She begins talking to herself. But nine years is a long time to wait, especially for someone who would later tell the court that for me, life without killing is like life without food for you. He must have understood that once he started killingnot dabbling or experimenting but really killing, and killing wantonlyhe wouldnt stop. He also used to face bullying during his school days, which only worsened his mental state. Of the 64 squares, only 61 of them were filled in. It was warm outside, and there were too many people around. The victim was Mikhail Odichuk. Had he hewed to his own routinetossing his victims into sewage wellsthe Maniac may never have been caught. He says Pichushkin doesnt have any sexual longings for men; he just doesnt care about women. Pichushkin is incarcerated in the Arctic penal colony "Polar Owl" and spends his days in solitary confinement. He soon became an exceptional chess player, often defeating competitors much older than he was. Best Known For: Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin, nicknamed "The Chessboard Killer," was caught in Moscow and convicted in 2007 of killing 48 people. Contents 1 Background 2 Killings, Capture, and Incarceration 3 Modus Operandi What emerged from months of plying Pichushkin with sandwiches and cigarettes, months of pretending that he was an evil genius, was not the Hollywood-style maniac everyone had imagined but an empty vessel, someone no one could organize into a tidy psychological portrait. Then she tells a story about a lie he once told. The Maniac eyed 32 for at least an hour before he made his move. Only a few recent serial killers have been as prolific, including Andrei Chikatilo, also Russian, convicted of fifty-two murders in 1994, and Yang Xinhai, who took sixty-seven lives in central China from 1999 to 2003. You should take them, she says. In 2007, Moscow police found a chessboard. He no longer pushed his victims down the well. The death of his beloved grandfather affected him deeply and he became aggressive and violent towards others soon after. He was sentenced to life in prison. His first 15 years of his imprisonment were to be served in complete and total . Then he said he was busy and hung up. Or in some cases, family members waited the requisite three days and then filed a missing-person report with the police, but the police, who are known for drinking and taking bribes, rarely did anything. He was found guilty of 49 murders and three attempted murders. Later it was found that this injury had damaged a significant part of his brain which led to tendencies of aggression. They were an improvement. He laughs for a momenthis laughter is brief and infrequentand then the grin morphs into a frown, which morphs into a look of incredulity, which morphs into another stare. There are bodies, cops, sketches of suspects. I felt like the father of all these people, since it was me who opened the door for them to another world. His description, although limited by police knowledge, was plastered on every news outlet it could be. He was also found guilty on three counts of attempted murder. That was when the terror began rippling through the apartment blocks and metro stations that hug the park, which was now a haunted place. Bums. Pichushkin, filled with an enormous excitement, made his approach. A twenty-minute slog through the snowy woods. He is disappearing. He told Odichuk he wanted to kill someone. At the time, Chikatilo - known as the Rostov Ripper - was Russias most notorious serial killer. This abuse served to intensify Pichushkin's anger. Soon he will be moved from his jail in Moscow (where his mother has been able to visit twice a month, bearing gifts of cigarettes, cheese, and salo, or salted lard) to a maximum-security prison, probably in the north or maybe in the Ural Mountains, where he will spend the first fifteen years of his sentence in solitary confinement. According to GQ, some were still alive when they were thrown into the dump. In both pictures he stares straight at the camera, unsmiling. _Da, ladno. When Pichushkin realized that Odichuk wasnt serious about killing, he killed Odichuk instead. Alexander Pichushkin was given the highest punishment under Russian law. Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin, nicknamed "The Chessboard Killer," was caught in Moscow and convicted in 2007 of killing 48 people. With his conviction and sentencing, it seemed the Pichushkin nightmare might be over for the people of Moscow. It was at this time that Pichushkin began to develop a more sinister hobby that, at the time, remained unknown to anyone: whenever he knew he was going to come into contact with children, he would take a video camera along and proceed to threaten them. Sergey Shakhidzanyan/Laski Diffusion/Getty ImagesRussian killer Alexander Pichushkin looks on from a cell in a Moscow court room awaiting his sentence. Newspapers nicknamed Pichushkin the "Bittsevsky Maniac" and "The Bittsa Beast.". By 2003, Moscow residents especially those that lived near the park feared that there was a serial killer on the loose. He always took his victims to one of two wells that connected to the citys vast sewer system. I told him I admired him, and he liked that, and then he opened up. But in the very end, it was the Maniacs decision to get caught. He wanted his victims to know what was happening. The cops told her that if she stayed quiet about her attack, theyd overlook her illegal habitation. Viricheva stayed quiet. To revisit this article, select My Account, thenView saved stories. He was now the Maniac. As they were about to enter the woods, the Maniac asked the man what he would wish for if he were granted one wish. Arrested on 16 June 2006 at age 33 years old, Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin was convicted of 48 murders