title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: While his family had no links to the independence movement then taking shape, among his teachers at Harish Chandra High School was an intensely patriotic and highly respected teacher named Nishkameshwar Prasad Mishra, who gave Shastri much-needed financial support by allowing him to tutor his children. Inspired by Mishra's patriotism, Shastri took a deep interest in the freedom struggle, and began to study its history and the works of several of its noted personalities, including those of Swami Vivekananda, Mahatma Gandhi and Annie Besant. In January 1921, when Shastri was in the 10th standard and three months from sitting the final examinations, he attended a public meeting in Benares hosted by Gandhi and Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya. Inspired by the Mahatma's call for students to withdraw from government schools and join the non-cooperation movement, Shastri withdrew from Harish Chandra High School the next day and joined the local branch of the Congress Party as a volunteer, actively participating in picketing and anti-government demonstrations. He was soon arrested and jailed, but was then let off as he was still a minor.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri's immediate supervisor was a former Benares Hindu University lecturer named J.B. Kripalani, who would become one of the most prominent leaders of the Indian independence movement and one among Gandhi's closest followers. Recognising the need for the younger volunteers to continue their educations, Kripalani and a friend, V.N. Sharma, had founded an informal school centered around "nationalist education" to educate the young activists in their nation's heritage and with the support of a wealthy philanthropist and ardent Congress nationalist, Shiv Prasad Gupta, the Kashi Vidyapith was inaugurated by Gandhi in Benares as a national institution of higher education on 10 February 1921. Among the first students of the new institution, Shastri graduated with a first-class degree in philosophy and ethics from the Vidyapith in 1925. He was given the title "Shastri" ("scholar"). The title was a bachelor's degree awarded by the institution but it stuck as part of his name.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri enrolled himself as a life member of the Servants of the People Society (Lok Sevak Mandal), founded by Lala Lajpat Rai, and began to work for the betterment of the Harijans under Gandhi's direction at Muzaffarpur. Later he became the President of the Society.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: In 1928 Shastri became an active and mature member of the Indian National Congress at the call of Mahatma Gandhi. He was imprisoned for two and a half years. Later, he worked as the Organizing Secretary of the Parliamentary Board of U.P. in 1937. In 1940, he was sent to prison for one year, for offering individual Satyagraha support to the independence movement.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: On 8 August 1942, Mahatma Gandhi issued the Quit India speech at Gowalia Tank in Bombay, demanding that the British leave India. Shastri, who had just then come out after a year in prison, travelled to Allahabad. For a week, he sent instructions to the independence activists from Jawaharlal Nehru's home, Anand Bhavan. He served as an elected representative for United Provinces in 1937 and 1946.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Following India's independence, Shastri was appointed Parliamentary Secretary in his home state, Uttar Pradesh. He became the Minister of Police and Transport under Govind Ballabh Pant's Chief Ministership on 15 August 1947 following Rafi Ahmed Kidwai's departure to become a minister at the centre. As the Transport Minister, he was the first to appoint women conductors. As the minister in charge of the Police Department, he ordered that police use water jets, whose instructions was given by him, instead of lathis to disperse unruly crowds. His tenure as police minister (As Home Minister was called prior to 1950) saw successful curbing of communal riots in 1947, mass migration and resettlement of refugees.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: In 1951, Shastri was made the General Secretary of the All-India Congress Committee with Jawaharlal Nehru as the prime minister. He was directly responsible for the selection of candidates and the direction of publicity and electioneering activities. He played an important role in the landslide successes of the Congress Party in the Indian General Elections of 1952, 1957 and 1962. In 1952, he successfully contested UP Vidhansabha from Soraon North cum Phulpur West seat and won by getting over 69% of vote. He was believed to be retained as home minister of UP, but in a surprise move was called to Centre as minister by Nehru. Shastri was made Minister of Railways and Transport in First Cabinet of Republic of India on 13 May 1952. He served as the Minister of Commerce and Industry in 1959 and Minister of Home Affairs in 1961. Shastri laid the foundation of Mangalore Port in 1964 as a minister without a portfolio.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Jawaharlal Nehru died in office on 27 May 1964. Then Congress Party president K. Kamaraj was instrumental in making Shastri prime minister on 9 June. Shastri, though mild-mannered and soft-spoken, was a Nehruvian socialist and thus held appeal to those wishing to prevent the ascent of conservative right-winger Morarji Desai.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri retained many members of Nehru's Council of Ministers. T. T. Krishnamachari was retained as the Finance Minister of India, as was Defence Minister Yashwantrao Chavan. He appointed Swaran Singh to succeed him as External Affairs Minister. He also appointed Indira Gandhi, daughter of Jawaharlal Nehru and former Congress President, as the Minister of Information and Broadcasting. Gulzarilal Nanda continued as the Minister of Home Affairs.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Lal Bahadur Shastri's tenure witnessed the Madras anti-Hindi agitation of 1965. The government of India had for a long time made an effort to establish Hindi as the sole national language of India. This was resisted by the non-Hindi speaking states particularly Madras State. To calm the situation, Shastri gave assurances that English would continue to be used as the official language as long the non-Hindi speaking states wanted. The riots subsided after Shastri's assurance, as did the student agitation.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri continued Nehru's socialist economic policies with central planning. He promoted the White Revolution – a national campaign to increase the production and supply of milk – by supporting the Amul milk co-operative of Anand, Gujarat and creating the National Dairy Development Board. He visited Anand on 31 October 1964 for inauguration of the Cattle Feed Factory of Amul at Kanjari. As he was keenly interested in knowing the success of this co-operative, he stayed overnight with farmers in a village, and even had dinner with a farmer's family. He discussed his wish with Verghese Kurien, then the General Manager of Kaira District Co-operative Milk Producers' Union Ltd (Amul) to replicate this model to other parts of the country for improving the socio-economic conditions of farmers. As a result of this visit, the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) was established at Anand in 1965.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: While speaking on the chronic food shortages across the country, Shastri urged people to voluntarily give up one meal so that the food saved could be distributed to the affected populace. However, he ensured that he first implemented the system in his own family before appealing to the country. He went on air to appeal to his countrymen to skip a meal a week. The response to his appeal was overwhelming. Even restaurants and eateries downed the shutters on Monday evenings. Many parts of the country observed the "Shastri Vrat". He motivated the country to maximize the cultivation of food grains by ploughing the lawn himself, at his official residence in New Delhi. During the 22-day war with Pakistan in 1965, On 19 October 1965, Shastri gave the seminal 'Jai Jawan Jai Kishan' ("Hail the soldier, Hail the farmer") slogan at Urwa in Allahabad that became a national slogan. Underlining the need to boost India's food production, Shastri also promoted the Green Revolution in India in 1965. This led to an increase in food grain production, especially in Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh. Major milestones in this undertaking were the development of high-yielding varieties of wheat, and rust resistant strains of wheat.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Though he was a socialist, Shastri stated that India cannot have a regimented type of economy. His government passed the National Agricultural Products Board Act and was responsible for setting up the Food Corporation of India under the Food Corporation's Act 1964.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: For the outstanding slogan given by him during Indo-Pak war of 1965 Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (India) commemorated Shastri even after 47 years of his death on his 48th martyr's day:


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri continued Nehru's policy of non-alignment but also built closer relations with the Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the Sino-Indian War of 1962 and the formation of military ties between China and Pakistan, Shastri's government decided to expand the country's defence budget.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: In 1964, Shastri signed an accorresponsibilities of local governments to provide adequate facilities to shelter the repatriates upon disembarkation on Indian soil. Particularly in the Madras State the Chief Minister during that time, Minjur K. Bhaktavatsalam, showed care in rehabilitation of the returnees. In December 1965, Shastri made an official visit with his family to Rangoon, Burma and re-established cordial relations with the country's military government of General Ne Win.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri's greatest moment came when he led India in the 1965 Indo-Pak War. Laying claim to half the Kutch peninsula, the Pakistani army skirmished with Indian forces in August 1965. In his report to the Lok Sabha on the confrontation in Kutch, Shastri stated:


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: On 1 August 1965, major incursions of militants and Pakistani soldiers began, hoping not only to break down the government but incite a sympathetic revolt. The revolt did not happen, and India sent its forces across the Ceasefire Line (now Line of Control) and threatened Pakistan by crossing the International Border near Lahore as war broke out on a general scale. Massive tank battles occurred in the Punjab, and while the Pakistani forces made gains in the northern part of subcontinent, Indian forces captured the key post at Haji Pir, in Kashmir, and brought the Pakistani city of Lahore under artillery and mortar fire.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: The Indo-Pak war ended on 23 September 1965 with a United Nations-mandated ceasefire. In a broadcast to the nation on the day of the ceasefire, Shastri stated:


