Killer Department

Rating:
Summary: Where have all the children gone?
Review: Pick up a deck of playing cards and count them. Put them down and know for a fact that this is how many people Andrei Chikatilo murdered between 1978 and 1990 before he was caught. It was a case that baffled Soviet police for over a decade, almost never solved thanks to the constrictive Soviet system that would never allow such knowledge of a 'serial killer' to be known or addressed. The bureaucrats forbid the publication of the murders to alert the public, and one by one their children disappeared. 'Citizen X' will convince you that true evil can and does exist, often in the worst possible places.

In Russia, children are taught to respect and trust grownups to the point where it becomes second nature to them, and it is this fact that enabled Chikatilo to lure so many girls and boys, even young women, with promises of alcohol, cigarettes and candy, away from prying eyes. In the seclusion of the forests around the Rostov and Shakty Oblasts, he would rape and mutilate them, often biting off portions in order to achieve release. It became known later that he had been impotent for years, but the grisly sight of his work allowed him to achieve some sort of sexual satisfaction. Cullen's interview before his execution has enabled the author to enlighten us to Chikatilo's activities during the murders.

'Citizen X' was a name penned by a psychologist who profiled Chikatilo, something unheard of in the Soviet Union, and enabled investigators to construct a pattern of events around the killer. It is a testament to the dedication of the police who worked on the case, often to exclusion of all else, including their health that Chikatilo was ever caught at all. Most notably is the man who spearheaded the case since day one, Viktor Burakov, and a more dedicated police officer has never existed. His determination, and his ability as a careful and analytical thinker enabled him to eventually piece together Chikatilo's patterns until his arrest. And while he was tried for fifty-two murders, the actual count may go as high as a hundred.

Chikatilo himself was a diseased monster, incompetent at life, for though he was trained as a school teacher, he had been fired for sexually assaulting a young girl around 1976. He worked odd jobs until he found steady work at a train plant in Rostov. Cullen's book assembles all of it in stunning detail that draws the reader in until they are silently urging Burakov onward to solving the case. It is fortunate then that Chikatilo was caught and in late 1990 they put a bullet into his misbegotten brain.