and 3 attempted murders. It's now known that Pichushkin committed his first murder around 1992 and that the death was ruled a suicide at the time. Now everyone is leaving the courtroom, and the Maniac is putting his hands behind his back so someone we cant see can handcuff him. [11], Upon conviction, Judge Vladimir Usov sentenced Pichushkin to life imprisonment, with the first fifteen years to be spent in solitary confinement. In response, Pichushkin killed him, although the circumstances of Sergei's death led the police to declare it a suicide, not a homicide. Alexander Pichushkin, best known for being a Criminal, was born in Russia on Tuesday, April 9, 1974. One night Sasha announced he was going for a walk in the park. She cupped it while he lit the match, then laughed at something he said. How could she have known? Shortly after the trial, Pichushkin was sentenced to life in prison. He is, in fact, a frighteningly ordinary man: rough, crude, a heavy drinker, a smoker, with no expectation that his life will ever get any better or easier. Peter Savodnik is a writer based in New York. Pichushkin waited until his intended victim was intoxicated and then he hit him or her repeatedly with a blunt instrument a hammer or a piece of pipe. On 17 May 2001, Pichushkin was in Bitsa Park playing chess with a 52-year-old man named Yevgeny Pronin. According to reports, the death of his grandfather greatly affected Pichushkin. He mostly targeted homeless elderly men, luring them with offers of free vodka. She couldnt focus. Again they told him to leave. People talked about hearing shouts and cries echoing through the trees. I promise you, Pichushkin replied, today will be the day you stop drinking.. My son was actually going to marry someone, she says. Thats because the people on Kherson-skaya, like so many Russian peasants in their crumbling urban hives, understand that in their country only certain people matter, and that they are not among them. According toBiography, the dates on the board corresponded to the dates on which Pichushkin had murdered his victims. Though she was reportedly suspicious of him,[3] Moskalyova agreed to go. Pichushkin first committed murder in 1992 - the same year the police convicted fellow Russian citizen, Andrei Chikatilo, of mutilating and killing 52 people. He started killing people in Moscows Bittsevsky Park. Ted Bundy committed about thirty homicides; Jeffrey Dahmer, seventeen; Ken Bianchi, the Hillside Strangler, twelve. The men made a toast to the dog, after which Pichushkin struck Pronin in the head with the bottle. Over the next eight weeks, he killed nine more people. I know now that I raised my son very poorly, she says. Pichushkin wandered when he spoke, meandering in and out of his exploits. Also Known As: Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin. Suddenly she looks very, very tired. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. Site contains certain content that is owned A&E Television Networks, LLC. Except for his mother and Suprunenko, almost everyone else is here at the recently renovated Supreme Court of Russia, on Povarskaya Street in the center of Moscow: Natasha Fyedosova, Pichushkins lawyer Pavel Ivannikov, the panel of three judges, the prosecutor in his royal blue military-style uniform, the babushkas who lost sons and husbands, the younger men and girls whispering into their cell phones, too scared to look at the Maniac, who looks bored, then amused, then angry. That chessboard belonged to Alexander Pichushkin, otherwise known as "The Chessboard Killer," one of the most notorious serial killers in Russian history. Pronin accompanied him to an isolated area in Bitsa Park, whereupon Pichushkin pulled out a bottle of vodka and offered him a drink. I thought it would not be fair to forget about the other 11 people, he reasoned. She had left a note for her son to tell him that she was taking a walk with Pichushkin. [4] Following this accident, Pichushkin frequently became hostile and impulsive. .css-m6thd4{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;display:block;margin-top:0;margin-bottom:0;font-family:Gilroy,Helvetica,Arial,Sans-serif;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.2;font-weight:bold;color:#323232;text-transform:capitalize;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-m6thd4:hover{color:link-hover;}}Pablo Escobar. In the months following his July 2006 arrest, Alexander Yurievich Pichushkin, now 35, achieved his only goal: Around the world, he was hailed as a monster. Later he claimed that killing his victims made him feel like God since he could decide whether they would live or not. (During the trial hell have this to say about intimacy: The closer a person is to you and the better you know them, the more pleasurable it is to kill them.) They can hear trails of moving laughter somewhere far away, other people carousing, but here, in this particular swath of woods, there are only trees and shadows. In the beginning2001, 2002people just disappeared. Vozmozhno on umer. Written on the board, in all but two of the squares, were calendar dates. His brutality increased as time progressed and his confidence grew. There was fear, which led to speculation. Theyre impossible questions, but theyre the only ones that really matter now, and every time they come up, Natasha cries and shakes her head and stares through a window at the darkened courtyard below. In the beginning, we only had thirteen bodies. The way the Maniac talked about killinghe would tell the court that ones first murder is like first lovemade it sound like a biological imperative. The 33-year-old supermarket worker played chess under the trees and. At the end of their game, Pichushkin invited Pronin to take a walk with him, claiming it was the anniversary of his dog's death and that he