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: During his tenure as prime minister, Shastri visited many countries including the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, England, Canada, Nepal, Egypt and Burma. In October 1964 while returning from the Non Alliance Conference in Cairo, on the invitation of the-then president of Pakistan, Mohammed Ayub Khan, to have lunch with him, Shastri made a stopover at Karachi Airport for a few hours. Breaking with protocol, Ayub Khan personally received him at the airport and they had an informal meeting. After the ceasefire with Pakistan in 1965, Shastri and Ayub Khan attended a summit in Tashkent (former USSR, now in modern Uzbekistan), organized by Alexei Kosygin. On 10 January 1966, Shastri and Ayub Khan signed the Tashkent Declaration.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri was 5 ft 2 inches tall and always used to wear "dhoti". The only occasion on which he wore "pyjamas" was dinner in honor of the Queen of the United Kingdom in 1961 in the Rashtrapati Bhavan. On 16 May 1928, Shastri married Lalita Devi who was from Mirzapur. The couple had four sons and two daughters, namely Kusum Shastri, the eldest daughter, Hari Krishna Shastri, the eldest son, Suman Shastri, whose son, Siddharth Nath Singh is a spokesman of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Minister of Health, Government of Uttar Pradesh, Anil Shastri who is a member of his father's Congress Party, his son Adarsh Shastri gave up his corporate career with Apple Inc to contest the General elections of 2014 from Allahabad on an Aam Aadmi Party ticket. He lost that election but was elected in 2015 as a member of the Delhi Legislative Assembly. Sunil Shastri who is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party and Ashok Shastri, the youngest son who worked in the corporate world before his death at the age of 37, his wife Neera Shastri was a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party national executive. Other members of the family, have also been involved in the corporate and social life of India.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri died in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (then Soviet Union) on 11 January 1966, one day after signing a peace treaty to end the 1965 Indo-Pakistan War. Many among Shastri's supporters and close relatives, refused at the time, and have refused since, to believe the circumstances of his death and allege foul play. Conspiracy theories appeared within hours of his death and have thereafter persisted. He was eulogized as a national hero and the Vijay Ghat memorial established in his memory. Upon his death, Gulzarilal Nanda once again assumed the role of acting prime minister until the Congress Party elected Indira Gandhi over Morarji Desai to officially succeed Shastri.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: After Shastri's death, his wife Lalita Shastri alleged he was poisoned. An epic poetry book in Hindi titled "Lalita Ke Aansoo" written by Krant M. L. Verma was published in 1978. In this book, the tragic story about the death of Shastri has been narrated by his wife Lalita. In 1993, journalist Gregory Douglas conducted a series of interviews with CIA officer Robert Crowley. In a book published after Crowley's death, Douglas claimed Crowley euphemistically told him the CIA had assassinated Shastri stating "And we nailed Shastri as well. Another cow-loving rag head", as well as Indian nuclear scientist Homi Bhabha thirteen days later in order to thwart the Indian nuclear programme.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: The Indian Government released no information about his death and the media then was kept silent. The possible existence of a conspiracy was covered in India by the 'Outlook' magazine. A query was later posed by Anuj Dhar, author of "CIA's Eye on South Asia", under the Right to Information Act to declassify a document supposedly related to Shastri's death, but the Prime Minister's Office refused to oblige, reportedly citing that this could lead to harming of foreign relations, cause disruption in the country and cause breach of parliamentary privileges. Another RTI plea by Kuldip Nayar was also declined, as PMO cited exemption from disclosure on the plea. The home ministry is yet to respond to queries whether India conducted a post-mortem on Shastri, and if the government had investigated allegations of foul play. The Delhi Police in their reply to an RTI application said they do not have any record pertaining to Shastri's death. The Ministry of External Affairs has already said no post-mortem was conducted in the USSR. The Central Public Information Officer of Delhi Police in his reply dated 29 July 2009 said, "No such record related to the death of the former prime minister of India Lal Bahadur Shastri is available in this district. Hence the requisite information pertaining to New Delhi district may please be treated as nil." This has created more doubts. The death of Lal Bahadur Shastri is considered to be one of the biggest unsolved mysteries of Indian politics.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: The PMO answered only two questions of the RTI application, saying it has only one classified document pertaining to the death of Shastri, which is exempted from disclosure under the RTI Act. It sent the rest of the questions to the Ministry of External Affairs and Home Ministry to answer. The MEA said the only document from the erstwhile Soviet Government is "the report of the Joint Medical Investigation conducted by a team comprising R. N. Chugh, Doctor in-Attendance to the PM and some Russian doctors" and added no post-mortem was conducted in the USSR. The Home Ministry referred the matter to Delhi Police and National Archives for the response pertaining to any post-mortem conducted on the body of Shastri in India.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri was a secularist who refused to mix religion with politics. In a public meeting held at the Ram Lila grounds in Delhi, a few days after the ceasefire, he complained about a BBC report which claimed that Shastri's identity as a Hindu meant that he was ready for a war with Pakistan. He stated:


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Kuldip Nayar, Shastri's media advisor from 1960 to 1964, recalls that, during the Quit India Movement, his daughter was ill and he was released on parole from jail. However, he could not save her life because doctors had prescribed costly drugs. Later on in 1963, on the day when he was dropped from the cabinet, he was sitting in his home in the dark, without a light. When asked about the reason, he said as he no longer is a minister, all expenses will have to be paid by himself and that as an MP and minister he didn't earn enough to save for time of need.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Although Shastri had been a cabinet minister for many years in the 1950s, he was poor when he died. All he owned at the end was an old car, which he had bought in instalments from the government and for which he still owed money. He was a member of Servants of India society (which included Mahatma Gandhi, Lala Lajpat Rai, Gopal Krishna Gokhle) which asked all its members to shun accumulation of private property and remain in public life as servants of the people. He was the first railway minister who resigned from office following a major train accident as he felt moral responsibility.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: The foundation stone of Bal Vidya Mandir, a distinguished school of Lucknow, was laid by him during his tenure as the prime minister, on 19 November 1964. He inaugurated the Central Institute of Technology Campus at Tharamani, Chennai, in November 1964. He inaugurated the Plutonium Reprocessing Plant at Trombay in 1965. As suggested by Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha, Shastri authorized the development of nuclear explosives. Bhabha initiated the effort by setting up the nuclear explosive design group Study of Nuclear Explosions for Peaceful Purposes (SNEPP). He inaugurated the Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University at Hyderabad on 20 March 1965 which was renamed the Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University in 1996 and was separated into two universities after the formation of Telangana State. The university in Telangana was named in July 2014 as Professor Jayashanker Agricultural University. Shastri also inaugurated the National Institute of Technology, Allahabad. Lal Bahadur Shastri inaugurated the Jawahar Dock of the Chennai Port Trust and started the construction work of V.O. Chidambaranar Port Authority in November 1964. He inaugurated the Sainik School Balachadi, in the state of Gujarat. He laid the foundation stone of Almatti dam. The commissioned dam bears his name.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri was known for his honesty and humility throughout his life. He was posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna, and a memorial "Vijay Ghat" was built for him in Delhi. Several educational institutes including Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration (Mussorie, Uttarakhand) bear his name. The Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management was established in Delhi by the Lal Bahadur Shastri Educational Trust in 1995. The Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute was named after Shastri due to his role in promoting scholarly activity between India and Canada. "Lal Bahadur Shastri Memorial" run by the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Memorial Trust, is situated next to 10 Janpath his residence when he was prime minister, at 1, Motilal Nehru Place, New Delhi. One of the halls of residence of IIT Kharagpur is named after him as "Lal Bahadur Shastri Hall of Residence".


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: In 2011, on Shastri's 45th death anniversary, the Uttar Pradesh Government announced the renovation of Shastri's ancestral house at Ramnagar in Varanasi and declared plans to convert it into a biographical museum. Varanasi International Airport is named after him. The Lal Bahadur Shastri Centre for Indian Culture with a monument and a street named after him are in the city of Tashkent, Uzbekistan. A few stadiums are named after him in the cities of Hyderabad, Telangana, Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Kollam in Kerala, Ghazhiabad and Bhawanipatna in Odisha. The Almatti Dam across the River Krishna in northern Karnataka was renamed the Lal Bahadur Shastri Sagar. The foundation stone was laid by him. MV Lal Bahadur Shastri, a cargo ship, is named after him. The Reserve Bank of India released coins in the denomination of 5 rupees during his birth century celebrations. An All India Lal Bahadur Shastri Hockey tournament has been held every year since 1991 – it is a major hockey tournament. The Left Bank Canal of the Nagarjuna Sagar Dam in Andhra Pradesh is named the Lal Bahadur Shastri Canal and is 295 km in Length.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Some major roads in the cities of New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Puduchery, Lucknow, Warangal and Allahabad and Ernakulam are named after him, as is Sashtri Road, Kottayam, Kerala. There is a Lal Bahadur Shastri Medical College in Mandi, Himachal Pradesh and Shastri Bhavans in New Delhi, Chennai and Lucknow. In 2005, the Government of India created a chair in his honour in the field of democracy and governance at Delhi University.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: A portrait of Shastri hangs in the Central Hall of the Parliament House of India. The portrait, painted by Vidya Bhushan, was unveiled by the then President of India, Dr. Shanker Dayal Sharma on 2 October 1993.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: Shastri's life and death, in particular, have been a subject of Indian popular culture. "Homage to Lal Bahadur Shastri" is a 1967 short documentary film directed by S. Sukhdev and produced by the Films Division of India which pays tribute to the former prime minister. "Apne Shastri Ji" (1986) was also made as a homage to him.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: "Jai Jawaan Jai Kisaan" is a 2015 Indian Hindi-language biographical drama film by Milan Ajmera, titled after the popular slogan by Shastri it portrays his entire life from birth to death where he is portrayed by Akhilesh Jain. "Lal Bahadur Shastri's Death", a 2018 television documentary film by Jyoti Kapur Das reconstructs his death and covers various conspiracy theories around it, including interviews with his son Sunil Shastri. A film titled "The Tashkent Files" (2019), directed by Vivek Agnihotri revolves around the mystery of the death of Lal Bahadur Shastri.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: "Pradhanmantri" (), a 2013 Indian documentary television series which aired on ABP News and covers the various policies and political tenures of Indian PMs, dedicated the entire seventh episode "Lal Bahadur Shastri" to his term as the country's leader with Akhil Mishra in the role of Shastri.


title: Lal Bahadur Shastri

text: The 1967 film "Upkar" by Manoj Kumar, which is based on the 1965 war, was dedicated to Shastri. "Lal Bahadur Shastri", a 2014 Indian Malayalam-language comedy film by Rejishh Midhila is titled after the prime minister but has no apparent connection with his life.


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: Mitchell Lee Hedberg (February 24, 1968 – March 30, 2005) was an American stand-up comedian known for his surreal humor and deadpan delivery. His comedy typically featured short, sometimes one-line jokes mixed with absurd elements and non sequiturs.


