Anatoly Slivko

At the time of the investigators' final death row interview with Slivko, his scheduled execution was to take place within hours. According to procurator Issa Kostoyev, upon conclusion of their final meeting, he deceived Slivko into the belief they were to convene at a later date by shaking his hand and stating "Next time, we'll talk in greater detail." The then-unidentified serial killer investigators sought at the time of this death row interview with Slivko, Andrei Chikatilo, was arrested in November 1990 and would be convicted of killing fifty-two women and children in October 1992.

Sentenced to death in 1986, Slivko was executed by shooting on 16 September 1989.

On 16 September 1989, just hours after his final face-to-face interview with investigators to assist in their manhunt for the Forest Strip Killer, Slivko was taken from his death row cell to a soundproofed room in Novocherkassk prison and executed with a single gunshot behind the right ear.

In February and March 1986, Slivko led investigators to the dismembered and buried bodies of six of his victims, although he was unable to locate the body of his first victim, whom he had discarded in the Kuban river over twenty years previously. He was formally charged with all seven murders, in addition to seven counts of sexual abuse and seven counts of necrophilia and remanded in custody, to await trial.

Slivko's trial was held in Nevinnomyssk in June 1986; he pleaded not guilty to the charges—claiming all seven deaths were accidental. He was found guilty of all charges and sentenced to death later the same month and incarcerated in Novocherkassk prison, to await execution. Slivko did lodge a formal appeal against his conviction with the Supreme Court of Russia, but this appeal was rejected.

On 23 July 1985, Slivko killed his final victim, 13-year-old Sergey Pavlov, who disappeared after telling a neighbour he was meeting the leader of Chergid to participate in a home movie. Although police informed Pavlov's mother her son was a runaway, his parents remained unconvinced. Both questioned Slivko, who denied any involvement; however, his mother's questioning of fellow Chergid members revealed several boys had participated in hanging experiments to stretch their spines in efforts to stimulate growth at Slivko's insistence, and that the boys had invariably lost consciousness.

Following Pavlov's disappearance, a local prosecutor named Tamara Languyeva began actively investigating the boy's absence. Her enquiries lasted several months, and by November 1985 Languyeva had discovered that several other boys who had attended same youth club had also disappeared over the course of several years—often, like Pavlov, having informed their relatives they were to participate in home movies filmed by Slivko.

At the recommendation of Languyeva, a city prosecutor authorised a formal search of Slivko's home and youth club in December 1985. Although little incriminating evidence was recovered at Slivko's Stavropol home, a search of a locked darkroom at his youth club revealed numerous photographs and films depicting the hanging, molestation and dismemberment of his victims. Also recovered were numerous knives, axes and coils of rope and rubber hose in addition to paraphernalia attesting to his shoe fetish, including several pairs of boys' shoes and boots which had been completely sawn through at mid-foot.

In 1980, Slivko killed his fifth victim, 13-year-old Sergey Fatniev. He was also an active member of Chergid, and by the time Slivko committed this murder, his sadism and lust had escalated to a degree in which he specifically rearranged his victim's dismembered body and shoes before his camera in order to fuel future masturbatory fantasies. His diary entries denoting Fatniev's murder, dismemberment and the burning of his body and clothing also indicate his lack of "disgust and shame" at his actions. The next victim was Vyacheslav Khovistik, aged 15, whom Slivko killed in the autumn of 1984.

Slivko's youth club activities aroused no suspicion; the parents of boys who attended the club regularly bestowed praise upon him for devoting attention to their children and steering them away from trouble. Slivko regularly took his young charges on hiking and hill climbing expeditions, with the expeditions frequently lasting for days at a time. Articles relating to the club's activities frequently appeared within local newspaper and radio broadcasts. Slivko also granted several interviews with local television outlets and even received commendation from local Communist Party officials for his ongoing efforts to educate, entertain and morally nurture Nevinnomyssk's youth. In 1977, he was elected Deputy of the City Council and awarded the title of Honoured Teacher of the Soviet Union.

Two years later, on 11 May 1975, another member of Slivko's youth club, 11-year-old Andrei Pogasyan also disappeared. The boy was last seen by a neighbour, who informed police Pogasyan had told him he was to participate in a "film in the forest," although the boy did not mention Slivko by name. Pogasyan's mother did inform investigators Slivko had shot a partisan film in a nearby forest in which her son had previously participated; however, as the police already knew Slivko had won awards for other, more innocuous films, he was eliminated as a suspect following brief questioning in which he admitted the boy was a member of his youth club, but denied any involvement in his disappearance.

Eight years later, on 14 November 1973, 15-year-old Aleksandr Nesmeyanov disappeared in Nevinnomyssk. Nesmeyanov—another member of Chergid—had recently befriended Slivko prior to his disappearance. Slivko actively participated in the search for Nesmeyanov in the weeks following his murder; printing missing person posters and mobilizing ground searches which he ensured did not cover the murder location.

