Pichushkin then produced a bottle of vodka and offered him a drink, which he accepted. It was at this point that she began to get an odd feeling about the man she was with, so as a precaution, she asked to see his identification, which he agreed to. Serial KillerNecrophiliac (possible)[1] He planned on killing people with a friend, Mikhail Odichuk, who thought that he was only joking. Alexander Pichushkin: The Chessboard Killer. Pichushkin also said that even if he did reach 64 murders, he would kill more people unless he was stopped. While Bryan Hartnell was attending school at Pacific Union College in San Francisco in the late 1960s, he had no idea that his bright future would forever be scarred by one truly horrifying day. After driving to a scenic lake in a remote part of the city with his girlfriend, Cecilia Shephard, the couple parked their car and planned to enjoy their day in privacy. His description, although limited by police knowledge, was plastered on every news outlet it could be. Pichushkin, 32, was eager to explain the symbolism. Murderpedia has thousands of hours of work behind it. Sentence Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin Idaho Murders: What Led Police to Bryan Kohberger, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads, Name: Alexander Pichushkin, Birth Year: 1974, Birth date: April 9, 1974, Birth City: Moscow, Birth Country: Russia. . Birth Date Some of the families of his other victims are understandably shocked by her decision. The Maniac was talked about everywhere, a faceless beast that grabbed people in the night. After leaving the courtroom, Alexander Fyodorov, an elderly, intellectual Muscovite, told reporters, "He got my brother drunk, then threw him into the sewage well, still alive. He continued to play chess both at home and in Bitsa Park, now joining the other men in drinking vodka, though unlike them he could play without being greatly affected by the alcohol. The killer was caught in 2006 when he killed his coworker, a woman who had informed her son that she would be out on a walk with Pichushkin, linking him to the crime. Investigators discovered a chessboard with approximately 61 spaces marked off in his Moscow home. He was convicted of the killings and sentenced to life . Unsatisfied with the ruling, however, he asked the court to please up his victim count by 11, bringing his total number of victims up to 60 murders, plus three attempted. Unfortunately, Pichushkin continued to be bullied by mainstream students in his adolescence, and things took a turn for the worse when his grandfather died, which devastated him and led to a vodka addiction. He would go on to kill again 60 more times. Maria Viricheva was one of the very few people lucky enough to survive Pichushkin. Luckily, Lobov's jacket had gotten caught on a piece of metal inside the well, saving him from plummeting into the icy waters. He endured a tough childhood and even though Pichushkin was once a sociable child, he changed after he suffered massive brain damage at an early age. With Denis Adamenko, Alexander Pichushkin, Tim Pigott-Smith. Little is known of Pichushkin's early years. To get rid of the corpses, he'd dump the bodies into a sewer wells, sometimes while they were still alive. Said logbook contained 64 squares inside, much like a chessboard. (MAXIM MARMUR/AFP/Getty Images). Alexander Pichushkin was found guilty of killing 48 people; . His final victim, a woman from the store, was suspicious enough of his request. Unbelievably, the police refused to investigate the incident and forced Maria to sign a statement saying that she had fallen down the well herself. Pichushkin's childhood neighbors report before the accident the now-killer was "pleasant" and expressed great empathy for animals. Due to the overwhelming amount of physical evidence Speck had left at the sceneand the fact he had an extensive criminal record alreadyhe was caught shortly afterward when he checked himself into a local hospital after attempting suicide. Robert Black was a convicted child murderer and pedophile who claimed four young victims in Scotland between the 1970s and 1990s. Though wary, she approached his car. Just a few years earlier, such a prolific killer would have been sentenced to death. She screamed and bit his arm, causing him to drop her just as a friend in the neighborhood came running up to help, scaring Black off. Witness testimony provided to the police stated that Odtchuk was last seen with Pichushkin, walking in the direction of the park. Status When the police arrived at his door, Alcala tried to stall them by claiming that he was in the shower, forcing them to kick the door in. Read the gripping true story of Rodney Alcala in The Dating Game Killer: The True Story of a TV Dating Show, a Violent Sociopath, and a Series of Brutal Murders at Amazon.com! He assured her that he knew her family and told her that he had a beautiful picture to show her. Their apartment building was a six-minute walk from the north end of Bitsa Park.[2]. 33-year-old Alexander Pichushkin, known as the "Bitsa maniac," or "killer of the chess Board", a few years kept in fear of Moscow. Police didn't . With his conviction and sentencing, it seemed the Pichushkin nightmare might be over for the people of Moscow. Alexander Pichushkin's birthstone is Diamond. .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;}}Idaho Murders: What Led Police to Bryan Kohberger, Adnan Syed: A Complete Timeline of His Trial, Appeal and Killing of Hae Min Lee. Pichushkin arranged to meet his classmate, Mikhail Odtchuk, in Bitsa Park to jointly hatch a plan to kill sixty-four people. Born on born 9 April 1974, Alexander Pichushkin aka The Chessboard Killer is a serial killer from Russia, believed to have murdered as many as 60 people in southwest Moscow's Bitsa Park. 