Slivko was born on December 28, 1938 and lived at Nevinnomyssk in Stavropol Krai. He was a factory engineer, a Communist Party member, a decorated youth leader, and the founder and head of the Chergid children's club, an official Pioneer-affiliated outdoor and hiking organisation. He was given awards for the work and honoured as an outstanding teacher.
In 1961 he witnessed a road accident in which a boy in Pioneer uniform was killed, and he described the arousal it produced as the origin of everything that followed. From 1964 he persuaded boys from the club to take part in what he told them were films about resisting torture. He hanged them to unconsciousness, and in most cases revived them. Forty-three boys took part over two decades and survived. Seven did not, between 1964 and 1985: an unidentified homeless boy, Aleksander Nesmeyanov, fifteen, Andrei Pogasyan, eleven, Sergei Fatsiev, thirteen, Slava Khovistik, and two others. He dismembered and burned the bodies, and he filmed and photographed all of it. Those named in the record are Aleksander Nesmeyanov, fifteen; Andrei Pogasyan, eleven; Sergei Fatsiev, thirteen; Slava Khovistik, fifteen; and Sergei Pavlov, thirteen.
He was protected by his standing. Boys from the club told adults what happened at the filming sessions and were not believed; the club continued to receive official support, and the disappearances in the town were investigated without the club being examined. He was arrested in December 1985 after an investigator finally connected the missing boys to it, and the films were found.
He was convicted and shot in September 1989. He gave detailed evidence and was used as a source by Soviet investigators, including on the Chikatilo inquiry then running in the same region.
The case is not primarily a puzzle of detection. Boys reported it, and a decorated Pioneer leader's word was taken over theirs for twenty years.