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: Hedberg's comedy and onstage persona gained him a cult following, with audience members sometimes shouting out the punchlines to his jokes before he could finish them.


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: Hedberg was born on February 24, 1968, in Saint Paul, Minnesota, the son of Mary (née Schimscha, 1943–2012) and Arne Hedberg. He was of Finnish-Swedish (from his paternal grandparents), Czech, and German descent. Hedberg attended Harding High School in Saint Paul. He took little interest in school, and claimed he was barely eligible to graduate.


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: Hedberg began his stand-up career in Florida, and after a period of honing his skills, he moved to Seattle and began to tour. He soon appeared on MTV's "Comikaze", followed by a 1996 appearance on the "Late Show with David Letterman" that brought him his big break. He won the 1997 grand prize at the Seattle Comedy Competition. The next year he appeared in an episode of Fox's series "That '70s Show".


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: In 1999, he completed his own independent feature film, "Los Enchiladas!", which he wrote, directed, produced, and starred in. He recorded three comedy albums: "Strategic Grill Locations", "Mitch All Together", and "Do You Believe in Gosh?", the last released posthumously. He appeared at the Montreal Just for Laughs comedy festival in 1998, 2001, and 2004.


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: Concurrent with his rising fame in the entertainment industry, Hedberg appeared on "Letterman" nine more times, signed a half-million-dollar deal with Fox for a television sitcom, and was dubbed "the next Seinfeld" by "Time" magazine. George Carlin, Dave Chappelle, Mike Birbiglia, Norm MacDonald and Lewis Black were among his comedian fans.


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: Hedberg's standup comedy was distinguished by the unique manner of speech he adopted later in his career, his abrupt delivery, and his unusual stage presence. His material was based on wordplay, non sequiturs, paraprosdokians, and object observations. His act usually consisted equally of compact one- or two-liners and longer routines, often with each line as a punchline. Many of his jokes were inspired by everyday thoughts or situations.


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: Hedberg occasionally added disclaimers to the end of a joke if it was not sufficiently well received, frequently variations on "that joke's dumb, I'm aware of that." During recordings for CDs, he would often say that he would find a way to edit a failed gag to make it seem well-received, for example by "adding laughter" to a failed joke containing arithmetic. Following such a failure on "Strategic Grill Locations", Hedberg suggested, "All right... that joke is going to be good because I'm going to take all the words out and add new words. That joke will be fixed."


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: Comedy Central Records released an album, "Do You Believe in Gosh?" on September 9, 2008, that contained material Hedberg recorded at The Improv in Ontario, California in January 2005. His wife, Lynn, wrote in the introduction that the performance had been in preparation for a year-end CD recording.


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: Hedberg was a frequent recreational drug user, mentioning it in some of his jokes (e.g., "I used to do drugs. I still do, but I used to, too"). He was interviewed by Jonathan Davis in the December 2001 issue of "Penthouse". In the interview, published three years before his death, he was asked, "If you could choose, how would you end your life?" He replied, "First, I'd want to get famous, and then I'd overdose. If I overdosed at this stage in my career, I would be lucky if it made the back pages." In May 2003, he was arrested in Austin, Texas, for heroin possession. On October 12, 2004, Hedberg sat in on the news with Robin Quivers on "The Howard Stern Show". He appeared on the show again on March 17, 2005, this time with Quivers and Artie Lange present, and briefly discussed his drug use, saying: "Well, you know, I got the drugs under control now." Stern asked, "Do you? You know how to take them responsibly?" Hedberg replied, "Yeah, you know, just for the creative side of it."


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: On March 30, 2005, Hedberg was found dead in his room at The Westminster Hotel in Livingston, New Jersey. His death was formally announced on April 1, leading some fans to believe it was an April Fools' Day joke.


title: Mitch Hedberg

text: His death was initially believed to be the result of a congenital heart defect, but in December 2005, the New Jersey medical examiner's office reported that he died accidentally as the result of "multiple drug toxicity", including cocaine and heroin.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo (; ; 16 October 1936 – 14 February 1994) was a Soviet serial killer nicknamed The Butcher of Rostov, The Rostov Ripper, and The Red Ripper who sexually assaulted, murdered, and mutilated at least fifty-two women and children between 1978 and 1990 in the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, and the Uzbek SSR. Chikatilo confessed to fifty-six murders and was tried for fifty-three of them in April 1992. He was convicted and sentenced to death for fifty-two of these murders in October 1992, although the Supreme Court of Russia ruled in 1993 that insufficient evidence existed to prove his guilt in nine of those killings. Chikatilo was executed by gunshot in February 1994.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo was known as the "Rostov Ripper" and the "Butcher of Rostov" because he committed most of his murders in the Rostov Oblast of the Russian SFSR.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Andrei Chikatilo was born on 16 October 1936 in the village of in the Sumy Oblast of the Ukrainian SSR. At the time of his birth, Ukraine was in the grip of a famine caused by Joseph Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture. Chikatilo's parents were both collective farm labourers who lived in a one-room hut. They received no wages for their work, but instead received the right to cultivate a plot of land behind the family hut.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: The family seldom had sufficient food; Chikatilo himself later claimed not to have eaten bread until the age of 12, adding that he and his family often had to eat grass and leaves in an effort to stave off hunger. Throughout his childhood, Chikatilo was repeatedly told by his mother Anna that prior to his birth, an older brother of his named Stepan had, at the age of four, been kidnapped and cannibalized by starving neighbours, although it has never been established whether this incident actually occurred, or if a Stepan Chikatilo even existed. Nonetheless, Chikatilo recalled his childhood as being blighted by poverty, ridicule, hunger, and war.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: When the Soviet Union entered the Second World War, Chikatilo's father Roman was conscripted into the Red Army. He would later be taken prisoner after being wounded in combat. Between 1941 and 1944, Chikatilo witnessed some of the effects of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, which he described as "horrors", adding he witnessed bombings, fires, and shootings from which he and his mother would hide in cellars and ditches. On one occasion, Chikatilo and his mother were forced to watch their own hut burn to the ground. With his father at war, Chikatilo and his mother shared a single bed. He was a chronic bed wetter, and his mother berated and beat him for each offence.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In 1943 Chikatilo's mother gave birth to a baby girl, Tatyana. Because Chikatilo's father had been conscripted in 1941, he could not have fathered this child. As many Ukrainian women were raped by German soldiers during the war, it has been speculated Tatyana was conceived as a result of a rape committed by a German soldier. As Chikatilo and his mother lived in a one-room hut, this rape may have been committed in Chikatilo's presence.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In September 1944, Chikatilo began his schooling. Although shy and ardently studious as a child, he was physically weak and regularly attended school in homespun clothing and, by 1946, with his stomach swollen from hunger resulting from the post-war famine which plagued much of the Soviet Union. On several occasions, this hunger caused Chikatilo to faint both at home and at school, and he was consistently targeted by bullies who regularly mocked him over his physical stature and timid nature. At home, Chikatilo and his sister were constantly berated by their mother. Tatyana later recalled that in spite of the hardships endured by her parents, their father was a kind man, whereas their mother was harsh and unforgiving toward her children.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo developed a passion for reading and memorizing data, and often studied at home, both to increase his sense of self-worth and to compensate for his myopia which often prevented him from reading the classroom blackboard. To his teachers, Chikatilo was an excellent student upon whom they would regularly bestow praise and commendation.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: By his teens, Chikatilo was both a model student and an ardent communist. He was appointed editor of his school newspaper at age 14 and chairman of the pupils' Communist Party committee two years later. An avid reader of communist literature, he was also delegated the task of organizing street marches. Although Chikatilo claimed learning did not come easy to him due to headaches and a poor memory, he was the only student from his collective farm to complete the final year of study, graduating with excellent grades in 1954.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: At the onset of puberty, Chikatilo discovered that he had chronic impotence, worsening his social awkwardness and self-hatred. He was shy in the company of women; his first crush, at age 17, had been on a girl named Lilya Barysheva, with whom he had become acquainted through his school newspaper, yet he was chronically nervous in her company and never asked her for a date. The same year, Chikatilo jumped upon an 11-year-old friend of his younger sister and wrestled her to the ground, ejaculating as the girl struggled in his grasp.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Following his graduation, Chikatilo applied for a scholarship at Moscow State University. Although he passed the entrance examination with good-to-excellent scores, his grades were not deemed good enough for acceptance. Chikatilo speculated his scholarship application was rejected due to his father's tainted war record (his father had been branded a traitor for being taken prisoner in 1943) but the truth was that other students had performed better in a highly competitive exam. He did not attempt to enroll at another university; instead, he travelled to the city of Kursk, where he worked as a labourer for three months before—in 1955—enrolling in a vocational school with the aim of becoming a communications technician. The same year, Chikatilo formed his first serious relationship, with a local girl two years his junior. On three occasions, the couple attempted intercourse, although on each occasion, Chikatilo was unable to sustain an erection. After eighteen months, she broke off the relationship.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Upon completion of his two-year vocational training, Chikatilo relocated to the Urals city of Nizhny Tagil to work upon a long-term construction project. While living in Nizhny Tagil, he also undertook correspondence courses in engineering with the Moscow Electrotechnical Institute of Communication. He worked in the Urals for two years until he was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1957.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo performed his compulsory military service between 1957 and 1960, assigned first to serve with border guards in Central Asia, then to a KGB communications unit in East Berlin. Here, his work record was unblemished, and he joined the Communist Party shortly before his military service ended in 1960.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Upon completing his service, Chikatilo returned to his native village to live with his parents, briefly working alongside them on the collective farm. He soon became acquainted with a young divorcée. Their three-month relationship ended after several unsuccessful attempts at intercourse, after which the woman innocently asked her friends for advice as to how Chikatilo might overcome his inability to maintain an erection. As a result, most of his peers discovered his impotence. In a 1993 interview regarding this incident, Chikatilo stated: "Girls were going behind my back, whispering that I was impotent. I was so ashamed. I tried to hang myself. My mother and some young neighbours pulled me out of the noose. Well, I thought no one would want such a shamed man. So I had to run away from there, away from my homeland."