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 killed his first victim in 1992 but killed only sporadically until 2001, when he began regularly targeting victims. Another boy, Tim Kerley, was waiting in the car for them and the three drove away to what Williams thought was safety. Then he just vanished, leaving them for dead. Hearing of her situation, Pichushkin offered her a chance to earn some additional money, telling her that he had stashed some stolen cameras in a well in nearby Bittsevsky Park and that he would give her some to sell. 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. Some of them were still alive at the time and ended up drowning. Russian police have shown for the first time how they lured notorious Chessboard Killer mass murderer into publicly confessing to 61 murders. Pichushkin said he dreamed of surpassing Chikatilo and intended to kill 64 people, equaling the squares on a chessboard. Pichushkin killed people from almost every building on this streetthe neighborhood is still terrified." Pichushkin was finally arrested in June 2006 after his last victim, 36-year-old Marina . The boy's father was fond of alcohol and left the family when his son was not even a year old (Harrington 8). He started in the early 90s and often targeted elderly or transient men, some of which he had formerly played chess with, in the nearby park. Between May 2001 and September 2005, Pichushkin attacked thirty-six victims; three of his victims survived their injuries. Had the police done their job the first time, many lives might have been saved. He lived there with his mother Natalia Elmouradovna, his younger half-sister, her husband, and their son in a two-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor. His memories of where and how each person died were alarmingly accurate. He said he felt like God when he was killing people, and he also . He took particular interest in playing against homeless, elderly men at Moscow's Bitsa Park, drinking copious amounts of vodka along with his opponents. 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. Whatever the real motivation, Pichushkin was addicted to murder. The Chessboard Killer: Story of Russian Serial Killer Alexander Pichushkin. To this day, police are still investigating his case and suspect him of many more murders. Though she was reportedly suspicious of him,[3] Moskalyova agreed to go. The judge didnt hesitate, handing him a life sentence in prison the first 15 years of which were to be spent in solitary confinement. Even though it was late in the evening, Maria, not even knowing if her job would be there for her in the morning anyway, agreed to go with him to retrieve the cameras. (Anonymous/ASSOCIATED PRESS), "For me, life without killing is like life without food for you," he said. Arrested on 16 June 2006 at age 33 years old, Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin was convicted of 48 murders and 3 attempted murders. We may earn commission from links on this page, but we only recommend products we back. Once he got his victims to a secluded spot in a nearby forest, he would trick them into paying respect to his deceased dog. He himself described it as a "concentration camp," according to The Sun. While he was only convicted of murdering 49 people, he claims that he achieved his goal and that he murdered so many people he lost count. Shoving a vodka bottle into the cracks of the skull he just split. The exact number of his victims is still unknown, but it's more than 20. As a way of keeping count, he would also carry around a chessboard and fill in a square whenever he killed someone. Thankfully, the years that passed healed his woulds not only physically, but emotionally as well, and Bryan is now a probate attorney and is married with a family of his own. Williams survived her night of horror thanks to the conscience of her friend, and although he was jailed for a short time, she made a promise to him to remain silent about her ordeal from then on, only to speak about it publicly four decades later. While walking down Sunset Boulevard that morning, Rodney Alcala approached her in his vehicle and asked her if she wanted a ride. I felt like the father of all these people, since it was me who opened the door for them to another world. The chain reared back and hit him in the head, damaging the frontal lobe of his brain. Driven by a bizarre sexual urge and the thirst for power and attention, The Chessboard Killer threw Moscow into a fit of fear after his multi-year killing spree. Hearing of her situation, Pichushkin offered her a chance to earn some additional money, telling her that he had stashed some stolen cameras in a well in nearby Bittsevsky Park and that he would . Police arrested him on June 15, 2006, for Moskalyova's murder. The Chilling Case Of The Russian Chessboard Killer Alexander Pichushkin. Check mate. There was some evidence pointing to his guilt, but nothing ever came out of the investigation. 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. 