Russia’s ‘chessboard’ killer sentenced to life in prison

MOSCOW – A former grocery store clerk who imagined he was ‘almost God’ as he methodically hunted and sought to kill one person for every space on a chessboard has been sentenced to life in prison for 48 murders.

A Moscow court handed down Russia’s harshest possible sentence for Alexander Pichushkin, 33, who mostly preyed on residents of his poor Moscow neighbourhood. Pichushkin stood in a reinforced glass cage, his hands cuffed behind his back, while the judge read out the sentence on Monday.Asked whether he understood the sentence, he replied: “I’m not deaf.”The courtroom was packed with his victims’ relatives and journalists.Pichushkin, who remained unrepentant and defiant during the trial, looked subdued and depressed on Monday.Some of the victims’ relatives wiped away tears as they listened to the sentence.Pichushkin became known as ‘the chessboard killer’ because he said he aimed to kill 64 people to match the spaces on a chessboard.He had boasted of killing 60 people and trying to kill three others.However, prosecutors could only find evidence to charge him with 48 murders and three attempted murders.After a five-week trial, a jury found Pichushkin guilty last Wednesday on all counts.Prosecutors said most of his victims were killed in Bittsa Park in southern Moscow from 2001 until his arrest in 2006.They said Pichushkin lured most of his victims – many of them homeless, alcoholic and elderly – by promising them vodka if they would join him in mourning the death of his dog.Pichushkin killed 11 people in 2001, including six in one month, prosecutors said.Most died after he threw them into a sewage pit after getting them drunk, and in a few cases strangled or hit them in the head, prosecutors said.Beginning in 2005, Pichushkin – a carpenter by training who worked as a grocery store clerk – began to kill with ‘particular cruelty’, hitting his victims multiple times in the head with a hammer, then sticking a bottle of vodka into their shattered skulls, prosecutors said.He no longer tried to conceal the bodies.He was arrested in June 2006 after a woman who left a note at home saying she was going for a walk with Pichushkin was found dead.”Justice has been done,” Moscow city prosecutor Yuri Syomin said after the sentencing.”The culprit has been held accountable.”Pichushkin will serve his term in a hard labour colony and undergo psychiatric treatment for ‘a personality disorder expressed in a sadistic inclination toward murder’, said judge Vladimir Usov.He added, however, that Pichushkin was aware of the criminal nature of his actions.Nampa-APPichushkin stood in a reinforced glass cage, his hands cuffed behind his back, while the judge read out the sentence on Monday.Asked whether he understood the sentence, he replied: “I’m not deaf.”The courtroom was packed with his victims’ relatives and journalists.Pichushkin, who remained unrepentant and defiant during the trial, looked subdued and depressed on Monday.Some of the victims’ relatives wiped away tears as they listened to the sentence.Pichushkin became known as ‘the chessboard killer’ because he said he aimed to kill 64 people to match the spaces on a chessboard.He had boasted of killing 60 people and trying to kill three others.However, prosecutors could only find evidence to charge him with 48 murders and three attempted murders.After a five-week trial, a jury found Pichushkin guilty last Wednesday on all counts.Prosecutors said most of his victims were killed in Bittsa Park in southern Moscow from 2001 until his arrest in 2006.They said Pichushkin lured most of his victims – many of them homeless, alcoholic and elderly – by promising them vodka if they would join him in mourning the death of his dog.Pichushkin killed 11 people in 2001, including six in one month, prosecutors said.Most died after he threw them into a sewage pit after getting them drunk, and in a few cases strangled or hit them in the head, prosecutors said.Beginning in 2005, Pichushkin – a carpenter by training who worked as a grocery store clerk – began to kill with ‘particular cruelty’, hitting his victims multiple times in the head with a hammer, then sticking a bottle of vodka into their shattered skulls, prosecutors said.He no longer tried to conceal the bodies.He was arrested in June 2006 after a woman who left a note at home saying she was going for a walk with Pichushkin was found dead.”Justice has been done,” Moscow city prosecutor Yuri Syomin said after the sentencing.”The culprit has been held accountable.”Pichushkin will serve his term in a hard labour colony and undergo psychiatric treatment for ‘a personality disorder expressed in a sadistic inclination toward murder’, said judge Vladimir Usov.He added, however, that Pichushkin was aware of the criminal nature of his actions.Nampa-AP