On 2 June 1964, Slivko killed his first victim, a 15-year-old runaway named Nikolai Dobryshev. Slivko claimed this particular victim was killed unintentionally, as he had been unable to revive Dobryshev upon completion of his routine of filming, photography, and masturbation, although he later admitted in one interview with a psychiatrist that the teenager's death triggered a greater sense of arousal within him than his previous, non-fatal hangings. Nonetheless, the sense of shock at the death of this victim drove Slivko to dismember the boy's body and discard the remains in the Kuban river. He also destroyed the film and photographs he had taken of this particular victim, although he retained the boy's shoes. In May 1965, Slivko befriended his second victim, Aleksei Kovalenko, at his youth club. This victim was killed intentionally, with Slivko retaining all footage and imagery of the hanging, molestation and mutilation. Kovalenko was reported missing, although his parents were informed by police their child was a runaway.

By June 1963, Slivko had devised a routine whereby he could physically relive the erotic fantasies sparked by the 1961 traffic accident: once or twice a year, he would form a close friendship with a boy at the youth club typically aged between 11 and 15, but never older than 17. The boy would be short for his age and would be wearing a Young Pioneers uniform – just like the boy Slivko had seen die in the traffic accident. Slivko would gain the boy's confidence and tell him of an experiment he knew which involved a controlled hanging to stretch the spine, and that he would be required to reenact the scene of a partisan executed by Nazi soldiers for his youth club as Slivko filmed the hanging, after which, the boy was assured, Slivko would revive him from his state of unconsciousness.

The routine of hanging, mutilation and burning enacted by Slivko was an attempt to recreate a traffic accident involving the violent death of a teenage boy he had witnessed in 1961 which had sexually aroused him and awakened his paraphilias.

In 1961, Slivko relocated from Izerbash to Stavropol Krai, where he found employment as a telephone engineer. His younger sister later relocated to the same city, obtaining employment in a local factory. In late 1962, Slivko's sister—having become concerned as to her brother's introverted lifestyle and lack of interaction with women—introduced him to a young colleague of hers named Lyudmila. The two began dating, and married in a modest ceremony the following summer. Shortly after their wedding, the couple relocated to the city of Nevinnomyssk, where they soon established reputations as upstanding members of the community.

In 1961, Slivko witnessed a traffic accident in which a drunken motorcyclist swerved onto a pavement and into a group of pedestrians, fatally injuring a boy in his early teens who was wearing a Young Pioneers uniform. For reasons Slivko would later insist he never could explain, this scene had sexually excited him—triggering a powerful orgasm. He later recalled the accident vividly: "The boy had experienced convulsions in his death throes as the smell of gasoline and fire permeated the air ... That boy looked so helpless, especially in his uniform. It reminded me of how I felt inside myself after a childhood of pain and suffering. Each time he cried out in agony, I became more excited. [By the time of the boy's death], I became oblivious to everyone else apart from that boy."

Although many of the boys Slivko initially persuaded to participate in these home movies were restrained and hung inside or within the vicinity of Chergid, by the mid-1960s, he had begun to persuade his victims to participate in his home movies in increasingly rural locations—often without their parents' knowledge.

In an effort to escape his humble origins, Slivko applied for a scholarship at Moscow State University shortly after his graduation from school in 1956, although he failed the entrance exam. Shortly thereafter, he began his compulsory military service. Slivko served his military service in the Russian Far East; he was frequently subjected to the mockery and ridicule of his comrades—many of whom derided his timid and submissive personality. His superiors concluded Slivko was "incompatible" with military life, and he was discharged from the Soviet Army—officially due to health issues—in 1960, prior to the completion of his military service.

When the Soviet Union entered the Second World War, Slivko's father was conscripted into the Red Army. Slivko himself witnessed many atrocities committed by the Nazis following their invasion of the Soviet Union, including their invasion of his own home in 1943, although one of his most graphic wartime memories was of seeking shelter with four other children in a cemetery to escape German bombing raids, only to be pushed aside by these children, who were repulsed by his emaciated appearance. According to Slivko, as he crouched into a ball, he observed the mutilated remains of a woman and a horse strewn across a nearby street.

Anatoly Yemelianovich Slivko (Russian: Анатолий Емельянович Сливко; 28 December 1938 – 16 September 1989) was a Soviet serial killer and necrophile who sexually assaulted, murdered, and mutilated seven boys in and around Nevinnomyssk, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, between 1964 and 1985. He is also known to have sexually assaulted at least 36 other victims.

Anatoly Yemelianovich Slivko was born on 28 December 1938 in the town of Izerbash, Dagestan ASSR, Russian SFSR. He was the oldest of two children born to impoverished parents.