October 16, 1936 - Andrei Chjikatilo got born in Yablochnoye, a small Ukrainian farming village.

1941 - At the age of five, his mother told Andrej that, seven years earlier, his older brother Stephan had disappeared and the family believed that he had been kidnapped and eaten by neighbours. The story had a profound effect on the boy who later admitted that he often imagined what had been done to his brother.

1945 - Chikatilo's father, Roman, was conscripted into the army. Captured by the Germans, he did not return home until well after the war when he was branded by the Stalinist regime as a traitor for "allowing himself to be caught." Even though Andrei was only ten when his father returned, he was already a devout communist and openly criticised his father for his "betrayal."

1952 - At the age of sixteen, he was the editor of the school newspaper and the political information officer.

1954 - At the age of eighteen, Chiikatilo applied to Moscow University to study law. He failed the entrance exam, but blamed his rejection on his father's humiliating war record.

1954 / 55 - As he matured he became more confident with women, but several early attempts at sex failed when he was unable to achieve an erection. Convinced that he was impotent, he became obsessed with masturbation.

1957 / 1960 - While on national service, he attempted to have sex with a woman who was not interested in his advances. As the woman struggled, Chikatilo overpowered her only to release her shortly after when he realised that he had ejaculated inside his pants. Inadvertently he had discovered that fear and violence excited him more than the sexual act itself.

1960 - He moved to Russia in search of work. He quickly found a job as a telephone engineer in a small town called Rodionovo-Nesvetayevsky, just north of Rostov. When he had saved enough money, he sent for his parents and his sister and moved them into his new home.

1962 - His sister Tatyana introduced him to a woman named Fayina.

1963 - Chikatilo marries Fayina.

1963 - Fayina quickly learned that her new husband was not only unable to consummate the marriage, he had no real interest in sex. She saw this as nothing more than intense shyness and finally managed to coax him into having intercourse with her. Eventually they had two children.

1965 - Chikatilo's first child, a girl named Lyudmilla.

1969 - Chikatilo's second child, a boy named Yuri.

1970 - Chikatilo successfully enrolled in a correspondence course with Rostov Liberal Arts University.

1971 - Chikatilo gained degrees in Russian Literature, Engineering and Marxism-Leninism. With his newfound skills, Chikatilo became a teacher at Vocational school No. 32 in Novoshakhtinsk.

1971 - Almost from the beginning, his teaching career was a disaster. His abject shyness made it almost impossible for him to teach or control his pupils. He was constantly humiliated and ridiculed, not only by his students but also by other staff members who considered him "odd.".

1971 - Despite his lack of success, Chikatilo stayed in his teaching job. He later admitted that he found that the company of young children sexually aroused him. In the following years, what began as simple voyeurism outside the school toilets had degenerated into indecent assaults on both male and female students.

1972 - The students parents began to complain, Chikatilo was forced to resign and move on to other schools. At one such school, Chikatilo was put in charge of a boy's dormitory. As usual, his charges ignored him or openly teased him.

1972 - Chikatilo was caught trying to fellate a sleeping boy, he was attacked and beaten by several senior students. From that moment on, Chikatilo carried a knife.

1978 - Chikatilo moved his family to Shakhty.

December 22, 1978 - Chikatilo killed the nine year-old Lena Zakotnova. She was his first victim. Her body was found two days later in the Grushovka River.

December, 1978 - The police called Chikatilo in for questioning but released him shortly after when his wife confirmed his story that he had been home with her the entire evening. Even though the evidence against Chikatilo was strong, police arrested another person named, Alexsandr Kravchenko a local man who had previously served six years of a ten-year prison sentence, for the rape and murder of a seventeen-year-old girl in 1970. The police managed to obtain a "confession" from him. After a short trial Kravchenko was found guilty of the murder of Lena Zakotnova and sentenced to fifteen years in a labour camp. Hearing the verdict, the people of Shahkty lodged an official complaint against the leniency of the sentence. A new judge appointed to investigate the complaint upheld the public appeal and passed a death sentence on Kravchenko.

1978 - After being cleared of the murder of Lena Zakotnova, Andrei Chikatilo continued teaching until he was made redundant in 1981.

March, 1981 - Unable to get another teaching job he found employment as a supply clerk for the Rostovnerud, a local industrial complex. The job entailed travel to other parts of the country to locate and purchase supplies for the factory. He found that the periods away from home gave him ample time to search for new victims.

