
themselves as police. He was then
35:41
handcuffed and arrested and during the
35:43
search of his person, police found
35:46
that the briefcase Andre had been...
35:48
carrying with him had a knife,
35:50
a length of rope, and a
35:52
jar of Vaseline inside. After a
35:55
thorough search of his apartment, police
35:57
found 23 knives, a hammer, and
35:59
a pair of shoes which were
36:01
later found to match the footprint
36:04
next to one found by a
36:06
previous victim. It took five days
36:08
of interrogating Andre before the police
36:10
got anything from him. He wasn't
36:13
saying much of anything at all
36:15
until psychiatrist Alexander Bukkinovsky sat down
36:17
with him and made Andre think
36:19
he was trying to understand the
36:22
mind of serial killer. After all,
36:24
this psychiatrist had worked tirelessly with
36:26
police and created... an entire profile
36:28
on the kind of killer Andre
36:30
was. Of course Andre was intrigued
36:33
by this attention, but once the
36:35
man began reading, Andre had never
36:37
felt so seen or heard in
36:39
his life. This man he had
36:42
just met began reading what Andre
36:44
couldn't believe described him to the
36:46
T. Andre ended up breaking down
36:48
and telling the psychiatrist everything he
36:51
was guilty of. The police had
36:53
only only originally suspected him of
36:55
36 murders, so they were quite
36:57
surprised to learn that he was
37:00
actually responsible for 56 murders. Afterward,
37:02
the psychiatrist deemed Andre to... fit
37:04
to stand trial. April 14th 1992
37:06
marked the very first day of
37:08
Andre's trial. He was held in
37:11
an iron cage so as to
37:13
keep him away from the jury
37:15
and while in there he would
37:17
randomly burst into song ramble on
37:20
and gibberish and even pull down
37:22
his pants to expose himself. I
37:24
can only imagine this show. Can
37:26
you imagine? Can you imagine? Okay,
37:29
we're watching court TV and it's
37:31
some, you know, crazy as trial
37:33
and then they bring this guy
37:35
in in a fucking cage and
37:38
then he just starts singing and
37:40
he pulls his pants down and
37:42
come on man. Oh my God,
37:44
can you imagine if you and
37:46
I were sitting in juries? I
37:49
would look at you like, this
37:51
motherfucker. Are you seeing this? Yeah,
37:53
what the fuck? But through all
37:55
that, he seemed to show no
37:58
remorse for his actions whatsoever. And
38:00
if anything, he seemed to be
38:02
proud of what he had done.
38:05
While on the saint while on
38:07
the stand, Dre himself said the
38:09
following, I was like a crazed
38:12
wolf. I just turned into a
38:14
beast into a wild animal." Unquote.
38:16
On October 15th, 1992, Andrei was
38:19
found guilty of 52 counts of
38:21
murder, one charge having been dropped
38:23
due to insufficient evidence. The 53
38:26
deaths ended up being 18 women,
38:28
14 girls, and 21 boys. On
38:30
February 14th, 1994, Andrei Romenovich,
38:33
Chickatillo, was executed by
38:35
a single shot to
38:37
the back of the
38:39
head. the only sentence that he
38:41
deserves, the judge stated. And
38:44
that is the story of
38:46
Andre Chickatillo. Yeah, girl, this
38:48
one was messed up. I
38:50
think this is one of
38:53
the most horrible stories I've
38:55
ever heard. Operating while victims
38:57
are still alive, the mutilation
39:00
of the body? Come on.
39:02
Yeah, like... What the fuck? You
39:04
gotta, and then the, just like the
39:06
whole chewing on body parts. Yeah, like
39:08
what the fuck is that? Yeah, why
39:11
do you, like tips of your tongue
39:13
and nipples and like, what? I don't
39:15
get, yes. I, I am, I mean,
39:17
we've talked about this a
39:19
million times, like just being fascinated
39:21
with like, how does, how does
39:24
somebody become that person? Yeah. Right.
39:26
I think they were trying to
39:28
say something about the water on
39:31
the brain, that hydrocephalus condition. I
39:33
don't know, but... I don't know.
39:35
I mean, I don't know. I'm
39:38
not, you know, obviously a doctor.
39:40
I'm not a trained professional.
39:42
Yeah. But... Nora, I'm an
39:45
excellent judger, though. I like
39:47
to speculate quite a bit. Yeah,
39:49
I just the hell. And you don't even
39:51
know where to begin with this awfulness. And
39:53
then like the police are just like fucking
39:56
it up over and over and over. They're
39:58
looking for the easy way out. let's go
40:00
to the mentally handicapped home yeah right
40:02
make every because then they don't got
40:05
to look yeah and then yeah no
40:07
let's browbeat some poor handicapped person and
40:09
force them into some confession because they're
40:11
terrified and then yes and then all
40:14
surprise the killings continue oh yeah I
40:16
just I don't know this was messed
40:18
up and I don't I don't think
40:20
I don't think I've ever heard this
40:23
story I don't remember this awfulness I
40:25
know, I don't remember this. You think
40:27
this would have made news? Yes. I
40:30
was in 1980s, I guess I was
40:32
just hitting my head in the sand.
40:34
I was in high school and shaking.
40:36
High school in college? Yeah, I was
40:39
over in Germany. I had no idea
40:41
because I'm looking at like when he
40:43
was found guilty in 1992. I was
40:45
still in the service. So I have
40:48
no idea what's going on. I know
40:50
I'm in college, just living my life,
40:52
I guess. Yeah, you know, it's crazy
40:54
though, but. Thank you very much for
40:57
that story that her work, those victims,
40:59
it's just so sad. It is, you
41:01
know, I just, it's very, very terrible.
41:03
And his pictures of him are unsettling.
41:06
The ones that I have posted, you
41:08
know, with the story notes. Yeah. Do
41:10
you see his eyes? Like, yes. You
41:12
ever look at someone and just, you're
41:15
confident you can see the crazy and
41:17
at least one of the eyes. Yeah,
41:19
yeah. Yeah, definitely. He's got that look
41:21
disturbing. Yeah, definitely. So well, again, thank
41:24
you and thank you everyone for listening.
41:26
And if you haven't done so already,
41:28
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you get like I said is one
41:48
new episode a week in addition to
41:51
this one that we offer to the
41:53
and you also get
41:55
all of the episodes
41:57
that we we that we
42:00
the public. They
42:02
are the -free and you
42:04
get them early
42:06
released. and you get them episodes.
42:09
that's over 500 episodes so you can
42:11
it is. It's
42:13
a it is it's a trove.
42:15
Treasure trove trove pressure trove
42:18
so anyway we'll thank
42:20
you again again our
42:22
next episode. Until our next
42:24
time, next time, Love ya. I'll
42:26
talk to you. Talk to
42:28
you. I'll talk to you. Talk to you. Bye.
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