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: After several months, Chikatilo found a job as a communications engineer in a town located north of Rostov-on-Don. He relocated to the Russian SFSR in 1961, renting a small apartment close to his workplace. The same year, his younger sister, Tatyana, finished her schooling and moved into his apartment (his parents would relocate to the Rostov region shortly thereafter). Tatyana lived with her brother for six months before marrying a local youth and moving into her in-laws' home; she noted nothing untoward with regard to her brother's lifestyle beyond his chronic shyness around women, and resolved to help her brother find a wife and start a family.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In 1963 Chikatilo married a woman named Feodosia Odnacheva, to whom he had been introduced by his younger sister. According to Chikatilo, although he was attracted to Feodosia, his marriage was effectively an arranged one which occurred barely two weeks after they had met and in which the decisive roles were played by his sister and her husband.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo later claimed that his marital sex life was minimal and that, after his wife understood he was unable to maintain an erection, they agreed she would conceive by him ejaculating externally and pushing his semen inside her vagina with his fingers. In 1965, Feodosia gave birth to a daughter, Lyudmila. Four years later, in 1969, a son named Yuri was born.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo chose to enroll as a correspondence student at Rostov University in 1964, studying Russian literature and philology; he obtained his degree in these subjects in 1970. Shortly before obtaining his degree, Chikatilo obtained a job managing regional sports activities. He remained in this position for one year, before beginning his career as a teacher of Russian language and literature in Novoshakhtinsk.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo was largely ineffective as a teacher; although knowledgeable in the subjects he taught, he was seldom able to maintain discipline in his classes and was regularly subjected to mockery by his students who, he claimed, took advantage of his modest nature.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In May 1973, Chikatilo committed his first known sexual assault upon one of his pupils. In this incident, he swam towards a 15-year-old girl and groped her breasts and genitals, ejaculating as the girl struggled against his grasp. Months later, Chikatilo sexually assaulted and beat another teenage girl whom he had locked in his classroom. He was not disciplined for either of these incidents, nor for the occasions in which fellow teachers observed Chikatilo fondling himself in the presence of his students. One of Chikatilo's duties at this school was ensuring his students who boarded at the school were present in their dormitories in the evenings; on several occasions, he is known to have entered the girls' dormitory in the hope of seeing them undressed. By Chikatilo's own admission, by the mid-1970s, his desire to view naked children drove him to loiter around public toilets, where he frequently spied on young girls. He also purchased chewing gum which he gave to female children he encountered in efforts to initiate contact and gain their trust. Chikatilo is known to have sexually assaulted at least three girls whom he encountered via this method.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In response to the increasing number of complaints lodged against him by pupils, the director of the school summoned Chikatilo to a formal meeting and informed him he should either resign voluntarily or be fired. Chikatilo left his employment discreetly and found another job as a teacher at another school in Novoshakhtinsk in January 1974. He lost this job as a result of staff cutbacks in September 1978, before finding another teaching position at Technical School No. 33 in Shakhty, a coal-mining town forty-seven miles north of Rostov.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo's career as a teacher ended in March 1981 following several complaints of child molestation against pupils of both sexes. The same month, he began a job as a supply clerk for a factory based in Rostov which produced construction materials. This job required Chikatilo to travel extensively across much of the Soviet Union to either physically purchase the raw materials required to fulfill production quotas, or to negotiate supply contracts.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In September 1978, Chikatilo moved to Shakhty, where he committed his first documented murder. On the evening of 22 December, he lured a 9-year-old girl named Yelena Zakotnova to an old, dilapidated hut which he had secretly purchased; he attempted to rape her, but failed to achieve an erection. When the girl struggled, he choked her and stabbed her three times in the abdomen, ejaculating while stabbing the child. In an interview after his 1990 arrest, Chikatilo later recalled that immediately after he stabbed Zakotnova, the girl had "said something very hoarsely", whereupon he strangled her into unconsciousness before throwing her body into the nearby Grushevka River. Her body was found beneath a nearby bridge two days later.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Numerous pieces of evidence linked Chikatilo to Zakotnova's murder: spots of blood had been found in the snow close to a fence facing the house Chikatilo had purchased; neighbours had noted that Chikatilo had been present in the house on the evening of 22 December; Zakotnova's school backpack had been found upon the opposite bank of the river at the end of the street (indicating the girl had been thrown into the river at this location); and a witness had given police a detailed description of a man closely resembling Chikatilo, whom she had seen talking with Zakotnova at the bus stop where the girl had last been seen alive. Despite these facts, a 25-year-old labourer named Aleksandr Kravchenko (who had previously served a prison sentence for the rape and murder of a teenage girl) was arrested for the crime. A search of Kravchenko's home revealed spots of blood on his wife's jumper: the blood type was determined to match both Zakotnova and Kravchenko's wife.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Kravchenko had a watertight alibi for the afternoon of 22 December 1978: he had been at home with his wife and a friend of hers the entire afternoon, and neighbours of the couple were able to verify this. Nonetheless, the police, having threatened Kravchenko's wife with being an accomplice to murder and her friend with perjury, obtained new statements in which the women claimed Kravchenko had not returned home until late in the evening on the day of the murder. Confronted with these altered testimonies, Kravchenko confessed to the killing. He was tried for the murder in 1979. At his trial, Kravchenko retracted his confession and maintained his innocence, stating his confession had been obtained under extreme duress. Despite his retraction, Kravchenko was convicted of the murder and sentenced to death. This sentence was commuted to fifteen years' imprisonment (the maximum possible length of imprisonment at the time) by the Supreme Court in December 1980. Under pressure from the victim's relatives, Kravchenko was retried, erroneously convicted, and eventually executed by firing squad for Zakotnova's murder in July 1983.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Following Zakotnova's murder, Chikatilo was able to achieve sexual arousal and orgasm only through stabbing and slashing women and children to death, and he later claimed that the urge to relive the experience had overwhelmed him. Nonetheless, Chikatilo did stress that, initially, he had struggled to resist these urges, often cutting short business trips to return home rather than face the temptation to search for a victim.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 3 September 1981, Chikatilo encountered a 17-year-old boarding school student, Larisa Tkachenko, standing at a bus stop as he exited a public library in Rostov city centre. According to his subsequent confession, Chikatilo lured Tkachenko to a forest near the Don River with the pretext of drinking vodka and "relaxing". When they reached a secluded area, he threw the girl to the ground before tearing off her clothes and attempting intercourse, as Tkachenko remonstrated against his actions. When Chikatilo failed to achieve an erection, he forced mud inside her mouth to stifle her screams before battering and strangling her to death. As he had no knife, Chikatilo mutilated the body with his teeth and a six-foot long stick; he also tore one nipple from Tkachenko's body with his teeth before loosely covering her body with leaves, branches, and torn pages of newspaper. Tkachenko's body was found the following day.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Nine months after the murder of Tkachenko, on 12 June 1982, Chikatilo travelled by bus to the Bagayevsky District of Rostov to purchase vegetables. Having to change buses in the village of Donskoi, he decided to continue his journey on foot. Walking away from the bus station, he encountered a 13-year-old girl, Lyubov Biryuk, who was walking home from a shopping trip. The two walked together for approximately a quarter of a mile until their path was shielded from the view of potential witnesses by bushes, whereupon Chikatilo pounced upon Biryuk, dragged her into nearby undergrowth, tore off her dress, and killed her by stabbing and slashing her to death as he imitated performing intercourse. When her body was found on 27 June, the medical examiner discovered evidence of twenty-two knife wounds inflicted to the head, neck, chest, and pelvic region. Further wounds found on the skull suggested the killer had attacked Biryuk from behind with the handle and blade of his knife. In addition, several striations were discovered upon Biryuk's eye sockets.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Following Biryuk's murder, Chikatilo no longer attempted to resist his homicidal urges: between July and September 1982, he killed a further five victims between the ages of 9 and 18. He established a pattern of approaching children, runaways, and young vagrants at bus or railway stations, enticing them to a nearby forest or other secluded area, and killing them, usually by stabbing, slashing and eviscerating the victim with a knife; although some victims, in addition to receiving a multitude of knife wounds, were also strangled or battered to death.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Many of the victims' bodies bore evidence of mutilation to the eye sockets. Pathologists concluded these injuries had been caused by a knife, leading investigators to the conclusion the killer had gouged out the eyes of his victims. Chikatilo's adult female victims were often prostitutes or homeless women whom he would lure to secluded areas with promises of alcohol or money. He would typically attempt intercourse with these victims, but he would usually be unable to achieve or maintain an erection; this would send him into a murderous fury, particularly if the woman mocked his impotence. He would achieve orgasm only when he stabbed and slashed the victim to death. Chikatilo's child and adolescent victims were of both sexes; he would lure these victims to secluded areas using a variety of ruses, usually formed in the initial conversation with the victim, such as promising them assistance or company, or offering to show them a shortcut, a chance to view rare stamps, films or coins, or with an offer of food or candy. He would usually overpower these victims once they were alone, often tying their hands behind their backs with a length of rope before stuffing mud or loam into the victims' mouths to silence their screams, and then proceed to kill them. After the killing, Chikatilo would make rudimentary—though seldom serious—efforts to conceal the body before leaving the crime scene.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 11 December 1982 Chikatilo encountered a 10-year-old girl named Olga Stalmachenok riding a bus to her parents' home in Novoshakhtinsk and persuaded the child to leave the bus with him. She was last seen by a fellow passenger, who reported that a middle-aged man had led the girl away firmly by the hand. Chikatilo lured the girl to a cornfield on the outskirts of the city, stabbed her in excess of fifty times around the head and body, ripped open her chest and excised her lower bowel and uterus.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: By January 1983, four victims thus far killed had been tentatively linked to the same killer. A Moscow police team, headed by Major Mikhail Fetisov, was sent to Rostov-on-Don to direct the investigation, which gradually became known among investigators as "Operation Forest Path". Fetisov established a team of ten investigators based in Rostov, charged with solving all four cases. In March, Fetisov assigned a newly appointed specialist forensic analyst, Viktor Burakov, to head the investigation. The following month, Stalmachenok's body was found. Burakov was summoned to the crime scene, where he examined the numerous knife wounds and eviscerations conducted upon the child and the striations on her eye sockets. Burakov later stated that, as he noted the striations upon Stalmachenok's eye sockets, any doubts about the presence of a serial killer evaporated.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo did not kill again until June 1983, when he murdered a 15-year-old Armenian girl named Laura Sarkisyan; her body was found close to an unmarked railway platform near Shakhty. By September, he had killed a further five victims. The accumulation of bodies found and the similarities between the pattern of wounds inflicted on the victims forced the Soviet authorities to acknowledge that a serial killer was on the loose. On 6 September 1983 the public prosecutor of the Soviet Union formally linked six of the murders thus far attributed to the same killer.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Due to the sheer savagery of the murders and the precision of the eviscerations upon the victims' bodies, police theorized that the killings had been conducted by either a group harvesting organs to sell for transplant, the work of a Satanic cult, or a mentally ill individual. Much of the police effort concentrated upon the theory that the killer must be mentally ill, homosexual, or a paedophile, and the alibis of all individuals who had either spent time in psychiatric wards or had been convicted of homosexuality or paedophilia were checked and logged in a card filing system. Registered sex offenders were also investigated and, if their alibi was corroborated, eliminated from the inquiry.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Beginning in September 1983, several young men confessed to the murders, although these individuals were often intellectually disabled youths who admitted to the crimes only under prolonged and often brutal interrogation. Three known homosexuals and a convicted sex offender committed suicide as a result of the investigators' heavy-handed tactics. As a result of the investigation, more than 1,000 unrelated crimes, including ninety-five murders, 140 aggravated assaults, and 245 rapes, were solved.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: However, as police obtained confessions from suspects, bodies continued to be discovered, proving that the suspects who had confessed could not be the killer they were seeking. On 30 October 1983 the eviscerated body of a 19-year-old prostitute, Vera Shevkun, was found in Shakhty. Shevkun had been killed on 27 October. Although the mutilations inflicted upon Shevkun's body were otherwise characteristic of those found upon other victims linked to the unknown murderer, the victim's eyes had not been enucleated or otherwise wounded. Two months later, on 27 December, a 14-year-old Gukovo schoolboy, Sergey Markov, was lured off a train and murdered at a rural station near Novocherkassk. Markov was emasculated and suffered over seventy knife wounds to his neck and upper torso before being eviscerated.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In January and February 1984, Chikatilo killed two women in Rostov's Park of Aviators. On 24 March, he lured a 10-year-old boy, Dmitry Ptashnikov, away from a stamp kiosk in Novoshakhtinsk. While walking with the boy, Chikatilo was seen by several witnesses who were able to give investigators a detailed description of the killer. When Ptashnikov's body was found three days later, police also found a footprint of the killer and both semen and saliva samples on the victim's clothing. On 25 May, Chikatilo killed a young woman named Tatyana Petrosyan and her 10-year-old daughter, Svetlana, in a wooded area outside Shakhty; Petrosyan had known Chikatilo for several years prior to her murder. By the end of July, he had killed three additional young women between the ages of 19 and 21, and a 13-year-old boy.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In the summer of 1984, Chikatilo was fired from his work as a supply clerk for the theft of two rolls of linoleum. The accusation had been filed against him the previous February, and he had been asked to resign quietly but had refused to do so, as he had denied the charges. Chikatilo found another job as a supply clerk in Rostov on 1 August.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 2 August, Chikatilo killed a 16-year-old girl, Natalya Golosovskaya, in the Park of Aviators. On 7 August, he lured a 17-year-old girl, Lyudmila Alekseyeva, to the banks of the Don River on the pretense of showing her a shortcut to a bus terminal. Alekseyeva suffered thirty-nine slash wounds to her body before Chikatilo mutilated and disemboweled her, intentionally inflicting wounds he knew would not be immediately fatal. Her body was found the following morning; her excised upper lip inside her mouth.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Hours after Alekseyeva's murder, Chikatilo flew to the Uzbek capital of Tashkent on a business trip. By the time he returned to Rostov on 15 August, he had killed an unidentified young woman and a 10-year-old girl, Akmaral Seydaliyeva. Within two weeks, the nude body of an 11-year-old boy named Aleksandr Chepel was discovered on the banks of the Don River, strangled and castrated, with his eyes gouged out, just yards from where Alexeyeva's body had earlier been found and on 6 September, Chikatilo killed a young librarian, 24-year-old Irina Luchinskaya, in the Park of Aviators.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 13 September 1984, Chikatilo was observed by two undercover detectives attempting to talk to young women at Rostov bus station. The detectives followed him as he wandered through the city, trying to approach women and committing acts of frotteurism in public places. Upon Chikatilo's arrival at the city's central market he was arrested and held. A search of his belongings revealed a knife with a blade, several lengths of rope, and a jar of Vaseline. He was also discovered to be under investigation for minor theft at one of his former employers, which gave the investigators the legal right to hold him for a prolonged period of time. Chikatilo's dubious background was uncovered, and his physical description matched the description of the man seen walking alongside Dmitry Ptashnikov prior to the boy's murder. A sample of Chikatilo's blood was taken; the results of which revealed his blood group to be type A, whereas semen samples found upon a total of six victims murdered by the unknown killer throughout the spring and summer of 1984 had been classified by medical examiners to be type AB. Chikatilo's name was added to the card index file used by investigators; however, the results of his blood type analysis largely discounted him as being the unknown killer.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo was found guilty of theft of property from his previous employer. His membership of the Communist Party was revoked and he was sentenced to one year in prison. He was released from custody on 12 December 1984 after serving three months.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 8 October 1984 the head of the Russian Public Prosecutors Office formally linked twenty-three of Chikatilo's murders into one case and dropped all charges against the mentally disabled youths who had previously confessed to the murders.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Upon his release from prison in December 1984, Chikatilo found new work within the supply department of a locomotive factory in Novocherkassk and kept a low profile. He did not kill again until 1 August 1985 when, on a business trip to Moscow, he encountered an 18-year-old woman, named Natalia Pokhlistova, standing on a railway platform near Domodedovo Airport. Pokhlistova was lured off a train into a thicket of woods close to the village of Vostryakovo where she was bound, stabbed thirty-eight times in her neck and chest, then strangled to death.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Based upon the hypothesis that the killer had travelled from the Rostov Oblast to Moscow via air, investigators checked all Aeroflot flight records of passengers who had commuted between Moscow and the Rostov region between late July and early August. On this occasion, however, Chikatilo had travelled to Moscow by train and, accordingly, no documentation existed for investigators to research. Four weeks later, on 27 August, Chikatilo killed another young woman, Irina Gulyaeva, in Shakhty. As had been the case with Pokhlistova, the wounds inflicted upon the victim linked her murder to the hunt for the serial killer.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In November 1985, a special procurator, Issa Kostoyev, was appointed to supervise the investigation, which had by this stage expanded to include fifteen procurators and twenty-nine detectives assigned to work exclusively upon the manhunt. The known murders linked to the manhunt were carefully re-investigated, and police began another round of questioning of known sex offenders and homosexuals. The following month, the "militsiya" resumed the patrolling of railway stations around Rostov, and plain clothed female officers were ordered to loiter around bus and train stations.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: At the request of Burakov, police also took the step of consulting a psychiatrist, Dr. Alexandr Bukhanovsky, the first such consultation in a serial killer investigation in the Soviet Union. All crime scene and medical examiner's reports were made available to Bukhanovsky, upon the understanding he would produce a psychological profile of the unknown murderer for investigators.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Bukhanovsky's 65-page psychological profile described the killer as a reclusive man aged between 45 and 50 years old who had endured a painful and isolated childhood, and who was incapable of flirting or courtship with women. This individual was well educated, likely to be married and to have fathered children, but also a sadist who suffered from impotence and could achieve sexual arousal and release only by seeing his victims suffer. The murders themselves were an analogue to the sexual intercourse this individual was incapable of performing, and his knife became a substitute for a penis which failed to function normally. Because many of the killings had occurred on weekdays near mass transport hubs and across the entire Rostov Oblast, Bukhanovsky also argued that the killer's work required him to travel regularly, and based upon the actual days of the week when the killings had occurred, the killer was most likely tied to a production schedule.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo followed the investigation carefully, reading newspaper reports about the manhunt for the killer which had begun to appear in the press and keeping his homicidal urges under control. For almost a year following the August 1985 murder of Gulyaeva, no further victims were found in either the Rostov or Moscow Oblasts whose bodies bore the signature mutilations of the unknown murderer. Investigators did tentatively link the murder of a 33-year-old woman named Lyubov Golovakha—found stabbed to death in the Myasnikovsky District of Rostov on 23 July 1986—to the investigation, although this was solely upon the basis that the killer's semen type matched that of the killer they were seeking, that the victim had been stripped naked prior to her murder, and that she had been stabbed in excess of twenty times. The victim had not been dismembered or otherwise mutilated, nor had she been seen near mass transportation. Because of these discrepancies, many investigators expressed serious doubts as to whether Golovakha's murder had been committed by the killer they were seeking.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 18 August 1986 a victim was found buried in a depression of earth in the grounds of a collective farm in the city of Bataysk. The wounds inflicted on this victim bore the trademark mutilations of victims linked to the manhunt killed between 1982 and 1985. The victim was an 18-year-old court secretary named Irina Pogoryelova. Her body had been slit open from the neck to the genitalia, with one breast removed and her eyes cut out. As the murderer had made serious efforts to bury the body, some investigators theorized that this explained the sudden dearth in the number of victims found.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: As the victims killed in the Rostov Oblast in 1985 and 1986 had died in the months of July and August, by the autumn of 1986, some investigators gave credence to the possibility the perpetrator may have relocated to another part of the Soviet Union, and may only be returning to the Rostov Oblast in summer. The Rostov police compiled bulletins to be sent to all forces throughout the Soviet Union, describing the pattern of wounds their unknown killer inflicted upon his victims and requesting feedback from any police force who had discovered murder victims with wounds matching those upon the victims found in the Rostov Oblast. The response was negative.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In 1987 Chikatilo killed three times. On each occasion the murder took place while he was on a business trip far away from the Rostov Oblast, and none of these murders were linked to the manhunt in Rostov. Chikatilo's first murder in 1987 was committed on 16 May, when he encountered a 12-year-old boy, Oleg Makarenkov, at a train station in the Urals town of Revda. Makarenkov was lured from the station with the promise of sharing a meal with Chikatilo at his dacha; he was murdered in woodland close to the station, although his body would remain undiscovered until 1991. In July, he killed a 12-year-old boy, Ivan Bilovetsky, in the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhia, and on 15 September, he killed a 16-year-old vocational school student, Yuri Tereshonok, in woodland on the outskirts of Leningrad.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In 1988 Chikatilo killed three times, murdering an unidentified woman in Krasny Sulin in April and two boys in May and July. His first murder victim was lured off a train at Krasny Sulin before Chikatilo bound her hands behind her back and stuffed her mouth with dirt, before severing her nose from her face and inflicting numerous knife wounds to her neck. Chikatilo then bludgeoned her to death with a slab of concrete; her body was found on 6 April. Investigators noted that the knife wounds inflicted upon this victim were similar to those inflicted on the victims linked to the manhunt and killed between 1982 and 1985, but as the woman had been killed with a slab of concrete, had not been disemboweled, and her murderer had not wounded her eyes or genitals, investigators were unsure whether to link this murder to the investigation. In May, Chikatilo killed a 9-year-old boy named Aleksey Voronko in the Ukrainian city of Ilovaisk. The boy's wounds left no doubt the killer had struck again, and this murder was linked to the manhunt. On 14 July, Chikatilo killed 15-year-old Yevgeny Muratov at Donleskhoz station near Shakhty. Muratov's murder was also linked to the investigation, although his body was not found until April 1989. Although his remains were largely skeletal, Muratov's autopsy revealed he had been emasculated, and suffered at least thirty knife wounds.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo did not kill again until 28 February 1989, when he killed a 16-year-old girl, Tatyana Ryzhova, in his daughter's vacant apartment. He dismembered her body and hid the remains in a sewer. As the victim had been dismembered, police did not link her murder to the investigation. Between May and August, Chikatilo killed a further four victims, three of whom were killed in Rostov and Shakhty, although only two of these victims were linked to the killer.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: With the resurfacing of victims definitively linked to the manhunt and the fact the majority of these victims' bodies had been discovered close to railway stations, investigators assigned numerous plainclothed officers to discreetly film and photograph passengers on trains throughout the Rostov Oblast. Several trains were also fitted with hidden cameras with the intention of filming or photographing a victim in the company of his or her murderer.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 14 January 1990, Chikatilo encountered 11-year-old Andrei Kravchenko standing outside a Shakhty theater. Kravchenko was lured from the theater on the pretext of being shown imported Western films Chikatilo claimed to have at his residence; his extensively stabbed, emasculated body was found in a secluded section of woodland the following month. Seven weeks after Kravchenko's murder, on 7 March, Chikatilo lured a 10-year-old boy, Yaroslav Makarov, from a Rostov train station to Rostov's Botanical Gardens. His eviscerated body was found the following day.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 11 March, the leaders of the investigation, headed by Fetisov, held a meeting to discuss progress made in the manhunt. Fetisov was under intense pressure from the public, the press, and the Soviet Ministry of the Interior to solve the case; both he and Viktor Burakov had devoted extensive time and effort over the previous seven years in their efforts to apprehend the perpetrator. The intensity of the manhunt in the years up to 1984 had receded to a degree between 1985 and 1987, when Chikatilo had committed only three murders investigators had conclusively linked to the killer—all killed by 1986. However, by March 1990, a further six victims had been linked to the killer. In addition, following the introduction of greater media freedom as a result of "glasnost", the Soviet news media was much less repressed than it had been in the early years of the manhunt and as such, devoted extensive publicity to the case. Fetisov had also noted laxity in some areas of the investigation and warned that people would be fired if the killer was not caught soon.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo had killed three further victims by August 1990. On 4 April, he lured a 31-year-old woman, Lyubov Zuyeva, off a train and killed her in woodland near Donleskhoz station. Her body was not found until 24 August. On 28 July, he lured a 13-year-old boy, Viktor Petrov, away from a Rostov railway station and killed him in Rostov's Botanical Gardens; and on 14 August, he killed an 11-year-old boy, Ivan Fomin, in the reeds near Novocherkassk beach.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: The discovery of more victims sparked a massive police operation. Because several victims' bodies had been discovered at railway stations on one rail route through the Rostov Oblast, Burakov suggested a plan to saturate all larger stations in the region with an obvious uniformed police presence which the killer could not fail to notice. The intention was to discourage the killer from attempting to strike at any of these locations, and to have undercover agents patrol smaller and less busy stations, where the murderer's activities would be more likely to be noticed. The plan was approved, and both the uniformed and undercover officers were instructed to question any adult man in the company of a young woman or child, and note his name and passport number. Police deployed 360 men at all the stations in the Rostov Oblast, but only undercover officers were posted at the three smallest stations on the route through the oblast where the killer had struck most frequently—Kundryucha, Donleskhoz, and Lesostep—in an effort to force the killer to strike at one of those three stations. The operation was implemented on 27 October 1990.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 30 October, police found the body of a 16-year-old boy, Vadim Gromov, at Donleskhoz station. The wounds upon Gromov's body immediately linked his murder to the manhunt: the youth had been strangled, stabbed twenty-seven times and castrated, with the tip of his tongue severed and his left eye stabbed. Gromov had been killed on 17 October, ten days before the start of the initiative. The same day Gromov's body was found, Chikatilo lured another 16-year-old boy, Viktor Tishchenko, off a train at Kirpichnaya station and killed him in a nearby forest. Tishchenko's body—bearing forty separate knife wounds—was found on 3 November.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 6 November 1990, Chikatilo killed and mutilated a 22-year-old woman, Svetlana Korostik, in woodland near Donleskhoz station. Returning to the railway platform, he was observed by an undercover officer named Igor Rybakov, who observed Chikatilo approach a well and wash his hands and face. When he approached the station, Rybakov also noted that Chikatilo's coat had grass and soil stains on the elbows; Chikatilo also had a small red smear on his cheek and what appeared to be a severe wound on one of his fingers. To Rybakov, he looked suspicious. The only reason people entered woodland near Donleskhoz station at that time of year was to gather wild mushrooms (a popular pastime in Russia), but Chikatilo was not dressed like a typical forest scavenger; he was wearing more formal attire. Moreover, he had a nylon sports bag, which was unsuitable for carrying mushrooms. Rybakov stopped Chikatilo and checked his papers, but had no formal reason to arrest him. When Rybakov returned to his office, he filed a routine report, containing the name of the person he had stopped at the station and the possible blood smear observed upon his cheek.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 13 November, Korostik's body was found; she was the thirty-eighth victim linked to the manhunt. Police summoned the officer in charge of surveillance at Donleskhoz station and examined the reports of all men stopped and questioned in the previous week. Not only was Chikatilo's name among those reports, but it was familiar to several officers involved in the case because he had been questioned in 1984 and had been placed upon a 1987 suspect list compiled and distributed throughout the Soviet Union. After checking with Chikatilo's present and previous employers, investigators were able to place him in various towns and cities at times when several victims linked to the investigation had been murdered. Questioning of former colleagues from Chikatilo's teaching days revealed that he had been forced to resign from two teaching positions due to repeated complaints of lewd behaviour and sexual assault made by his pupils.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Police placed Chikatilo under surveillance on 14 November. In several instances, particularly on trains or buses, he was observed approaching lone young women or children and engaging them in conversation. If the woman or child broke off the conversation, Chikatilo would wait a few minutes and then seek another conversation partner. On 20 November, after six days of surveillance, Chikatilo left his house with a large jar, which he had filled with beer at a small kiosk in a local park before he wandered around Novocherkassk, attempting to make contact with children he met on his way. Upon exiting a cafe, Chikatilo was arrested by four plainclothes police officers.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Upon his arrest, Chikatilo gave a statement claiming that the police were mistaken, and complained that he had also been arrested in 1984 for the same series of murders. A strip-search of the suspect revealed a further piece of evidence: one of Chikatilo's fingers had a deep flesh wound he had self-treated with iodine. Medical examiners concluded the wound was from a human bite. Chikatilo's penultimate victim, Viktor Tishchenko, was a physically strong youth. At the crime scene, the police had found numerous signs of a ferocious physical struggle between the victim and his murderer. Although a finger bone was later found to be broken and his fingernail had been bitten off, Chikatilo had never sought medical treatment for this injury.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: A search of Chikatilo's belongings revealed he had been in possession of a folding knife and two lengths of rope. A sample of his blood was taken, and he was placed in a cell inside the KGB headquarters in Rostov with a police informer, who was instructed to engage Chikatilo in conversation and elicit any information he could from him. The next day, 21 November, formal questioning of Chikatilo began. The interrogation was performed by Issa Kostoyev. The strategy chosen by the police to elicit a confession was to lead Chikatilo to believe that he was a very sick individual in need of medical help. The intention was to give Chikatilo hope that if he confessed, he would not be prosecuted by reason of insanity. Police knew their case against Chikatilo was largely circumstantial, and under Soviet law, they had ten days in which they could legally hold a suspect before either charging or releasing him.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 21 November, the results of Chikatilo's blood test again revealed his blood type to be type A and not type AB. Due to the amount of physical and circumstantial evidence investigators had thus far compiled, which indicated Chikatilo was indeed the murderer they had been pursuing, plus the fact that investigators had deduced the blood type of the murderer they had pursued using semen samples obtained from the clothing and bodies of fourteen of the victims as opposed to actual blood samples, investigators obtained a sample of Chikatilo's semen to test his blood type, the results of which confirmed that Chikatilo's semen was type AB, whereas his blood and saliva were type A.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Throughout the questioning, Chikatilo repeatedly denied that he had committed the murders, although he did confess to molesting several of his pupils during his career as a teacher. He also produced several written essays for Kostoyev which, although evasive regarding the actual murders, did reveal psychological symptoms consistent with those predicted by Dr. Bukhanovsky in the 1985 psychological profile he had written for the investigators. The interrogation tactics used by Kostoyev may also have caused Chikatilo to become defensive; the informer sharing a KGB cell with the suspect reported to police that Chikatilo had informed him that Kostoyev had repeatedly asked him direct questions regarding the mutilations inflicted upon the victims.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 29 November, at the request of Burakov and Fetisov, Dr. Bukhanovsky was invited to assist in the questioning of the suspect. Bukhanovsky read extracts from his 65-page psychological profile to Chikatilo. Within two hours, Chikatilo burst into tears and confessed to Bukhanovsky that he was indeed guilty of the crimes for which he had been arrested. After conversing into the evening, Bukhanovsky reported to Burakov and Fetisov that Chikatilo was ready to confess.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Armed with the handwritten notes Bukhanovsky had prepared, Kostoyev prepared a formal accusation of murder dated 29 November—the eve of the expiration of the ten-day time period during which Chikatilo could legally be held before being charged. The following morning, Kostoyev resumed the interrogation. According to the official protocol, Chikatilo confessed to thirty-six of the thirty-eight murders police had linked to him, although he denied two additional murders committed in 1986 the police had initially believed he had committed. One of these victims was Lyubov Golovakha, found stabbed to death on 23 July 1986 and whom many investigators had had serious doubts about linking to the manhunt; the second was Irina Pogoryelova, found murdered in Bataysk on 18 August 1986 and whose mutilations closely matched those inflicted upon other victims linked to the manhunt.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo gave a full, detailed description of each murder on the list of charges, all of which were consistent with known facts regarding each killing. When prompted, he could draw a rough sketch of various crime scenes, indicating the position of the victim's body and various landmarks in the vicinity of the crime scene. Additional details provided further proof of his guilt: one victim on the list of charges was a 19-year-old student named Anna Lemesheva, whom Chikatilo had killed on 19 July 1984 near Shakhty station. Chikatilo recalled that as he had fought to overpower her, she had stated that a man named "Bars" ("Leopard") would retaliate for his attacking her. Lemesheva's fiancé had the nickname "Bars" tattooed on his hand.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In describing his victims, Chikatilo falsely referred to them as "déclassé elements" whom he would lure to secluded areas before killing. In many instances, particularly (though not exclusively) with his male victims, Chikatilo stated he would bind the victims' hands behind their back with a length of rope before he would proceed to kill them. He would typically inflict a multitude of knife wounds upon the victim; initially inflicting shallow knife wounds to the chest area before inflicting deeper stab and slash wounds—usually thirty to fifty in total—before proceeding to eviscerate the victim as he writhed atop his or her body until he achieved orgasm. Chikatilo had, he stated, become adept at avoiding the spurts of blood from his victims' bodies as he inflicted the knife wounds and eviscerations upon them, and would regularly sit or squat beside his victims until their hearts had stopped beating, adding that the victims' "cries, the blood and the agony gave me relaxation and a certain pleasure."