September 3, 1981 - Chikatilo kills his second known victim, the seventeen years-old, Larisa Tkatsjenko (or write: Tkachenko). Her body was found the next day. Chikatilo was elated. While his first victim had left him frustrated and confused, the second had given him an appetite that he found hard to satisfy.

June 12, 1982 - while on another "business trip" to the town of Zaplavskaya, he killed thirteen-year-old Lyuba Biryuk after following her from a bus stop. After a failed attempt at rape he produced a knife and stabbed her repeatedly, including several wounds to her eyes. Because of the warm summer conditions, her body was almost a skeleton when it was found just two weeks later.

July 25, 1982 - Chikatilo kills a fourteen year-old girl named Ljoeba Voloboejeva.

August 13, 1982 - Chikatilo kills a nine year-old girl named Oleg Pozjidajev.

August 16, 1982 - Chikatilo kills a sixteen year-old girl named Olga Koeprina.

September 8, 1982 - Chikatilo kills a nine year-old boy named Ira Karabelnikova.

September 15, 1982 - Chikatilo kills a fifteen year-old boy named Sergej Koezmin.

December 11, 1982 - Chikatilo kills a ten year-old girl named Olga Stalmatsjenok.

Chikatilo, shy and impotent, quickly learned how to choose his victims carefully. His travels took him to many railway and bus stations where he was able to coerce young vagrants of both sexes to go with him. Mostly it was a promise of food or similar treats that lured them into the isolated tracts of forest that bordered most Russian towns. On some occasions, the victims offered sexual favours in advance. Either way, once they went with him they were doomed. An added advantage of preying on vagrants in Russia was that nobody reported them missing because, officially, they did not exist. They only became known when their bodies were found.

June, 1983 - Chikatilo kills a fifteen year-old girl named Laura Sarkisjan.

July, 1983 - Chikatilo kills a thirteen year-old girl named Ira Doenenkova.

July, unknown day 1983 - Chikatilo kills a twenty-four year-old woman named Ljoeda Koetsjoeba.

August 8, 1983 - Chikatilo kills a seven year-old boy named Igor Goedkov.

September, 1983 - Chikatilo kills a twenty-two year-old woman named Valja Tsjoetsjoelina.

Summer 1983 - Chikatilo kills a eighteen year-old girl who's still Undentified.

October 27, 1983 - Chikatilo kills a nineteen year-old girl named Vera Sjevkoen.

December 27, 1983 - Chikatilo kills a fourteen year-old boy named Sergej Markov.

1983 - At the end of 1983, the total number of victims had risen to seventeen, of which six had been found. The central Moscow militia, concerned by the number of dead children that were being reported by the local police, sent Major Mikhail Fetisov and his team to Rostov to take over the investigation. Soon after his arrival, Fetisov reviewed the situation and sent a scathing report to his superiors in Moscow criticising the ineptitude of the local police and suggesting that all six murders were the work of a single sex-crazed killer. Moscow headquarters reluctantly accepted his findings but fell short of calling the perpetrator a "serial killer" as that was seen to be a purely western phenomenon and not possible in Russian culture.

1984 - As most of the bodies had been recovered from woodlands, the case was known unofficially as the "Lesopolosa" or "Forest Strip killings."

1984 - Samples of semen taken from the victims indicated that the killer had "Type AB" blood. If any of the suspects matched, they were detained for further questioning, those that didn't were released.

1984 - In the absence of computers, the details of all the suspects interviewed were handwritten on index cards and kept in boxes. One of the cards recorded that Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo had been interviewed but was released when his blood type failed to provide a match.

1984 - The murders were accelerating at an alarming rate. From January to September, fifteen new murders had been committed, eleven of them during the summer period alone.

January 9, 1984 - Chikatilo kills a seventeen year-old girl named Natalja Sjalapinina.

February 21, 1984 - Chikatilo kills a forty-four year-old woman named Marta Riabjenko.

March 24, 1984 - Chikatilo kills a ten year-old boy named Dima Ptasjnikov. For the first time the police found evidence about the murderer, a footprint.

May 1984 - A double murder, Chikatilo kills a former mistress of him named Tanja Petrosjan she was thirty-two years-old and also her daughter, Sveta Petrosjan eleven year-old.

