Alexander Pichushkin

Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin (Russian: Алекса́ндр Ю́рьевич Пичу́шкин, born 9 April 1974), also known as The Chessboard Killer (Russian: Убийца с шахматной доской) and The Bitsa Park Maniac (Russian: Битцевский маньяк), is a Russian serial killer. He is believed to have killed at least 49 people, and possibly as many as 60, between 1992 and 2006 in Southwest Moscow's Bitsa Park, where a number of the victims' bodies were found. In 2007 he was sentenced to life imprisonment.[1]

Not to be confused with Alexander Pushkin.
In this name that follows Eastern Slavic naming conventions, the patronymic is Yuryevich and the family name is Pichushkin.
Alexander Pichushkin
Born
Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin

(1974-04-09) 9 April 1974
Mytishchi, Moscow Oblast, Russian SFSR, USSR
Other namesThe Bitsa Park Maniac
The Chessboard Killer
Criminal penaltyLife imprisonment
Details
Victims48–60
Span of crimes
27 July 1992–14 June 2006
CountryRussia
Date apprehended
16 June 2006

Early life

Pichushkin grew up on 2 Khersonskaya Street in Moscow. He lived there with his mother, younger half sister, her husband, and their son in a two-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor, a six-minute walk from the north end of Bitsa Park.[2]

Pichushkin is remembered to have been an initially sociable child. However, this changed following an incident in which Pichushkin fell backwards off a swing, which then struck him in the forehead as it swung back. 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. Since Pichushkin was still a child, the damage would have been more severe, as a child's forehead provides only a fraction of the protection for the brain compared to an adult's.[3] Following this accident, Pichushkin frequently became hostile and impulsive. His mother soon decided to transfer him from a mainstream school he was attending to one for children with learning disabilities. Prior to this transfer, children from the mainstream school were known to have physically and verbally bullied Pichushkin, referring to him as "that retard". This abuse served to intensify Pichushkin's rage and hostility. Upon reaching early adolescence, Pichushkin's maternal grandfather recognized that Pichushkin was highly intelligent, and felt that his innate talents were being wasted, as he wasn't involved in any activities at home, and the school he was enrolled in focused more on overcoming disability than on promoting achievement.

Pichushkin's grandfather took Pichushkin to live in his home and encouraged him to pursue intellectual pursuits outside of school. The deepest of these interests was chess. Pichushkin was taught how to play, and after demonstrating his ability, was introduced to the exhibition games against elderly men who played publicly in Bitsa Park. It turned out that Pichushkin was an outstanding chess player, and, for the first time, he found a channel for his aggression when dominating the chessboard in all of his games. Pichushkin continued to be bullied by mainstream school children throughout his adolescence, and he suffered an emotional blow when, toward the end of this period, his grandfather died. Pichushkin was left to return to his mother's home, after which he enrolled as a student. According to reports, the death of his grandfather greatly affected Pichushkin. In an effort to both dull the pain of the loss as well as to calm his severe aggressive tendencies, he began to consume large quantities of vodka. He continued to play chess both at home and in the exhibition games in Bitsa Park, now joining the other men in drinking vodka, though unlike them he could play without being greatly affected by the alcohol. 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. On one occasion that has since been made public, he held a young child by one leg, upside down, and said to the camera: "You are in my power now... I am going to drop you from the window... and you will fall 15 meters to your death..." He then watched these videos repeatedly to reaffirm his power. However, by 1992 this practice had become insufficient to satisfy his urges.

