Cold calculating professional; specimen as a use to science

When talking almost nostalgically about his past thoughts of suicide, he even said that as far as he was concerned, his life was now effectively over. Live or die, it did not really make any difference. Yet the investigators who worked with him said he did not appear to grasp the fact that he would eventually face the death penalty. At one stage, he even argued that the very number of killings that he had carried out turned him into a kind of unique specimen who could be of use to science.

Gradually, though, the hopelessness of his situation dawned on Chikatilo. He was sane enough to realise that insanity was the only thing that could save him from the firing squad. Not complete insanity. It was too late to start imitating that. Instead, he appeared to think he could claim a temporary madness under the influence of which he had lost control and had killed.

If it had been a matter of one murder, it may have been convincing. But it could hardly explain the sheer carnage he'd carried out. After all, if he had been so horrified by what he had done, how could he explain why he killed again and again? There was other evidence of the premeditated nature of the murders: the long pause after his release from jail at the end of 1984, for example, and the decision to kill far from home in the years that immediately followed. There was also the apparent energy he devoted to finding places to kill and his successful efforts to keep one step ahead of the police. Kostoyev was convinced: these were no mere crimes of passion carried out in the heat of the moment. These were premeditated killings by a cold calculating professional.

pg 192