wanted to visit the grave in Bitsa Park. Judge Vladimir Usov sentenced him to life imprisonment with 15 years in solitary confinement. As if proud of his crimes, Pichushkin said this at the trial, "I thought it would be unfair to forget about the other 11 people." Sorry, no subs, footage only. After his arrest, he was found guilty of 49 murders and three attempted murders. [3] Experts speculated that this event damaged the frontal cortex of Pichushkin's brain; such damage is known to produce poor impulse regulation and a tendency towards aggression. Russian media have speculated that Pichushkin was motivated, in part, by a macabre competition with another notorious Russian serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted of killing fifty-two children and young women over a twelve-year period. It was very important for Pichushkin that people think he was a hero, so I made him feel like a hero.. Pavel Ivannikov loosens his tie and asserts that even though his client has been convicted of some very heinous crimes, the judges should have mercy and reduce the sentence to twenty-five years. He left a broken vodka bottle sticking out of some victims' skulls and seemed to care less about disposing of the bodies, just leaving them out in the open to be discovered. He wanted to kill, but he also wanted everyone to know he was the killer. He doesnt have a career. But it wasnt until much later, after those corpses had been disposed of, that the authorities connected them to the disappearances near Bitsevsky Park. Now she seems certain that this man with sturdy hands and thick wrists, this co-worker, is the Maniac. Then he encountered Mikhail Lobov, age 13. Police considered his macabre chess game evidence of 61 crimes, and the bodies they had located as evidence of 49 murders. Pichushkin's crimes were so heinous, Russia even considered re-instituting the death penalty. After a long time, she looks up and turns her gaze to the television set. He had gone on a walk with Marina Moskalyeva, another co-worker. At an early age, he suffered a head injury and brain damage. We were in shock when we realized how many people hed killed, he says. She never met the bride-to-be. When future-serial killer Alexander Pichushkin was a child, he fell backward off of a swing. And then Pichushkin began to tell us that hed killed more than sixty people. Pichushkin told him about the park, the sewage wellhis entire m.o.and Suprunenko began to understand the fates of all those people who had disappeared. Katie Serena is a New York City-based writer and a staff writer at All That's Interesting. Neuroscientists maintain a connection between damage to the frontal lobe of the brain and neuropsychiatric abnormalities, such as aggressive behavior and psychopathy. (New Yorks Central Park covers 843.) Later, he branched out and began killing younger men, women, and children too, attacking them behind and taking them by surprise. In the early 2000s, he began murdering again. The hideous nature of his crimes has renewed interest in re-instituting Russia's death penalty. Ad Choices, Russia had never seen anything quite like the prolific serial killer, The 20 Best New Menswear Items to Buy This Week, The Serial Killer Has Second Thoughts: The Confessions of Thomas Quick, J.Crew Makes Killer Suede Jackets Now, Too, Jack Black's Beard Is Coming In Quite Nicely. But Lobov began screaming and clawing at his hair, and he grabbed one of the officers standing outside the station and started pointing and shouting and telling the cops they had to do something. Pichushkin has never denied the charges. Meanwhile, the young boy was also experiencing violent urges that prompted him to harm others. A Moscow Metro ticket found in her possession led authorities to review surveillance tape footage from the metro system, where she was filmed, just hours before her death, walking on a platform accompanied by Pichushkin. There is a story (unverified) that in late 2001 or early 2002, Pichushkin wandered into a police station near the park and declared for all to hear that he killed peoplenot once or sometimes but regularly. Pichushkin was born on April 9, 1974, in Mytishchi, Moscow. Eventually some of the bodies turned up at a wastewater-treatment center about five miles away, having floated through the network of underground tunnels. Did something happen when he was little? After his arrest, Pichushkin happily confessed to his crimes, handing his diary over to police, and showing them his most prized possession, a chessboard on which he had kept track of his murder victims. There was a doctor walking his dog, she says, and he saw one of these wild dogs with a bone in his mouth. When future-serial killer Alexander Pichushkin was a child, he fell backward off of a swing. There are pieces of bark pressed against her cheek, a scratch on her neck. The simple fact is that the Maniacs desire to kill vastly exceeded the systems capacity to stop him, or even recognize that he existed. She knows, of course, about the disappearances. The Disturbing Story Of Alexander Pichushkin, The Russian Chessboard Killer Who Strove To Kill 64 Victims. The jury deliberated for only three hours before finding him guilty of 48 counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. For Alexander Pichushkin, murder was a game. Pichushkin's murderous impulses lay dormant for years until he began killing people in Moscow's Bittsevsky Park in the early 2000s. All rights reserved. However, by 1992, this practice had become insufficient to satisfy his urges. The Chessboard Killer, is a prolific Russian serial killer who murdered 48 people. His first murder was committed in 1992, when he was still a student. The woman doesnt know that the Maniac has had this conversation before. 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