Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo was a Soviet serial killer, nicknamed The Butcher of Rostov, The Red Ripper, and The Rostov Ripper, who committed the sexual assault, murder and mutilation of a minimum of 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990 in the Russian SFSR. Chikatilo confessed to a total of 56 murders and was tried for 53 of these killings in April 1992.