Anatoly Slivko

Anatoly Slivko Анатолий Сливко
File:Anatoly Slivko.jpg
Born	Anatoly Yemelianovich Slivko (1938-12-28)28 December 1938 Izerbash, Dagestan ASSR, Russian SFSR, USSR
Died	(1989-09-16)16 September 1989 (age 50) Novocherkassk prison, Novocherkassk, Russian SFSR, USSR
Cause of death	Execution by shooting
Criminal status	Executed
Spouse	Lyudmila Slivko ​ (m. 1963)​
Children	2
Motive	Sexual sadism Possession Necrophilia
Conviction(s)	Murder with aggravating circumstances
Details
Victims	7
Span of crimes	2 June 1964–23 July 1985
Country	Soviet Union
Date apprehended	28 December 1985

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 36 other victims.

Slivko's murder victims were aged between 11 and 15. All were deceived into participating in home videos ostensibly reenacting the scene of a partisan soldier executed by Nazi soldiers in which the boy would be hung. Upon rendering his victim unconscious, Slivko would sexually assault, then murder and dismember his victim before setting the body alight.

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 triggered lifelong erotic fantasies.

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

Early life

Childhood

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.

The marriage between Slivko's parents was fraught: both parents frequently argued. Furthermore, his father was an alcoholic. Slivko was an intelligent, but sickly child who suffered from insomnia and several childhood illnesses. His lack of commitment to his studies and propensity to daydream in class resulted in his achieving average grades. He was also a classic loner, and later recalled his childhood as blighted by hunger, war and poverty.

When the Soviet Union entered the Second World War, Slivko witnessed many atrocities committed by the Nazis following their invasion of the Soviet Union, including their invasion of his home in 1943, although one of his most graphic 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.

Adolescence

When he reached puberty, Slivko discovered he was homosexual; he also discovered he suffered from erectile dysfunction. Both discoveries deeply shamed Slivko, who kept his sexuality a secret from his family and few friends.

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, although he was discharged from the Soviet Army due to health issues in 1960, prior to the completion of his military service.

Relocation to Stavropol

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 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.

According to Slivko, although he cared for his wife, his sexuality obscured any physical attraction to her and his erectile dysfunction limited their intercourse to brief episodes of "quick, humiliating" coupling. On one occasion, he did seek medical help to overcome his inability to sustain an erection in the presence of a female, although the sight of a young nurse discreetly laughing at his predicament meant he never again sought any form of professional advice.

Slivko later admitted to investigators he and Lyudmila had engaged in intercourse no more than ten times throughout the course of their seventeen-year relationship, and never after the birth of their second child.

Erotic fantasies

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."

Youth club

Slivko would later describe his witnessing the traffic accident as one of the most pivotal moments in his life. Prior to witnessing the accident, he had repressed his sexuality; after witnessing the accident, he developed an overwhelming desire to engage in physical sexual relations with young males. Furthermore, the sight of blood on the teenager's shoes further compounded the shoe fetish he had already developed, and he began incorporating boys' footwear into his masturbatory fantasies.

Within months of witnessing the accident, Slivko established a youth club in Nevinnomyssk. Ostensibly, the club was established to encourage local boys to participate in Young Pioneer activities, although Slivko also used the club as a means of befriending boys and developing methods to gain their trust.

This first club was destroyed in an act of arson approximately one year after its establishment. Allegedly, the perpetrator was one of the boys who attended the club and whom Slivko had either mistreated or molested. No criminal charges were filed. Shortly thereafter, Slivko established a new club, which he named Chergid.

Slivko's youth club activities aroused no suspicion; the parents of boys who attended the club bestowed praise upon him for devoting attention to their children and steering them away from trouble. 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.

Hanging experiments

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 parents of many of these boys were informed Slivko—known in the community to have created several amateur documentaries with his personal camera—was to film these videos on the stage at his club.

Prior to each boy undertaking this "experiment", Slivko would purchase a new uniform for the victim to wear and shine his shoes. In addition, to prevent any vomiting, the victim was required not to eat for several hours before the experiment. Once the boy was unconscious, Slivko would strip him naked, caress and fondle him, arrange the body in suggestive positions, and repeatedly masturbate. This entire process would invariably be filmed, and retained by Slivko to fuel his erotic fantasies.

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.

