Behind the Monster: Andrei Chikatilo from the Murder Podcast House

Some people hide in the dark, while others hide in plain sight.

Andrei Chikatilo was a husband. A father. A teacher. A civil servant. A completely ordinary-looking man.

But for more than a decade, he led a double life. As bodies began appearing in the forests of the Rostov region, the Soviet police launched a manhunt for a serial killer—and searched almost every possible person except the man who was already in their hands.

This is the story of a child who grew up amid hunger, war, and shame; of a man who discovered that what satisfied him was not sex but control; and of a system that was unwilling to believe that such a monster could look exactly like everyone else.

It is also the story of the people who tried to stop him: the investigator who pursued him for years, the psychiatrist who managed to sketch his profile before ever meeting him, and the mistakes that allowed Chikatilo to continue killing.

In a stage performance combining true crime, video art, and original live music created by Oren Barzilai, Maya Gazit, creator of “Murder Podcast,” returns to one of the most shocking murder cases of the 20th century.

The story moves back and forth through time, between the killer and the people pursuing him, until the two stories meet.

And above all hangs one question: How did a man like this manage to hide for so many years in plain sight?