June 1984 - Chikatilo kills a twenty-two year-old girl named Jelena Bakoelina.

July 10, 1984 - Chikatilo kills a thirteen year-old boy named Dima Illarjonov.

July 19, 1984 - Chikatilo kills a nineteen year-old girl named Anna Lemesjeva.

July 1984 - Chikatilo kills a twenty year-old girl named Sveta Tsana.

August 1, 1984 - Job.

August 2, 1984 - Chikatilo kills a sixteen year-old girl named Natasja Golosovskaja.

August 7, 1984 - Chikatilo kills a seventeen year-old girl named Ljoeda Aleksejeva.

Between 8-11 August 1984 - Chikatilo kills an unknown women.

August 13, 1984 - Chikatilo kills a twelve year-old girl named Akmaral Sejdaljeva.

August 28, 1984 - Chikatilo kills a eleven year-old boy named Sasja Tsjepel.

September 6, 1984 - Chikatilo kills a twenty-four year-old girl named Irina Loetsjinskaja.

September 14, 1984 - Chikatilo under arrest - As his history unfolded, police learned of his penchant for children, particularly girls. They uncovered the classroom incidents, his acts of voyeurism and the sexual assault of the boy in the dormitory. Several people, who lived in the vicinity of his "secret" shack, reported that he had used it to entertain prostitutes and spoke of his habit of stalking the corridors of trains. The evidence seemed to indicate that he could be the killer they sought, until a blood sample was taken from him and analysed.

His blood type was found to be Type "A." Had they taken samples of his sperm, hair or saliva, they would have found that his blood type was actually Type "AB" as the "B" antigens are not present in the blood in sufficient quantities to provide a positive match. The only real evidence they had left were the contents of his briefcase and the police report of his activities at the train stations. Incredibly, the knife and other items were lost when a local police lieutenant mistakenly returned them to Tsjikatilo's home. Having insufficient evidence to charge him for the murders, he was later charged with the stealing offences and sentenced to one year's imprisonment and expelled from the Communist party.

December 12, 1984 - after serving just three months of his original sentence, he was released.

December 1984 - After celebrating the New Year with his family, Tsjikatilo sought out a new job and was soon employed in a locomotive factory in nearby Novocherkassk. As before, his new job entailed travel.

1985 - Issa Kostoyev, the director of Moscow's Department for Violent Crime, unofficially called "The Killer Department," takes over the case and reorganised his investigators into three teams. One group concentrated on Shakhty, another on Rostov and the third on Novoshakhtinsk. His strategy was simple, investigate each murder systematically and focus on the areas surrounding each one.

August 1, 1985 - During a business trip to Moscow, Chikatilo kills a eightteen year-old girl named Natalja Pochlistova

August 27, 1985 - Chikatilo kills a eightteen year-old girl named Irina Goeljajeva.

December 1985 - Burakov and Kostoyev had organised for all trains in the three districts to be patrolled by plain-clothed militia and "druzhinniki," as the volunteer militia were called. Their instructions were to stop and check the documents of anyone who looked suspicious. In addition, Army helicopters were used to patrol the railway lines and the adjoining forests from the air. This increased scrutiny may have been the reason why Chikatilo ceased his activities for nearly two years. Whatever the reason, the investigators were later embarrassed to learn that Chikatilo himself, in his capacity as a freelance employer of the Department of Internal Affairs, had been assisting the militia to patrol the trains looking for the "killer." Armed with the knowledge that the investigation centred around only three areas, he resumed killing in areas far removed from them.

1986 - Chikatilo didn't kill in this year. He spent most of 1986 travelling around the country on buying trips for his employer and celebrated his fiftieth birthday on October 16.

May 16, 1987 - During a trip to the town of Revda in the Ural Mountains, Chikatilo kills a thirteen year-old boy named Oleg Makarenkov.

July 29, 1987 - During another trip to Zaporozhye in the Ukraine, Chikatilo kills a twelf year-old boy named Ivan Bilovetski. The attack was so brutal that a part of his knife blade broke off and was later found at the scene by police.

September 15, 1987 - A trip to Leningrad in September resulted in the death of yet another boy, the sixteen year-old boy named Joera Teresjonok.

April 1988 - Chikatilo kills a twelve year-old Undentifeid girl.

May 14, 1988 - Chikatilo kills a nine year-old boy named Ljosja Voronko.