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: When questioned as to why most of his later victims' eyes had been stabbed or slashed, but not enucleated as his earlier victims' eyes had been, Chikatilo stated that he had initially believed in an old Russian superstition that the image of a murderer is left imprinted upon the eyes of the victim. However, he stated, in "later years", he had become convinced this was simply an old wives' tale and he had ceased to gouge out the eyes of his victims.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo also informed Kostoyev he had often tasted the blood of his victims, to which he stated he "felt chills" and "shook all over". He also confessed to tearing at victims' genitalia, lips, nipples and tongues with his teeth. In several instances, Chikatilo would cut or bite off the tongue of his victim as he performed his eviscerations, then—either at or shortly after the point of death—run around the body as he held the tongue aloft in one hand. Although he also admitted that he had chewed upon the excised uterus of his female victims and the testicles of his male victims, he stated he had later discarded these body parts. Nonetheless, Chikatilo did confess to having swallowed the nipples and tongues of some of his victims.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 30 November, Chikatilo was formally charged with each of the thirty-six murders he had confessed to, all of which had been committed between June 1982 and November 1990.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Over the following days, Chikatilo confessed to a further twenty killings which had not been connected to the case, either because the murders had been committed outside the Rostov Oblast, because the bodies had not been found or, in the case of Yelena Zakotnova, because an innocent man had been convicted and executed for the murder. As had been the case with the victims compiled upon the initial list of charges, Chikatilo was able to provide details of these additional killings only the perpetrator could have known: one of these additional victims, 14-year-old Lyubov Volobuyeva, had lived in south-western Siberia, and had been killed in a sorghum field near Krasnodar Airport on 25 July 1982. Chikatilo recalled that he had killed Volobuyeva in a millet field and that he had approached the girl as she sat in the waiting rooms at Krasnodar Airport. Volobuyeva, Chikatilo stated, had informed him she lived in the Siberian city of Novokuznetsk, and was awaiting a connecting flight at the airport to visit relatives.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In December 1990, Chikatilo led police to the body of Aleksey Khobotov, a boy he had confessed to killing in August 1989 and whom he had buried on the outskirts of a Shakhty cemetery, proving unequivocally that he was the killer. He later led investigators to the bodies of two other victims he had confessed to killing. Three of the fifty-six victims Chikatilo confessed to killing could not be found or identified, but he was charged with killing fifty-three women and children between 1978 and 1990. He was held in the same cell in Rostov where he had been detained on 20 November to await trial.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 20 August 1991, after police had completed their interrogation, including re-enactments of all the murders at each crime scene, Chikatilo was transferred to the Serbsky Institute in Moscow to undergo a 60-day psychiatric evaluation to determine whether he was mentally competent to stand trial. Chikatilo was analysed by a senior psychiatrist, Andrei Tkachenko, who noted that Chikatilo had various physiological problems, which he attributed to prenatal brain damage. Examining Chikatilo's history, Tkachenko observed a "steady but gradual descent into perversion" which had been compounded by biological and environmental factors, with his increasingly extreme acts of homicidal violence ultimately committed to relieve internal tension. Tkachenko concluded on 18 October that although he suffered from a borderline personality disorder with sadistic features, he was fit to stand trial. In December 1991, details of Chikatilo's arrest and a brief summary of his crimes were released to the newly privatised Russian media by police.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo was brought to trial in Rostov on 14 April 1992, charged with fifty-three counts of murder in addition to five charges of sexual assault against minors committed when he had been a teacher. He was tried in Courtroom Number 5 of the Rostov Provincial Court, before Judge Leonid Akubzhanov.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo's trial was the first major media event of post-Soviet Russia. Shortly after his psychiatric evaluation at the Serbsky Institute, investigators had conducted a press conference in which a full list of Chikatilo's crimes was released to the press, alongside a 1984 identikit of the individual charged, but not the full name or a photograph of the accused. The media first saw Chikatilo on the first day of his trial, as he entered an iron cage specifically constructed in a corner of the courtroom to protect him from attack by the enraged and hysterical relatives of his victims. In the opening weeks of Chikatilo's trial, the Russian press regularly published exaggerated and often sensationalistic headlines about the murders, referring to Chikatilo being a "cannibal" or a "maniac" and to his physically resembling a shaven-skulled, demonic individual.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: The first two days of the trial were devoted to Akubzhanov reading the long lists of indictments against Chikatilo. Each murder was discussed individually, and on several occasions, relatives present in the courtroom broke down in tears or fainted when details of their relatives' murder were revealed. After reading the indictment, Akubzhanov announced to the journalists present in the courtroom his intention to conduct an open trial, stating: "Let this trial at least teach us something, so that this will never happen anytime or anywhere again." Akubzhanov then asked Chikatilo to stand, identify himself and provide his date and location of birth. Chikatilo complied, although this would prove to be one of the few civil exchanges between the judge and Chikatilo.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo was initially questioned in detail about each charge upon the indictment. Responding to specific questions regarding the murders, he often gave dismissive replies to questions, particularly when questioned as to the specific nature of the wounds he had inflicted upon his victims and the ruses he had used to entice his victims to the locations where he had killed them. He would become indignant only when accused of stealing personal possessions from the victims, or to his retaining organs excised from the victims missing from the crime scenes. On one occasion, when asked as to his seeming indifference as to the lifestyle and gender of those whom he had killed, Chikatilo replied: "I did not need to look for them. Every step I took, they were there."


