Andrei Chikatilo was a Soviet serial killer known as the "Butcher of Rostov" and the "Red Ripper" who murdered and mutilated at least 56 women and children between 1978 and 1990 in the Russian SFSR. He was a disorganized killer who saw himself as a "cleanser of society" and suffered from impotence, which psychologists believe drove him to kill as an expression of power over his victims. Chikatilo was convicted of 52 murders and executed in 1994.