The chessboard killer

On Wednesday Alexander Pichushkin was found guilty of guilty of 48.(although he had claimed to have murdered 63) Known as the “Bitsevo maniac” or “Bitsa beast” and “the chessboard killer” (he marked off his kills on a chessboard and had apparently planned to kill one person for each of the 64 squares), Pichushkin, was well known in Moscow's Bitsevsky Park. The 33-year-old supermarket worker would play chess there then invite his opponents for a drink afterwards. They would go to a quiet part of the park where the victim would be attacked with a hammer.

Pichushkin began his murderous career in 1992 when at the age of 18, he killed a neighbour’s boyfriend. The boy Sergei, was found dead in his apartment and police initially believed it was suicide. (It is also thought Pichushkin later killed the neighbour whose body was found in Bitsevsky Park in 2002). Pichushkin did not kill again until. Most victims were thrown into sewer ducts but seventeen were lying where they were killed.

As with many other similar killers, he claimed to have had a difficult life. He'd never known his father and his mother had placed him in a institution before he was removed to live with his grandfather. When the grandfather died, Pichushkin would go walking in the park with his dog. But then the dog died and he buried it in the park. Then he grew depressed.

Psychologist Mikhail Vinogradov interpreted the murders as being prompted by anger at his grandfather for "abandoning" him. There was also a sexual subtext: Pichushkin had described his criminal career as a "perpetual orgasm". In an interview, Pichushkin had stated "A life with murders is a life without food." He also stated that he believed he had opened a door for his victims and given them a "new life." The killing had been "a necessity”. Experts at Moscow's Serbsky Institute, Russia's main psychiatric clinic, declared that he was not mentally ill and was fit to stand trial.

It took just two hours for the jury to find him guilty of all charges.. Yesterday he returned to the courtroom and declared he was "almost God" with the power to decide who would live and who would die. "A huge number of people have been trying to decide my fate. Meanwhile, I alone decided the fate of 60 people," he said in a final statement "I was prosecutor, judge and executioner. I decided who was to live and who was to die. I was almost God," he said. "I did not break any laws. I was above them."

Pichushkin will be sentenced on Monday. Chief Prosecutor Yury Syomin has recommended that he be sentenced to life in prison, with the first 15 years in isolation, given his violent nature. Russia has a moratorium on the capital punishment as part of its obligations before the Council of Europe.

Pichuskin will have the extremely dubious distinction of joining the list of notorious serial killers which already includes fellow Russians Andrei Chikatilo and Sasha Spesivtsev (with its brutal history Russia has produced a legion of mass murderers).

Andrei Chikatilo

Chikatilo (aka “the Red Ripper” and the Butcher of Rostov” is Russia’s most prolific serial killer who murdered 53 women and children between 1978 and 1990. He was convicted in 1992 and executed in 1994. Spesvitsev committed at least 19 murders in Novokuznetsk, Siberia between 1991 and 1996.