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: In what became a regular (though not continuous) occurrence throughout the trial, Akubzhanov berated Chikatilo as he questioned him in detail as to the charges; ordering him to "shut your mouth", before adding, "You're not crazy!" as Chikatilo's responses to questions deviated into his discussing issues such as the repression his family had endured throughout his childhood, and his claiming that the charges filed against him were false. These verbal exchanges would occur whether Chikatilo was cooperative or uncooperative throughout proceedings, and the manner in which the judge questioned Chikatilo repeatedly led his defence lawyer Marat Khabibulin to protest against the accusatory nature of the court proceedings. In the instances in which Chikatilo was uncooperative throughout questioning, he would simply shout over the judge, denounce the court as a farce, and launch into rambling, disjointed speeches. On occasion, Chikatilo would also expose himself to the court or sing socialist movement anthems throughout proceedings. These antics regularly resulted in his being returned to his cell as court proceedings continued in his absence.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 21 April, Chikatilo's defence lawyer requested that Bukhanovsky be allowed to testify as to the contents of the 1985 psychological profile he had written, and his subsequent consultations with Chikatilo following his arrest, adding that Bukhanovsky could exert influence over Chikatilo and, by extension, might influence the court proceedings. This request was denied. The same day, Chikatilo began to refuse to answer any questions from the judge, the prosecutor or his own defence lawyer. He refused to answer any questions for three consecutive days before stating his presumption of innocence had been irredeemably violated by the judge and that he intended to give no further testimony. The following day, proceedings were adjourned for two weeks.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo withdrew his confessions to six of the killings for which he had been charged on 13 May, and also claimed he had killed four further victims who were not included upon the indictment. The same day, his defence lawyer again submitted a request that his client be subjected to a second psychiatric evaluation. This motion was dismissed by the judge as being groundless. In response, Khabibulin rose from his seat, condemning the composition of the court, and arguing that the judge was unfit to continue presiding over the case. Chikatilo himself repeated his earlier remarks as to the judge making numerous rash remarks prejudging his guilt. The prosecutor, Nikolai Gerasimenko, vocally supported the defence's claim, stating that the judge had indeed made too many such comments and had committed numerous procedural violations in his lecturing and insulting the defendant. Gerasimenko further contended that in his conducting an open trial, Chikatilo had already been effectively prejudged as being guilty by the press, before also requesting that the judge be replaced.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 3 July, Bukhanovsky was permitted to testify as to his analysis of Chikatilo, although solely in the capacity as a witness. For three hours, Bukhanovsky testified as to his 1985 psychological profile of Chikatilo, and of the conversations he had held with Chikatilo following his arrest, which had culminated in Chikatilo's confession. Four psychiatric experts from the Serbsky Institute also testified as to the results of a behavioral analysis they had conducted on Chikatilo in May, following the initial adjournment of the trial. All testified as to his behaviour in the courtroom being strikingly at contrast to his behaviour in his cell, and that they considered his antics to be a calculated attempt to obtain acquittal on the grounds of insanity.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 9 August, the defence delivered their closing arguments before the judge. Upon beginning his 90-minute closing argument, Khabibulin first stated he had no confidence his voice would be heard above the "general outcry" for retribution against Chikatilo, before questioning the reliability of the forensic evidence presented at the trial and describing areas of Chikatilo's confessions as being "baseless". Khabibulin also questioned the judge's objectivity and harked back to the decision of the court not to allow the defence to present testimony from independent psychiatrists; emphasizing that crimes of this nature could not have been committed by an individual of sane mind. Khabibulin then formally requested the judge find his client not guilty.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: The following day, prosecutor Anatoly Zadorozhny delivered his closing argument before the judge. Harking towards the earlier testimony of psychiatrists at the trial, Zadorozhny argued that Chikatilo fully understood the criminality of his actions, was able to resist his homicidal impulses, and had made numerous conscious efforts to avoid detection. Moreover, Zadorozhny emphasized that in 19 of the charges, the material evidence of the crimes had been provided by Chikatilo himself. Zadorozhny then recited each of the charges before formally requesting the death penalty.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Following the conclusion of the prosecutor's closing argument, Akubzhanov invited Chikatilo back into the courtroom before formally asking him whether he would like to make a final statement on his own behalf. In response, Chikatilo simply sat mute. Akubzhanov then announced an initial date of 15 September for himself and the two official jurors to review the evidence and pass the final sentence upon Chikatilo. (This date was later postponed until 14 October.) As court announced recess, the brother of Lyudmila Alekseyeva, a 17-year-old girl killed by Chikatilo in August 1984, threw a heavy chunk of metal at Chikatilo, hitting him in the chest. When security tried to arrest the young man, other victims' relatives shielded him.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 14 October, the court reconvened to hear formal sentencing (this sentencing would not finish until the following day). Akubzhanov began sentencing by announcing Chikatilo guilty of fifty-two of the fifty-three murders for which he had been tried. He was sentenced to death for each offense. Chikatilo was also found guilty of five counts of sexual assault committed during the years he worked as a teacher in the 1970s. In reciting his findings, the judge read the list of murders again, before criticizing both the police and the prosecutor's department for various mistakes in the investigation which had allowed Chikatilo to remain free until 1990. Particular criticism was directed towards not local police, but the prosecutor's department—primarily procurator Issa Kostoyev—whom Akubzhanov scathed as "negligent", and who had been dismissive of Chikatilo's inclusion upon a 1987 suspect list compiled by police. Akubzhanov also rejected the numerous claims Kostoyev had made to the media in the months prior to the trial that police had deliberately withheld documents pertaining to Chikatilo from the prosecutor's department as being provably baseless, adding that proof existed he had been in possession of all internal bulletins.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 15 October, Akubzhanov formally sentenced Chikatilo to death plus eighty-six years for the fifty-two murders and five counts of sexual assault for which he had been found guilty. Chikatilo kicked his bench across his cage when he heard the verdict and began shouting abuse. However, when given an opportunity to make a speech in response to the verdict, he again remained silent. Upon passing final sentence, Judge Akubzhanov made the following remark:


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Chikatilo was taken from the courtroom to his cell at Novocherkassk prison to await execution. He did lodge an appeal against his conviction with the Supreme Court of Russia, but this appeal was rejected in the summer of 1993.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Following the rejection of his appeal to the Supreme Court, Chikatilo filed a final appeal for clemency with President Boris Yeltsin. This final appeal was rejected on 4 January 1994.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: On 14 February 1994, Chikatilo was taken from his death row cell to a soundproofed room in Novocherkassk prison and executed with a single gunshot behind the right ear. He was buried in an unmarked grave within the prison cemetery.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Judge Leonid Akubzhanov cleared Chikatilo of the murder of 15-year-old Laura Sarkisyan at his trial due to insufficient evidence. Sarkisyan, a runaway from Armenia, was last seen by her family on 18 June. In his confessions to police, Chikatilo had stated he had killed an Armenian girl in the early summer of 1983 and that she had been killed in a stretch of woodland located near Kirpichnaya station. Although Chikatilo had been unable to identify Sarkisyan's picture when presented to him, the timing of Sarkisyan's disappearance and Chikatilo's physical description of the victim, her clothing, and where he had killed her did match scattered, partial skeletal remains and personal effects which, although determined as being those of a female in her early- to mid-teens, could not be precisely identified.


