A former teacher accused of being the world's worst serial killer was convicted Wednesday of 52 counts of murder as he protested his innocence through the bars of a courtroom cage.
Andrei Chikatilo was led in and out of the courtroom by armed police because of his outbursts during the three-hour reading of the verdict against him in this city in southern Russia.The 56-year-old grandfather, dubbed the "Forest Strip Killer" for the place where he buried his victims' bodies, confessed to raping, killing and cannibalizing boys, girls and young women. Psychiatrists testified that he acted out of rage over feelings of sexual inadequacy. Throughout the 12-year killing spree, Chikatilo was married, raising a family and employed as a Russian language teacher and office worker.
Wednesday he tried to retract the confessions.
"Why me?" he shouted from inside the small steel cage in a corner of the courtroom, which was packed with about 200 people including victims' families and journalists.
"I demand the podium! Get me a lawyer!"
The trial illustrated the defects in Russia's legal system, which long placed ideology above public safety. The murders began in 1978, during the pre-glasnost era when crime was considered a capitalist phenomenon and was seldom publicized in the former Soviet Union.
As a result, Rostov residents were not warned for more than five years that there was a serial killer among them. In their desire to stop the killings quickly and quietly, Russian authorities now acknowledge they executed the wrong man before arresting Chikatilo near a murder scene in November 1990.