Police expected him to be declared insane but were shocked when he was found to be of sound mind.
Alexander Pichushkin, accused of killing dozens of people, looks on from behind a glass security cage during the first day of his trial in Moscow, Thursday, Sept. 13, 2007. After his arrest last year, Alexander Pichushkin claimed that he had killed more than 60 people in a Moscow park over several years marking his slayings on a chessboard, with the goal to fill all 64 squares, but prosecutors said they had only gathered evidence to charge him with 49 murders. (AP Photo)
Loner says he killed 63 people, not 49 as charged
MANY RUSSIANS dream of living like an oligarch but Alexander Pichushkin, a supermarket porter, harboured a very different ambition: to become Russia’s most prolific serial killer.
The quiet loner, who went on trial last Friday, revelled in his notoriety and loved the fact that Moscow’s newspapers gave him ghoulish nicknames.
The two that stuck, “The Maniac”, and “The Chessboard Killer” made him infamous and feared throughout Russia.
Now that his killing spree is over, Pichushkin claims he realised his twisted goal, murdering as many as 63 people over 14 years, outstripping the previous serial killer “record” of 52 victims.
The police have a problem though. They are struggling to find all the bodies and the evidence to match his crimes.
As a result, Pichushkin has “only” been charged with the murders of 49 people and the attempted murders of three others. His trial has generated intense media interest despite the fact that it appears to be an open and shut case.
Most people charged with 49 murders might be concerned about the prospect of a life behind bars. But Pichushkin has a different worry: the 33-year-old Muscovite wants his bloodthirsty murder tally to be recognised in full.
The man he is “competing” with was executed in 1994, a time when Russia still had the death penalty. Andrei Chikatilo, known as the Rostov Ripper, is widely recognised as Russia’s worst serial killer. For Pichushkin he was the man “to beat.”
Chikatilo murdered 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990, cannibalising some of his victims. Pichushkin hoped to kill more and to go down in Russian criminal history.
When police raided his apartment, they found a chessboard he had used to notch up his victims. One square was marked up and covered with a coin every time he took a life.
His eccentric way of “keeping score” earned Pichushkin the sobriquet The Chessboard Killer. His aim was to fill all 64 squares but his arrest, in June of last year, halted his macabre game.
Police sources say he had filled up 63 squares and was close to completing his “game”. However Pichushkin himself has said he would never have stopped.
“I never would have stopped, never,” he said in a televised confession.”They saved a lot of lives catching me.”
In the same confession Pichushkin gave a disturbing insight into his mind. “For me, a life without murder is like a life without food for you,” he said.
He claimed to have got a sexual thrill from killing and to have felt a satisfying sense of power. “I felt like the father of all these people since it was I who opened the door for them to another world.”
All of his killing was done in Bitsevsky Park in southwest Moscow.
His victims were almost exclusively men between the age of 50 and 70. He followed a well-established pattern, befriending people with a sob story about his dead dog that was allegedly buried in the park. Pichushkin would then invite his victim to drink vodka with him at the dog’s grave.
When Pichushkin was satisfied that his victims were sufficiently intoxicated he would deliver a fatal blow to the back of their heads with a hammer.
He came unstuck however when he decided to murder a woman at a pre-arranged meeting last June. Police found her body in a stream in the park; she had died from a serious blow to the head. Pichushkin had begun to develop a taste for serial killer “showmanship” and had driven small wooden stakes into her eyeballs to garner more attention.
But the woman had taken a precaution before setting out for her meeting and left Pichushkin’s name and number with her son. A metro ticket found in her coat also allowed police to recover CCTV footage which showed her and Pichushkin walking together.
Police were worried Pichushkin might take his own life when confronted with his crimes so staged an elaborate arrest dangling on ropes outside his window before entering SAS-style and making the arrest.
In the event, Pichushkin confessed immediately. Police expected him to be declared insane but were shocked when he was found to be of sound mind.
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