Anatoly Slivko

Anatoly Yemelianovich Slivko (Russian: Анатолий Емельянович Сливко; 28 December 1938 – 16 September 1989) was a Soviet serial killer and necrophile who sexually assaulted, murdered, and mutilated seven boys in and around Nevinnomyssk, Stavropol Krai, Russian SFSR, between 1964 and 1985.

He is also known to have sexually assaulted at least 36 other victims.

Slivko's murder victims were aged between 11 and 15.

All were deceived into participating in home movies ostensibly reenacting the scene of a partisan soldier executed by Nazi soldiers in which the boy would be hung.

Upon rendering his victim unconscious, Slivko would sexually assault, then murder and dismember his victim before setting the body alight.

The entire routine would invariably be filmed, photographed, and documented in diaries to fuel Slivko's pyrophilia and erotic fantasies.

Anatoly Yemelianovich Slivko was born on 28 December 1938 in the town of Izerbash, Dagestan ASSR, Russian SFSR.

He was the oldest of two children born to impoverished parents.

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.

The marriage between Slivko's parents was fraught: both parents frequently argued.

Furthermore, his father was an alcoholic.

Slivko was an intelligent, but sickly child who suffered from insomnia and several childhood illnesses.

He was also a classic loner, and later recalled his childhood as blighted by instability, hunger, war, and poverty.

When the Soviet Union entered the Second World War, Slivko's father was conscripted into the Red Army.

Slivko himself witnessed many atrocities committed by the Nazis following their invasion of the Soviet Union, including their invasion of his own home in 1943, although one of his most graphic wartime memories was of seeking shelter with four other children in a cemetery to escape German bombing raids, only to be pushed aside by these children, who were repulsed by his emaciated appearance.

According to Slivko, as he crouched into a ball, he observed the mutilated remains of a woman and a horse strewn across a nearby street.

Slivko performed poorly academically.

Although intelligent, his lack of commitment to his studies and propensity to daydream in class resulted in his achieving average grades.

When he reached puberty, Slivko discovered he was homosexual; he also discovered he suffered from erectile dysfunction.

Both discoveries deeply shamed Slivko, who kept his sexuality and sexual dysfunction a secret from his family and few close friends.

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.

Shortly thereafter, he began his compulsory military service and was deployed in the Russian Far East.

He was frequently subjected to the mockery and ridicule of his comrades—many of whom derided his timid and submissive personality.

His superiors concluded Slivko was "incompatible" with military life, and he was discharged from the Soviet Army—officially due to health issues—in 1960, prior to the completion of his service.

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.

In 1961, Slivko relocated from Izerbash to Stavropol Krai, where he found employment as a telephone engineer.

His younger sister later relocated to the same city, obtaining employment in a local factory.

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.

For reasons Slivko would later insist he never could explain, this scene had sexually excited him, triggering a powerful orgasm.

He later recalled the accident vividly: "The boy had experienced convulsions in his death throes as the smell of gasoline and fire permeated the air ... That boy looked so helpless, especially in his uniform. It reminded me of how I felt inside myself after a childhood of pain and suffering. Each time he cried out in agony, I became more excited. [By the time of the boy's death], I became oblivious to everyone else apart from that boy."

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.

According to Slivko, he experienced arousal, elation and a sense of empowerment as he sat and contemplated the suffering the teenager had endured before his death.

Slivko would later describe his witnessing the traffic accident as one of the most pivotal moments in his life.

In late 1962, Slivko's sister—having become concerned as to her brother's introverted lifestyle and lack of interaction with women—introduced him to a young colleague of hers named Lyudmila.

The two began dating, and married in a modest ceremony the following summer.

Shortly after their wedding, the couple relocated to the city of Nevinnomyssk, where they soon established reputations as upstanding members of the community.

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.

Slivko later admitted to investigators he and Lyudmila had engaged in intercourse no more than ten times throughout the course of their seventeen-year relationship, and never after the birth of their second child.

Sentenced to death in 1986, Slivko was executed by shooting on 16 September 1989.