Murders

Over the course of 22 years, Slivko persuaded forty-three boys to take part in this contrived experiment. In thirty-six cases, following his established ritual of photography, filming and repeated masturbation, Slivko revived these boys. Cautioned by Slivko into silence, these individuals resumed their lives unaware of what had happened to them whilst they had been unconscious. However, in seven cases, Slivko's behavior became violent: once these victims were unconscious, he dismembered their bodies, poured gasoline on their limbs and torso, and set the remains on fire to remind himself of the traffic accident which had sparked his arousal. Slivko typically retained the victim's shoes as a memento, as well as the photographs and films which he developed in a home laboratory. In addition, Slivko meticulously recorded details of each hanging—fatal or otherwise—in his diaries. The shoes, pictures and films served as stimuli for Slivko's masturbatory fantasies for months or years until he needed fresher stimuli and killed again.

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. He dismembered the boy's body and buried him, also destroying the film and photographs he had taken of this particular victim. In May 1965, Slivko killed his second victim, Aleksei Kovalenko. This victim was killed intentionally, with Slivko retaining all footage and imagery of the hanging, molestation and mutilation.

Eight years later, on 14 November 1973, 15-year-old Aleksandr Nesmeyanov, disappeared in Nevinnomyssk. Nesmeyanov—a member of Chergid—had recently befriended Slivko. 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.

Two years later, on 11 May 1975, 11-year-old Andrei Pogasyan—also a member of Chergid—disappeared. The boy was last seen by a neighbour, who informed police Pogasyanhad told him he was to participate in a "film in the forest," although he did not mention Slivko by name. Pogasyan's mother identified Slivko as a man who had shot a partisan film in a nearby forest in which her son had previously participated. However, police did nothing to prevent this because they knew Slivko, who had won awards for other, more innocuous films. In 1980, 13-year-old Sergei Fatniev, another member of Slivko's youth club, disappeared. The next victim was Vyacheslav Khovistik, aged 15, killed in 1982. On 23 July 1985, Slivko killed his final victim, 13-year-old Sergei Pavlov, who disappeared after telling a neighbour he was going to meet the leader of Chergid to participate in a home movie.

Arrest

In November 1985, prosecutor Tamara Languyeva investigated Pavlov's disappearance and took an interest in Chergid's activities. However, she had no evidence of anything illegal in the way the club was run. Languyeva questioned many boys who had belonged to the club, who said they had suffered "temporary amnesia" and that Slivko had performed experiments with them.

Evidence retrieval

Following a long inquiry, a city prosecutor authorised a 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, 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.

Confronted with the evidence recovered from his darkroom, Slivko confessed to seven murders and thirty-six non-fatal hangings, blaming his crimes on distress brought upon him by sexual frustration.

Slivko would later be formally accused of seven murders, seven counts of sexual abuse and seven counts of necrophilia. In early 1986, he led investigators to the bodies of six of his victims, although he was unable to locate the body of his first victim, Nikolai Dobryshev. In June 1986, he was sentenced to death and incarcerated in Novocherkassk prison.

Death row interview

In 1989, Slivko was asked by the police to help arrest a then-unidentified serial killer in Rostov Oblast who had killed a minimum of twenty-nine victims by the time he was approached. Although Slivko did provide some insight into how offenders such as himself were able to function, much of the actual advice he provided on the specific case would prove to be incorrect. The then-unidentified serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, was arrested in November 1990 and would be convicted of killing fifty-two women and children in October 1992.

Execution

On 16 September 1989, just hours after he was interviewed by the police to assist in the manhunt for Chikatilo, 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.

See also

• Capital punishment in the Soviet Union
• Crime in the Soviet Union
• List of Russian serial killers
• List of serial killers by number of victims

Further reading

• Clarkson, Wensley (2021). Serial Killers of Russia: Case Files from the World's Deadliest Nation. Welbeck Publishing. ISBN 978-1-787-39602-9
• Cullen, Robert (1993). The Killer Department: Detective Viktor Burakov's Eight-Year Hunt for the Most Savage Serial Killer of Our Times. Orion Media. ISBN 1-85797-210-4
• Kalman, Robert (2014). Born to Kill in the USSR. Friesen Press. ISBN 978-1-460-22731-2
• Lawson, John (2015). Murder Most Moscow: True Stories of Russia's Worst Serial Killers. CreateSpace. ISBN 978-1-514-67009-5
• Lourie, Richard (1993). Hunting the Devil: The Pursuit, Capture and Confession of the Most Savage Serial Killer in History. Grafton. ISBN 0-06-017717-9
• Toates, Frederick; Coschug-Toates , Olga (2022). Understanding Sexual Serial Killing. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-316-51759-8
• Wallace, Bill (2013). Mass Killers: Compelled to Destroy. Canary Press. ISBN 978-1-907-79590-9

External links

• Image gallery pertaining to Anatoly SlivkoArchived 2 May 2016 at the Wayback Machine