Murders

Russian media have speculated that Pichushkin was motivated, in part, by a macabre competition with another notorious Russian serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, the 'Rostov Ripper', who was convicted of killing 52 children and young women over a 12-year period.[4] Pichushkin has said his aim was to kill 64 people, the number of squares on a chessboard.[5][6] He later recanted this statement, saying that he would have continued killing indefinitely had he not been stopped.[7]

First victims (July-September 1992)

Pichushkin committed his first homicide on 27 July 1992 when he was 18 and the country was going through violent convulsions due to the collapse of the USSR. Pitchushkin arranges to meet his classmate, Mikhail Oditchuk, in Bitsevsky Forest—also called Bista Park—to jointly hatch a plan to kill 64 people; the number of cases in a chessboard. But, having arrived at the scene of the future crimes, Odïtchouk retracts, declaring that he no longer wants to take action. Feeling teased by his best friend, Pichushkin pulls a hammer out of his bag then hits Odïtchouk about twenty blows to the head, who dies of his multiple wounds. Once Odïtchouk was dead, Pichushkin got rid of his body, depositing it near the Bitsa Park sewers, then returned to his mother's apartment, located in Moscow, about five minutes from Bitsa Park.[8]

On 28 July 1992, Oditchuk's body was discovered near the sewers of Bitsa Park—where Pichushkin had deposited him the day before. An investigation is opened for assassination, by the Muscovite police, and makes it possible to identify the body as being that of Mikhaïl Odïtchouk, aged 18, domiciled in Moscow. The police's first lead turns to the hours preceding Odïtchouk's death. Several testimonies are recorded, stating that Odïchuk was last seen with Alexander Pichushkin, walking in the direction of Bitsa Park.[9]

Pichushkin was arrested at his mother's home on 30 July 1992, then taken to the premises of the Moscow police station for questioning. The teenager is questioned about his schedule during the assassination of Odïtchouk, and confirms having been with him three days earlier. But Pichushkin nevertheless insists on having left Odïtchouk within the Park in order to join his mother and his sister. After a few hours of interrogation, the Russian police have no element that could link Pichushkin to the assassination of Odïtchouk. No charge being against him, Pichushkin leaves the police station free and returns to his mother's home.[9]

In the weeks following the murder of Mikhaïl Odïtchouk, Pichushkin contemplates making his life with a girl. Pichushkin is madly in love with Olga A., an 18-year-old neighbor, whom he regularly sees passing by and whom he meets on a recurring basis. It is in this context that Pitchouchkine goes to see Olga, making advances to her, but the latter refuses him, because she already has a relationship with Sergei B., who is none other than one friends of Pitchushkin.[9]

In September 1992, Pichushkin committed another murder — a murder for which he would never be convicted. Furious that Olga refuses him, Pichushkin goes to Sergei B. to get rid of his romantic rival. Pichushkin kills Sergei by throwing him out of the window, causing him to fall several meters high, then leaves the latter's apartment. Sergei's lifeless body is quickly discovered. An investigation is opened but the death of Sergei B. is classified as being a suicide by defenestration.[9]

Pichushkin ceased all murderous activity in October 1992, when the trial of Andrei Chikatilo ended, and the latter was sentenced to death. Pichushkin is therefore frightened by the death sentence of Chikatilo and abandons any project of murders and assassinations in order not to be confronted with a possible execution by shooting.

When Chikatilo was executed by bullets, on 14 February 1994, Pichushkin realized that he still had murderous impulses. He also still aims to kill 64 people in order to complete the remaining 62 squares of his chessboard — he has already completed the first two squares. But, there again, Pichushkin decides to give up his projects of murders and assassinations, because the death penalty is still applied in Russia.

From 1996, the death penalty is no longer applied in Russia.

Between 1996 and 2001, after the death penalty is no longer applied in Russia, Pichushkin resumes exercising bodybuilding, with new objectives to prepare to commit other murders and assassinations. The fact that the death penalty is no longer applied in Russia persuades him to commit the 64 murders and assassinations he had planned in the past. Pichushkin aims to fill all the boxes on his chessboard and break the record for the most prolific serial killer in Russia. He continued killing in 2001.

"The sewers period" (May 2001-September 2005)

Pichushkin was 27 years old when he started killing again, in May 2001, after a nine-year break.

