Between 1982 and 1990, the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don was shaken by a series of brutal, frenzied and utterly unimaginable murders - this, in a society which believed itself immune from the violence which characterised the decadent West.

The range of victims was astonishing. Their ages varied from 9 to 45. They were both male and female. The sheer diversity of victims suggested two, three or even a gang of killers. Only a handful of investigators saw they were being committed by one man - and it still took them eight years to find him: a 56-year-old grandfather named Andrei Chikatilo.

He was a thin, gaunt, nervous man who seemed at first glance to be a model Soviet citizen. He was married, did not drink or smoke, was a member in good standing of the Communist Party and had a good job.

However, he was a sexual sadist. It seems there was only one way Chikatilo could be sexually satisfied - one very bloody way. Chikatilo murdered at least 52 people and claimed to have murdered three more. Often he cut out their eyes, chopped off their sexual organs and spattered their bodies with semen. His weapons included rope, a knife and his teeth; he gnawed on parts of some victims.