The police have formed a special commission to investigate the murder of eight victims -- all women -- found in the Neglinovsky and Krasnosulinsky districts of the Rostov region, a local police spokesman said Thursday, according to Itar-Tass.
The police have not ruled out the possibility that one suspect may be responsible for all eight deaths. But according to Alexander Bukhanovsky, a psychiatrist who first came into the public eye for his cooperation with the Rostov police during the manhunt for the Rostov Ripper, the recent string of murders are more than likely the work of two different people. Bukhanovsky is also working closely with police investigators in Rostov on the case.
Andrei Chikatilo, a serial killer known as the Rostov Ripper, terrorized the town in southern Russia during a 12-year rampage, and was executed in Rostov-on-Don in February.
Chikatilo, a former teacher and communist party member, is considered the world's worst serial killer to date.
At the time of his execution Chikatilo had already claimed at least 52 lives, murdering, mutilating and cannibalizing his victims, among them 21 boys, 14 girls, and 17 older women. He shocked the world with his lack of remorse and testimony of delight in mutilating his victims.
"We have some experience in hunting sex rippers in our area," a Rostov police spokesman told Reuters on Thursday.
The case of the Rostov Ripper received world attention not only for its brutality, but for the incompetence of the investigation, which involved more than 500 policemen. Chikatilo was arrested in 1984 but released shortly afterwards. He went on to murder almost two dozen more people before he was arrested again in 1990.
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