On 17 May 2001, Pichushkin was in Bitsa Park playing chess with a 52-year-old man named Yevgeny Pronin. At the end of his game of chess, Pichushkin invites Pronin to take a walk with him. Pichushkin, who owned a dog, tells him that it is the anniversary of the death of his beloved pet and that he would like to visit his grave located in Bitsa Park. Upset by Pichushkin's declarations, Pronin decides to accompany him. Both then reach an isolated place in Bitsa Park. Pichushkin pulls out a bottle of Vodka and decides to offer him a drink; which accepts. Pichushkin and Pronin toast the dog, before Pichushkin strikes Pronin in the head with his bottle of Vodka. Once Pronin dies, Pichushkin throws his body into a nearby well and then leaves.

Between May 2001 and September 2005, thirty-six other victims were attacked by Pichushkin, but three of his victims survived their injuries. During his murders, Pitchouchkine approaches his first victims in the park—the vast majority of them elderly homeless people—offering them vodka which he drinks with them, then kills them with a hammer or the bottle, behind the skull. In his perversity, Pitchouchkine signs his crime by putting an empty bottle in the skull of the victim or a stick. During his serial murders, Pitchouchkine worked as a handler in a supermarket near his residence in Moscow with his mother, Natalia Elmouradovna, and not far from Bitsevsky Park, called Bitsa Park.

For the last time in thirteen years, on 28 September 2005, Pichushkin left the scene, throwing the body of his victim into the sewers of Bitsa park. Pichushkin killed Yuri Kuznetsov, 46, with a bottle of vodka and hits Kuznetsov several times, who dies of his injuries. He therefore decides to no longer hide the bodies of his victims, but to leave them uncovered. His decision to leave the bodies in the open is probably related to the fact that no murder appears in the newspaper since the missing person is a single person in each case; something that Pichushkin is tired of after 13 years of murders and assassinations.

"The open period" (October 2005-June 2006)

As Pichushkin said, "the fact the victims had disappeared has no longer been able to satisfy me; I needed more emotions". Since this moment he had killed them with repeated blows to the head with a hammer. In what became his trademark, or signature, he would then push a vodka bottle into the gaping wound in their skulls. He also targeted younger men, children and women. He would always attack from behind in order to take the victim by surprise and to avoid spilling blood on his clothes.[10] Ten of his victims lived in the same four-building complex where he lived—four from 2 Khersonskaya; two from 4 Khersonskaya, next door; three from 6; and one from 8.[2]

Arrest

The murder of Marina Moskalyova, 36, on 14 June 2006, was his last. When her body was found in Bitsa Park, complete with Pichushkin's trademark injuries, a metro ticket found in her possession led authorities to review surveillance tape footage from the Moscow metro system, where she was filmed, just hours before her death, walking on the platform accompanied by Pichushkin.[11] According to the documentary "Serial Killers",[12] Pichushkin, once apprehended, led police officers to the scenes of many of his crimes in Bitsa Park, and demonstrated a keen recollection of how the murders were committed. He was filmed reenacting them in great detail, a process which is a regular part of Russian criminal investigation. He also revealed that some of the murders he committed were not done using his preferred method (hammer blows to the back of the head), but by throwing his victims down into a well, connected to the network of sewers[13] running underneath Bitsa Park (although one of his victims did survive this ordeal). He claimed that while killing people he felt like God as he decided whether his victims should live or die. "In all cases I killed for only one reason. I killed in order to live, because when you kill, you want to live," he once said. "For me, life without murder is like life without food for you. I felt like the father of all these people, since it was me who opened the door for them to another world."[14]

Trial and imprisonment

He was arrested on 16 June 2006, and convicted on 24 October 2007 of 49 murders and 3 attempted murders.[15] He asked a Russian court to add an additional 11 victims to his body count, bringing his claimed death toll to 60, and 3 surviving victims.[16] During his trial, as with Andrei Chikatilo, Pichushkin was housed in a glass cage for his own protection.[17] It took Judge Vladimir Usov an hour to read the verdict: life in prison with the first 15 years to be spent in solitary confinement.[15] Pichushkin is spending his days in solitary confinement at the Arctic penal colony "Polar Owl".[18]

Media

Books
  • Harrington, Roger (2018). Alexander Pichushkin: The Shocking True Story of The Chessboard Killer. Amazon Digital Services LLC. ISBN 9781983033735.
  • Kepler, Lars (2018). The Sandman. Penguin Random House LLC. ISBN 9780525433057.