'It was not immediately clear if Natalya has visited him in jail or whether their relationship is only on paper'. As Russia doesn't have the death penalty, it was the maximum sentence he could receive. Still, Pichushkin does have some kind words for his captors. Their stories serve as lessons in survival that we can all learn from, lessons that could very well save a life. Alexander Pichushkin, 'The Bitsa Maniac', Alexey Panov/Sputnik . Monster is jailed for life for murdering as many as 60 victims mainly in Moscow's Bitsa Park. When Odichuk realized that his classmate was being serious, he tried to back out of the situation. [6][7] He later recanted this statement, saying that he would have continued killing indefinitely had he not been stopped. Reportedly, when police apprehended him, they found a chessboard with dates correlated to murders with only two spaces left. Murdered on November 16, 2005, his body had been left out in the open instead of being disposed of in the well, presumably as a sort of challenge for the police. By June 2006, police had found 13 more bodies; all were battered in the back of the head with a hammer. She was only brought in to identify her attacker much, much later when he was finally apprehended under suspicion of 48 murders. Then, read about Pichushkins murderous rival, Russian killer Andrei Chikatilo. Criminal Minds Wiki is a FANDOM TV Community. Do Not Sell/Share My Personal Information. Generation X. Alexander Pichushkin was born in the middle of Generation X. Had she not done so, she would have reached the end of the drainpipe to a section that was completely filled with water and drowned. There, some drowned, their deaths possibly hastened by the vodka in their systems. Had she known that he would eventually be convicted of killing 48 women like her, she might have declined instead. After 40 years of silence, Rhonda Williams decided that enough was enough and finally worked up the courage to tell of her twisted involvement with one of Houstons most notorious serial killers. For me, life without murder is like a life without food. He ended up sentenced to life in prison. There were 60 more. 03 February 2014. He also later attested to killing Olga as well, although authorities have not confirmed this claim. [16], Pichushkin claimed that deciding whether his victims should live or die made him feel like God. This has left Steward torn between her belief that the death penalty is wrong in all cases, and her personal understanding of her fellow victims pain. It is unknown whether the dog is actually buried there, however. While the victim was busy doing that, Pichushkin would bludgeon them with a hammer. . With no evidence tying him to the murder, Pichushkin was released. Following his arrest the police discovered a chessboard with dates on all but two of the squares, apparently connected to the murders he committed. Carter went on to rape and strangle five other women throughout California over the next 18 days, and it was Stewards testimony in part that helped prosecutors ensure that he received the death penalty for his crimes. 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. As he now sits on death row awaiting his fate, Steward herself has actively campaigned against the death penalty, supporting what in California is known as Proposition 34, a ballot to replace all death sentences with sentences of life without parole. He asked the Russian court to add more victims to his body count. Some of them were still alive at the time and . [] Its more emotional. 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." plans and enthusiasm to keep expanding and making Murderpedia a better site, but we really. It's unforgettable," he'd later say. 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. At least one victim was a child, a 9-year-old boy. Like many brave victims recounted in this list, Tali Shapiro later testified against her assailant, helping to convict him. [19] During his trial, Pichushkin was housed in a glass cage for his own protection. Alexander Pichushkin aka The Bittsevsky Maniac, The Bitsa Park Maniac, and The Bittsa Beast based on the location of his crimes. After his arrest, the police discovered a chessboard with dates on 61 or 62 of its 64 squares. When Pichushkin was 4 years old, he fell backwardoff of a swing. Shortly after the trial, Pichushkin was sentenced to life in prison. According to the Herald Sun, he would lure the men into isolation with talk of drinking vodka together and/or mourning the loss of his dog. Alexander Ivanovich Elistratov (Russian: ; born 1954), known as The Bloody Taxi Driver (Russian: , was a Russian robber and serial killer who killed six of his passengers in Moscow between 2005 and 2007, in addition to non-fatally robbing three others. Two years passed, and the young girl remained traumatized by her experience, almost never going outside. The man who eventually offered her a ride seemed as ordinary as the Dodge pickup he was driving, so she happily accepted his offer. He sliced some of the bedsheets into makeshift ropes and bound them all tightly. She and two other boys were bound hand and foot. On March 29, 1984, Steward was woken up by an intruder holding a knife to her neck. According to Pichushkin, he idolized Andrei Chikatilo, another serial killer who committed horrific killings in Russia. Earlier that day, the two had gotten into an argument, and afterward she found herself distraught in a metro station in Moscow. Pichushkin has never denied the charges. Ridgway picked up and killed at least 15 more women in the same area along the Pacific Highway South where he attacked Garde, and her description of him at least gave them something to move on. Pichushkin recruited another teen, Mikhail Odiychuk, to form a double team of serial killers, and took him into Bitsa Park to search for their first . Natalya Pichushkin, who has already adopted her fianc's last name, says she wants to marry serial killer Alexander Pichushkin. I would love an hour in a room with him and a pair of wire-cutters and pliers, so I could inflict the same damage on him that he inflicted on me. The police began to take the murders more seriously when a former policeman named Nikolai Zakharchenko turned up dead. 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