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.

[4] At the time of Slivko's birth, Ukraine was in the grip of a famine caused by Joseph Stalin's forced collectivization of agriculture, from which Soviet Dagestan was not immune.

[9] 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.

[9] 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 what he termed "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.

[9] 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.

"[9] Having achieved orgasm, Slivko walked approximately twenty yards towards a nearby bus shelter where he sat and continued to stare at the deceased teenager, who remained pinioned beneath the motorcycle as emergency services arrived at the scene.

[19] By June 1963, Slivko had devised a routine whereby he could physically relive the erotic fantasies sparked by the 1961 traffic accident:[16] 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.

[27] However, in seven cases, Slivko's behaviour became violent: once these victims were unconscious, he extensively 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.

[16] 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.

[28] 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 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.

[32] 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.

Her enquiries lasted several months, and by November 1985 Languyeva had discovered that several other boys who had attended the 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.

[33] Although Languyeva found no evidence of anything illegal in the way the club actually operated, her questioning of several boys did reveal that many members had agreed to being hanged into unconsciousness in controlled experiments by Slivko as part of a repeated ritual for his homemade partisan movies.

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.

He blamed his crimes on distress brought upon him by sexual frustration and emphasized the primary purpose of his retaining the snuff material and paraphernalia was to both fuel his erotic fantasies via masturbational outlets and to relieve internal tension.

Slivko also claimed that, initially, he had hoped that his retaining the photographs and films of his fatal hangings would suffice to prevent a resurfacing of the desire to commit future homicides, although as time passed, the intervals between the urge to murder and dismember a new victim gradually decreased.

At the request of a Rostov-based detective named Viktor Burakov, Slivko was asked by the police to provide an insight into the minds of serial murderers just weeks prior to his execution.

[37] Slivko did provide investigators with a deep insight into how offenders such as himself were able to function in society without detection or suspicion, the general "rules" created insofar as to how their crimes were to be committed to achieving their desired outcome, and advice as to how to prevent the emergence of future offenders such as himself in Soviet society, which included his suggestion that Soviet schools should provide adolescent students with greater knowledge and acceptance of sexuality, adding in one letter: "If I had had [knowledge of sexual perversions], I might have gone to a doctor as soon as the first abnormal symptoms appeared.

"[17] However, Slivko knew little of the investigators' ongoing manhunt in the Rostov Oblast, and much of the actual advice he provided on the specific case would prove to be incompatible or incorrect.

[39] 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.

"[23] The then-unidentified Rostov serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, was arrested in November 1990 and would be convicted of killing fifty-two women and children in October 1992.

[40] On 16 September 1989, just hours after his final interview with Kostoyev, Slivko was taken from his death row cell to a soundproofed room and executed with a single gunshot to the back of the head.