He may be one of the world's worst serial killers. And he compares murder to making love. Russia is in shock about the revelations of a man named Alexander Pichushkin. The 33-year-old is accused of brutally killing at least 49 people, and he's personally asked a court to consider at least 11 more possible victims.
Like most evil entities of this kind, the media has been quick to give Pichushkin a nickname. They're calling him the "Chessboard Killer" because it was his stated desire to put a coin on every square of a 64-place chessboard for each murder he committed. If what prosecutors contend he did is correct, he almost made his terrible quota.
The alleged killer's crimes are terrible enough to contemplate. But it's his sneering attitude that has also set many teeth on edge. "A first killing is like your first love," he told a startled courtroom about his inaugural murder at age 18. "You never forget it."
It began with the strangulation death of a classmate in school. Pichushkin claims he proposed that he and his friend kill someone together. When his pal rightly refused, the conscienceless killer struck for what he claims was the first of many times. "I sent him to heaven," he smirks. "The closer a person is to you, and the better you know them, the more pleasurable it is to kill them. In all the cases I killed for only one reason. I killed in order to live, because when you kill, you want to live."
Cops talked to him after that murder, but were forced to let him go due to a lack of evidence. Things just escalated from there. The former supermarket worker insists he kept up his spree for years and frequently demonstrated some of his techniques for the jury, as the panel sat there appalled.
Unlike other serial killers, Pichushkin did not have a single M.O. or signature that allowed his deeds to be easily tracked. The self-confessed killer says he would ply his victims with vodka, lure them to a secluded Moscow park and proceed to smash them on the head with a hammer until they were dead. His other methods included drownings, throwing victims off balconies or in some particularly disturbing cases, asphyxiating people in a sewage pit. "You should not credit the police with catching me," he boasts. "I gave myself up.
Pichushkin could be Russia's most prolific serial killer, even more sadistically vicious than "Rostov Ripper"
Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted of raping, torturing, killing and even cannibalizing 52 people - some of them children - in 1992. He succeeded for years because the Soviet Union refused to admit such a monster could exist in its utopia. He was executed for his crimes two years later.
As emotional as the court revelations have been, more await. At least 41 relatives of the accused's alleged victims are waiting to testify against the man they believe killed their loved ones.
Photo credit: Kostya Smirnov
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