Andrei Chikatilo Research Paper

Andrei Chikatilo, nicknamed the Butcher of Rostov, was convicted of 52 murders in 1992. Chikatilo’s killing spree lasted 12 years. Andrei repeated the pattern of raping, strangling, mutilating, and cannibalizing children and prostitutes. Andrei would confess in 1990, admitting to the sexual motivation behind the murders. Andrei was impotent and was unable to maintain a healthy relationship because of it. Andrei’s childhood was plagued by famine and war. His brother reportedly being kidnapped and cannibalized by neighbors during a mass famine. His father was imprisoned during World War II and his mother was raped during Nazi occupation of Ukraine. Andrei became a schoolteacher and after many years would resign due to the numerous accounts of molestation. Taken from the perspective that an individual has free will, Rational Choice Theory suggests that for Andrei Chikatilo, the benefits of sexual satisfaction from rape and murder outweighed the risk of getting caught. From this perspective, Chikatilo would have made conscious and rational choices when committing his crimes. His crimes were planned out, he prepared for it. Bringing a rope, knife, Vaseline, and a towel, Andrei had acted in a manner which seems to show conscious, rational consideration.

Andrei recalled that in his teens he wrestled with his little sister’s friend, and as she struggles beneath him, Andrei ejaculated. Being impotent, the sexual satisfaction associated with violence and struggling was a part of the Seduction of Crime. Both the act of committing a crime and of the struggle itself was pleasurable for Andrei. Andrei Chikatilo was sentenced to death by firing squad. At the hearing, crowds of family members of the victims cried out for him to be put to death. This Just Deserts model of sentencing is placed on Andrei’s case in the mindset that his crimes deserve a death