July 14, 1988 - Chikatilo kills a fifteen year-old boy named Zjenja Moeratov.

March 1989 - Chikatilo kills a sixteen year-old girl named Tatjana (Tanja or Tatyana) Rizjova (Ryzhova). The crime occurred at his daughter's apartment in Shakhty. It had been empty since the daughter had divorced her husband and moved back with her parents. After Chikatilo lured sixteen-year-old girl inside, he gave her vodka and seduced her. After stabbing her and violating her body, he realised that he could not leave her body at the house. Taking a kitchen knife, he decapitated her and sawed off her legs before wrapping her in rags and articles of clothing. He then tied the bundles to a sled belonging to a neighbour and dragged it through the streets to the area where he dumped her remains.

May 11, 1989 - Chikatilo kills a eight year-old boy named Sasja Djakonov.

June 20, 1989 - Chikatilo kills a ten year-old boy named Ljosja Mojsejjev.

August 19, 1989 - Chikatilo kills a nineteen year-old girl named Jelena (or velena) Varga. He killed her while he was on his way to his father's birthday party. Seeing nineteen-year-old girl at a bus stop, he offered to walk her home but instead lured her into the woods and stabbed her. After cutting out her uterus and slicing off part of her face, he wrapped the remains in her clothing and left for the party.

August 28, 1989 - Chikatilo kills a ten year-old boy named Aljosja Chobotov. Chikatilo had met him in a Rostov video shop. He died of multiple stab wounds and was buried in Rostov cemetery by his killer.

1989 - When police recovered the bodies, many of them were missing body parts. Many females were missing their uterus and nipples and the males had genitals and occasionally tongues sliced or bitten off.

1990 - In his last year of freedom, Chikatilo killed eight more victims.

January 14, 1990 - Chikatilo kills a eleven year-old boy named Andrej Kravtsjenko.

March 7, 1990 - Chikatilo kills a ten year-old boy named Jaroslav Markarov.

April 1990 - Chikatilo kills a thirty-one year-old woman named Ljoebov Zoejeva.

July 28, 1990 - Chikatilo kills a thirteen year-old boy named Vitja Petrov.

August 14, 1990 - Chikatilo kills a eleven year-old boy named Ivan Fomin.

October 17, 1990 - Chikatilo kills a sixteen year-old boy named Vadim Gromov. His body was found on November 3 near Rostov's Leskhoz railway station, a location that had been under heavy scrutiny for months. Ironically, the day that it wasn't patrolled, owing to a manpower shortage, was the day that Chikatilo struck.

October 30, 1990 - Chikatilo kills a sixteen year-old boy named Vitja Tisjtsjenko.

November 6, 1990 - Chikatilo kills a twenty-two year-old woman named Svetlana Korostik. She went with him to the woods near Leskhoz station and was beaten, stabbed and mutilated. Tsjikatilo removed the tip of her tongue and both nipples and ate them at the scene before he covered her naked body with leaves and branches. As he returned to the station he saw four women and a man standing on the platform. The man, Sergeant Igor Rybakov, a policeman attached to the "Forest Belt" taskforce, noticed Chikatilo walking beside the platform wiping sweat from his face.

November 20, 1990 - Chikatilo was at work. As his bandaged finger, which had been bitten by one of his victims, was aching badly, he left work and went to a nearby clinic for x-rays. After receiving treatment for the finger, which was broken, he went home. Shortly after arriving home, he went out to buy beer. On the way he attempted to talk to a young boy but was scared off when a woman approached. He walked further until he met another boy that he engaged in conversation until the boy was called away by his mother. As he continued on, three men in leather jackets approached him and identified themselves as police officers. One of the men then handcuffed him and told him that he was under arrest. He was transported to the office of Mikhail Fetisov at the regional headquarters of the Department of Internal Affairs. Chikatilo, who had made no attempt to resist the arrest, did not speak for the entire trip.

November 20, 1990 - On the day that Chikatilo was arrested, he had with him a briefcase containing a knife, a length of rope and a jar of Vaseline.

November, 1990 - After a search of his apartment police found twenty-three knives, a hammer and a pair of shoes, that were later found to match the footprint next to ones of his victims.

April 14, 1992 - First day of Chikatilo's trial

October 15, 1992, - Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo was found guilty of fifty-two counts of murder, one charge having been dropped owing to insufficient evidence.