This dude is fucked up...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/10/24/wchess124.xml

Chessboard killer convicted of 48 murders
By Adrian Blomfield in Moscow
Last Updated: 7:49pm BST 24/10/2007



A Russian serial killer who invited his victims to drink vodka with him before bludgeoning them to death with a hammer has been convicted of 48 counts of murder after a trial that shocked and entranced a nation.

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Telegraph TV: Pichushkin in his courtroom cage
Alexander Pichushkin, a supermarket porter better known in the Russian press as "the chessboard killer", sat in silence as a jury foreman read out 48 successive and unanimous guilty verdicts.

Dressed in a grey V-necked jumper, the 33-year-old showed no emotion and no remorse as a judge confirmed the verdicts and ruled that there were no mitigating circumstances - a pronouncement that means Pichushkin almost certainly faces life in prison.

Pichushkin, who never denied the murders but refused to enter a plea, can have expected nothing less.

For him, psychiatrists said, the real punishment came from being denied the title of Russia’s most prolific serial killer.

At the beginning of his trial the trial, Pichushkin complained of unfair treatment at being charged with only 48 murders. In fact, he claimed, he had killed 63 - 13 more than Andrei Chikatilo, known as the "Rostov Ripper", who was convicted of 50 murders in a 1992 trial.

Russians have watched the chessboard killer pacing up and down his glass box with a mixture of revulsion and horror, a fascination that began with a confession broadcast on national television last year.

Pichushkin never hid his craving to kill. "A life without murders was like a life without food," he said in the confession.

Pichushkin got his first taste of murder in 1992, when, aged only 18, he strangled a school friend and threw him out of the window.

"A first killing is like your first love," he told the jury. "You never forget it."

For 13 years, the murders stopped. Then, inexplicably, Pichushkin embarked on an intensive killing spree in Moscow’s Bitsevsky Park.

This time, he killed those unknown to him, mainly elderly alcoholics that he befriended outside his local tube station by offering to share a bottle of vodka with them.

Many were lured to a remote corner of the park, where Pichushkin claimed his dog was buried and where he liked to drink in its memory. Some he tossed into sewage pits, others he strangled, but most were killed by frenzied blows to their heads with a hammer.

To make sure they were dead, he would place the vodka bottle in their shattered skulls. After his work was finished, he would return to his flat and record his latest murder by placing a coin on a chessboard.

When he was eventually detained, police found that 63 of the 64 squares had been filled in. Investigators, however, have only found 48 bodies.

Three of his victims escaped, including a 19-year-old woman who trod water for an hour in a 20-foot deep sewage pit before managing to clamber up its slippery sides.

When at home, he successfully kept up a pretence of being a normal man. Neighbours described him as quiet, gentle and fond of animals. He was eventually arrested after committing his last murder.

The victim, a female co-worker, had left a message with friends to say she had gone for a walk with Pichushkin.

The killer said he was aware of the message and the risk of getting caught but said he was unable to stop himself because "the mood was already on him."

Like his first victim, his last was a close friend.

10/24/2007 5:21:08 PM

words

10/24/2007 5:21:33 PM

crazy russians

10/24/2007 5:23:16 PM

What a piece of shit.

10/24/2007 5:25:25 PM

I'm sure there is some kind of pun I can come up with dealing with this.

10/24/2007 5:29:07 PM

I wonder if the prosecutor was like, "I rest my case(walks over to chessboard killer) check and mate."


Oh, snap

[Edited on October 24, 2007 at 5:34 PM. Reason : .]

10/24/2007 5:32:17 PM

i smell a future movie

10/24/2007 5:36:29 PM

he didn't kill any chessboards, wtf

10/24/2007 5:39:38 PM

Quote :

"Three of his victims escaped, including a 19-year-old woman who trod water for an hour in a 20-foot deep sewage pit before managing to clamber up its slippery sides."

I'm impressed.

[Edited on October 24, 2007 at 5:47 PM. Reason : .]

10/24/2007 5:40:29 PM

Quote :

"To make sure they were dead, he would place the vodka bottle in their shattered skulls. After his work was finished, he would return to his flat and record his latest murder by placing a coin on a chessboard."

yikes

10/24/2007 5:42:22 PM

Vodka and chessboards. I mean seriously, this guy was just out to reinforce stereotypes.

10/24/2007 5:50:34 PM

Quote :

"This dude is fucked up..."

and other serial killers aren't?

10/24/2007 5:51:31 PM

Serial killers are products of their upbringing. If you read about them you'll realize the way they were treated when they were younger is at least as fucked up as the crimes they commit.

[Edited on October 24, 2007 at 5:58 PM. Reason : a]

10/24/2007 5:55:59 PM

this was an interesting story when i read about it in a thread a month ago

10/24/2007 5:57:39 PM

still no obligatory Yakov joke ?

10/24/2007 6:19:12 PM

In soviet russia mate checks YOU

10/24/2007 6:40:15 PM

10/24/2007 6:41:31 PM

There was a thread about this guy a few weeks ago.

10/24/2007 7:01:12 PM

^ there was.

i specifically remember the part about luring his victims with vodka.

10/24/2007 7:13:14 PM

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10/24/2007 7:16:39 PM