Andrei Chikatilo’s 1984 murder of schoolboy Aleksandr Chepel recounted

Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo, known as the “Butcher of Rostov,” was a cannibal serial killer responsible for more than 50 murders across the former USSR. One of his most notorious crimes occurred in August 1984 when he killed 11‑year‑old schoolboy Aleksandr Chepel near the River Don. The boy’s body was found naked, strangled, castrated and with his eyes gouged out, a sight that caused his father to collapse on seeing the corpse.

Chikatilo had previously murdered 17‑year‑old Lyuda Alexseyeva, inflicting non‑fatal wounds before killing her. He was first detained after plain‑clothes officers saw him approaching women at a Rostov bus station. Early forensic tests misidentified his blood type, initially excluding him from the investigation. He eventually confessed after a psychiatrist, Dr. Alexandr Bukhanovsky, interviewed him, marking the first psychiatric involvement in a Soviet serial‑killer case. Chikatilo was later executed for his crimes.