Music
  • Finnish death metal band Torture Killer made a whole studio album "Sewers" dedicated to Pichushkin.
  • One of the tracks of Norwegian death- and thrash metal band "Exeloume" ("The Bitsa Maniac") is dedicated to Pichushkin.

Television
  • Serial killers: Chessboard Killer (2009). The first series of the Discovery documentary is focused on the case of Alexander Pichushkin.

Facts

See also

References
  1. "Der Schachbrett-Mörder: Lebenslang im härtesten StrafRusslands" Archived 2020-01-05 at the Wayback Machine. FOCUS TV Reportage, 15.11.2019
  2. "The Chessboard Killer". 2009-05-01. Archived from the original on 2019-11-17. Retrieved 2019-11-16.
  3. Yan, Xiao-hong; Qiu, Ke; Gao, Yan; Ren, Jianjun; Cheng, Danni; Pang, Wendu; Song, Yao; Yang, Wen; Yu, Rong; Zhao, Yu (March 2020). "Growing Skull Fracture of Temporal Bone in Adults: A Case Report and Literature Review". Ear, Nose, & Throat Journal. 99 (10): 654–657. doi:10.1177/0145561320914774. PMID 32207331. Retrieved 6 November 2020.
  4. "'Chessboard killer' revels in death". CNN. Associated Press. 2007-10-09. Archived from the original on 2007-12-15. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  5. "Investigators believe 62 murdered by "chessboard killer"". RIA Novosti. 2007-08-01. Archived from the original on 28 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  6. "Russian suspected of 62 murders". BBC News Online. 2007-08-01. Archived from the original on 2008-12-28. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  7. "Russia 'chessboard killer' guilty". BBC News Online. 2007-10-24. Archived from the original on 25 April 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  8. "Russian chess player on trial for 49 alleged murders". News.com.au. Agence France-Presse. 2007-09-14. Archived from the original on 2009-07-04. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  9. "Transcript of "The Chessboard Killer" ..." Happy Scribe. Retrieved 2022-04-24.
  10. "Serial Killer in Moscow killed 52 people". Dailymotion. Russia Today. 2007-11-12. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  11. "Serial killer on trial: Moscow's grandmaster of murder". The Independent. London. 2007-09-14. Archived from the original on 2017-09-29. Retrieved 2017-09-19.
  12. "Serial Killers". TV Shows. WIN TV. 19 May 2010. Archived from the original on 19 May 2010. Retrieved 29 August 2017.
  13. "Chinese drifter among 7 of the world's worst serial killers". South China Morning Post. 2018-10-28. Archived from the original on 2018-10-28. Retrieved 2018-10-28.
  14. Chua-Eoan, Howard (2007-09-12). "The Grandmaster of Murder?". Time. Archived from the original on 2009-01-23. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  15. Bukharbayeva, Bagila (2007-10-24). "Russian Convicted of 48 Murders". Chicago Tribune. derkeiler.com. AP. Archived from the original on 2016-04-14. Retrieved 2016-04-02.
  16. Sweeney, Conor (2007-10-09). "Russian serial killer says murder is like love". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2009-01-26. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  17. Lowe, Christian (2007-10-24). "Russian 'chessboard killer' convicted of 48 murders". Reuters. Archived from the original on 2007-10-26. Retrieved 2009-04-10.
  18. Stewart, Will (19 June 2017). "Notorious 'chessboard killer' reveals murdering his 49 victims was 'like sex'". mirror. Archived from the original on 14 January 2020. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
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