title: Andrei Chikatilo

text: Although he had at one stage denied having committed six of the murders for which he had been brought to trial, Chikatilo never specifically disputed Sarkisyan as being a victim of his.


title: My Girl (film)

text: My Girl is a 1991 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film directed by Howard Zieff, written by Laurice Elehwany, and starring Dan Aykroyd, Jamie Lee Curtis, Macaulay Culkin, and Anna Chlumsky in her first role in a major motion picture. The film tells the story of an 11-year-old girl living in Madison, Pennsylvania, during the summer of 1972. The film's title refers to the classic 1964 song of the same name by The Temptations, which is also featured in the film's end credits. A book based on the film was written by Patricia Hermes. The film grossed $121 million on a budget of $17 million. A sequel, "My Girl 2", was released in 1994.


title: My Girl (film)

text: Vada Sultenfuss is an 11-year-old girl living in Madison, Pennsylvania in the summer of 1972. Her father, Harry Sultenfuss, operates the town's funeral parlor, which also serves as their home. Vada's upbringing leads her to suffer from hypochondria and develop an obsession with death, and her father fails to understand it. Also living with them is "Gramoo", Vada's paternal grandmother, whose recent mind wandering accentuates Vada's worries. Her uncle Phil lives nearby and frequently helps the family.


title: My Girl (film)

text: Vada hangs out with Thomas J. Sennett, an unpopular boy her age who is allergic to "everything". Other girls tease the two, thinking they are more than just friends. Thomas J. often accompanies Vada when she visits the doctor, who assures her that she is not sick. He is quite nice to her, although she is often unkind in return.


title: My Girl (film)

text: Vada's summer begins well. She befriends Shelly DeVoto, the new makeup artist at the funeral parlor, who provides her with some much needed guidance. She also develops a crush on Mr. Bixler, her fifth-grade school teacher, and hears about an adult poetry writing class he is teaching. Wondering how to pay for the class, Vada schemes after seeing enough money in a cookie jar in Shelly's camper. During her first class, when advised to write about what is in her soul, Vada fears that she killed her mother, who died two days after giving birth to her.


title: My Girl (film)

text: When Harry and Shelly start dating, Vada's attitude towards Shelly changes. One night, Vada follows Harry and Shelly to a bingo game and brings Thomas J. along to disrupt it. On the Fourth of July, when Shelly's ex-husband Danny shows up, Vada hopes that he will take Shelly back, but to no avail.


title: My Girl (film)

text: Following the holiday, and another doctor visit, Vada and Thomas J. spot a beehive in the woods, which Thomas J. knocks down. Vada loses her mood ring in the process, and while the two look for it, the bees swarm and force them to run away. Shortly afterward, Harry invites Vada to a carnival, but she is unenthusiastic to go when he announces Shelly is also coming. Vada becomes distressed when the two announce their engagement there, leading her to contemplate running away.