Shes a small woman, about five four, with dyed reddish-purplish hair, a weak voice, and a sickliness that seems ironed into her face. Bums. Pichushkin said he wanted to kill enough people to fill the squares on a chessboard - earning him the infamous Chessboard Killer name. The worst, says Natasha Fyedosova, was the corpse they found by the side of a stream. (Bullshit. He approached her maybe a half hour ago, started chatting, making jokes. Nyet, nyet, nyetuy, he says. Later he claimed that killing his victims made him feel like God since he could decide whether they would live or not. She was also caught on a subway camera with him, which was enough to have him arrested. An odorsweat, cooking oilpervades the apartment, which is cluttered with DVDs, old furniture, and an ancient refrigerator bearing two faded photographs of her son at age 8 or 9. Now everyone is leaving the courtroom, and the Maniac is putting his hands behind his back so someone we cant see can handcuff him. Could it be the Chechens? He may even have tried to quash it. The press dubbed Pichushkin the Bitsevsky Park Maniac and then the Chessboard Killer, because the police allegedly found a chessboard in his apartment on which he had recorded his murders, one per square. 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. The five-story buildings, or khrushchovki,named after then premier Nikita Khrushchev, were the Soviet Unions first large-scale public-housing projects. Pichushkin was born on April 9, 1974, in Mytishchi, Moscow. Then he said he was busy and hung up. Pichushkin claims he killed up to 63 people, although that story varies sometimes he credits himself with 61 victims, and sometimes he says he killed more, per Biography. She is trying to describe her son. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. It was more methodical. 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. Witness testimony provided to the police stated that Odtchuk was last seen with Pichushkin, walking in the direction of the park. Did something happen when he was little? Odichuk had tagged along, half in jest, probably not quite sure what to expect. His childhood was a difficult and troubled one. Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin (Russian: , born 9 April 1974), also known as the Chessboard Killer (Russian: ) and the Bitsa Park Maniac (Russian: ), is a Russian serial killer who is believed to have killed at least forty-nine people, and possibly as many as sixty, between 1992 and 2006. Later, when Alexander Pichushkin was found guilty of killing dozens of people in the grisliest manner imaginable, experts would attribute this injury to the driving force behind his rage, and perhaps the reason he was so eager to kill. He pushed her down the well, but she somehow managed to climb out and get to a hospital, where she reportedly told the police about the attack. July 27, 1992. [] Its more emotional. By the spring of 2006, almost 50 people had vanished into them, never to be seen again. No one had come back. I felt like the father of all these people, since it was me who opened the door for them to another world. He ended up sentenced to life in prison. He wants to be understood, and he likes to say he never lies. The park is enormous, encompassing more than 2,700 acres. Welcome, or welcome back, to Twisted Minds, my name is James and today we're going to be deep diving into the case of Alexander Pichushkin, a Russian-born se. The cops had questioned him about Odichuks death, an experience that must have spooked him. Of the 64 squares, only 61 of them were filled in. A cold night in December 2007. There were too many connections between the missing. He had gone on a walk with Marina Moskalyeva, another co-worker. Actually, there are five television screensfour medium-size sets and one large flat-screen. But in the very end, it was the Maniacs decision to get caught. To stop drinking, the man said. Now the police dont know very much.. So Moskalyeva had to die. That chessboard belonged to Alexander Pichushkin, otherwise known as "The Chessboard Killer," one of the most notorious serial killers in Russian history. Best Known For: Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin, nicknamed "The Chessboard Killer," was caught in Moscow and convicted in 2007 of killing 48 people. Though he was no longer picky about who his victims were, he seemed to prefer the old homeless men. Now she is sitting in her apartment at 8 Khersonskaya, which is identical to Natasha Pichushkinas at 2 Khersonskaya, smoking Vogue cigarettes and talking about him. While he might not be as well-known as some American serial killers, Alexander Pichushkin alleged to killing at least 60 people in Russia. The Maniac killed at least forty-eight, putting him in rare company. He told Odichuk he wanted to kill someone. Suprunenko says he always stared straight at Pichushkin. Then she tells a story about a lie he once told. He left bodies in the snow, the mud, tucked between trees. The boy managed to crawl out. Sometimes he offered to show them his dog's grave. As they trudged through the park, 32 didnt ask any questions about where they were going or why. Pensioners. They were narrowing their search, talking to everyone, compiling sketches of suspects. This spree within a spree culminated on July 21, when victim 11, Victor Volkov, disappeared. After his seven-year killing spree, Pichushkin was convicted of murdering 48 people; some believe the he killed as many as 60, according to FocusTV (posted on YouTube ). Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin (Russo: ) (9 de abril de 1974) um assassino em srie de origem russa. Some faux camaraderieYou respect me, and I respect you, so lets drink!and then a surprise blow to the head, followed by a shove down the well. That fall and winter the killing continued, but it was less feverish; five or more people were murdered during this stretch. This abuse served to intensify Pichushkin's anger. Pichushkin's murderous impulses lay dormant for years until he began killing people in Moscow's Bittsevsky Park in the early 2000s. Meanwhile, the young boy was also experiencing violent urges that prompted him to harm others. he is a sallow-faced man with a stout physique and a deep, low voice. It was disappointing, he told them, that he hadnt completed it. But he wanted to kill. For Alexander Pichushkin, murder was a game. [1], Alexander Pichushkin was born on 9 April 1974 in Mytishchi, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union, and grew up on 2 Khersonskaya Street in Moscow proper. However, by 1992, this practice had become insufficient to satisfy his urges. With no evidence tying him to the murder, Pichushkin was released. In this case, he did not say what he and 32 discussed before he attacked. The jury deliberated for only three hours before finding him guilty of 48 counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder. Alexander Pichushkin, Moscows Bittsevsky Maniac a.k.a. She knows about the park, the Maniac, the faceless animal no one has seen or is even sure is one man or two or many. He received life in prison without parole. He then admitted to dozens of murders, telling authorities he attacked his victims and left their bodies in Moscow's Bitsevski (Bitsa) Park and sewer drains. Pichushkin must have known the end was near. ", 13 Unsettling Facts About Alexander Pichushkin, The Chessboard Killer. Unable to be sentenced to death after the suspension of the death penalty in Russia in 1996, he received a life sentence with the first 15 years to be spent in solitary confinement. 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. Pichushkin told authorities he first planned to kill with his friend, Mikhail Odiychuk. On 17 May 2001, Pichushkin was in Bitsa Park playing chess with a 52-year-old man named Yevgeny Pronin. To revisit this article, visit My Profile, thenView saved stories. But now he doesnt. Judge Vladimir Usov sentenced him to life imprisonment with 15 years in solitary confinement. Pichushkin didnt continue killing until 2001, when he reportedly made a list of acquaintances he intended to murder: "The closer the person is to you, the more pleasant it is to kill them. They said they just wanted to talk to him about some burglaries, but I thought there were a lot of police for a burglar, and I asked Sasha, Did you rob someone? and he said, No. . To conceal the bodies, he often threw his victims into a sewer pit. Katie Serena is a New York City-based writer and a staff writer at All That's Interesting. Pichushkin would approach his victim in Bitsa Park (the vast majority of them elderly homeless people),[10] offer to share a drink of vodka, and then kill themtypically by striking the back of their skull with a hammer or a bottle, although he was also alleged to have pushed his victims into the sewage canal to drown. 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. The fascination surrounding the Maniac reflected the enormity of his crimes, which seemed deeply Russian: oversize. It would be four more yearsand several dozen more bodiesbefore Pichushkin was finally stopped. Investigators were only able to link him to 48 murders, however, and based on that conviction, that's where his gruesome total stands. He started by killing elderly and homeless men, mostly in a Moscow park, and had moved on to killing his neighbors, before getting caught in 2006. Unlike Andrei Chikatilo, a sexually dysfunctional sexual predator, or Ted Bundy, who preferred college girls, Pichushkin didnt want sex. "This first murder, it's like first love, it's unforgettable," he later said. My son was actually going to marry someone, she says. There are pins commemorating the 1980 Olympics in Moscow, Tolstoy pins, Lenin pins, a pin from Minskninety-two pins in all. His goal was to kill at least 64 people (the same number of squares on a chessboard) so that he could surpass his idol, Andrei Chikatilo . The victim had been killed at least two days earlier, and some wild dogs had found him first. He would drink with them, let them imbibe as much as they wanted, then kill them, usually with blows to the head with a hammer. Does she know why her son became a serial killer? Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. In both pictures he stares straight at the camera, unsmiling. What is erotic is killing and all its associations, the mental links and symbols of murder. Is love for real, or is it a ruse, a make-believe ambrosia? No one expected much to be done about it, either. Nobody knew anything; therefore, everybody did. Prior to this transfer, children from the mainstream school were known to have physically and verbally bullied Pichushkin, referring to him as "that retard". Alexander Pichushkin a Russian serial killer known as the Chessboard Killer and The Bitsa Park Maniac. Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin, nicknamed "The Chessboard Killer," was caught in Moscow and convicted in 2007 of killing 48 people. At an early age, he suffered a head injury and brain damage. "For me, life without murder is like life without food for you. Now she seems certain that this man with sturdy hands and thick wrists, this co-worker, is the Maniac. If he had killed people he didnt know, in another neighborhood, it wouldnt have been as bad, but he killed people he knew. Indeed, the Maniac befriended people so he could kill them. They talk about him on TV every night. MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia's "chessboard murderer" was sentenced to life in prison on Monday for killing 48 people, after the supermarket worker told a court last week he felt like God as he decided. He never looks directly at the video camera in his cell.