13 Unsettling Facts About Alexander Pichushkin, The Chessboard Killer

While he might not be as well-known as some serial killers, Alexander Pichushkin was a cold, calculated killer from Russia who killed at least 60 people. In 2006, Pichushkin - also known as the Chessboard Killer - admitted to murder, telling authorities he would attack his victims and leave their bodes in a Moscow's Bitsa Park and sewer drains. 

Pichushkin wanted to kill enough people to fill the squares on a chessboard - hence his nickname. Pichushkin was a killer who kept one very specific trophy - a log with the date each of his victims died. There are plenty of creepy facts about Pichushkin and his deeds - and the horrifying details are sure to scare and intrigue.

Pichushkin killed people because it made him feel like God. He liked that he was the person who chose to decide whether a person lived or died. During his trial, he stated that "In all cases I killed for only one reason. I killed in order to live, because when you kill, you want to live." He went on to say "I felt like the father of all these people, since it was I who opened the door for them to another world." His statements made it clear that he felt no remorse about the people whose lives he snuffed out. 

In 1992 - the year Pichushkin first turned to murder as a pastime - his fellow Russian citizen, Andrei Chikatilo, was convicted of mutilating and killing 52 people. Pichushkin dreamed of surpassing Chikatilo's record. He set his sights on the number 64, which equals the amount of squares on a chessboard. Although Pichushkin didn't quite meet his goal of 64 murders, he did out-kill Chikatilo in some sort of weird serial killer contest by confessing that 61 people met their deaths at his hands.

Pichushkin's life of crime began in 1992 when he was 18. He invited one of his friends, Mikhail Odichuk, with him on a "killing expedition." They began walking around, trying to find someone to kill. When it became clear that Odichuk wasn't taking it seriously, Pichushkin killed him instead of a random victim. Pichushkin claimed the police questioned him about his friend's death, but nothing really came of it. Pichushkin later said "This first murder, it’s like first love, it’s unforgettable."

Pichushkin also said he threw a romantic rival out of a window when he was 18. According to Pichushkin, his girlfriend Olga broke up with him and began dating his friend Sergei. In response, Pichushkin killed him, although the circumstances of Sergei's death led the police to declare it a suicide, not a homicide. He would not kill again for five years after the alleged murder of Sergei. 

Bitsa Park, the nickname for Moscow's Bitsevsky Park, consists of 2,700 acres of woods. It has a stream, access to a nearby sewer, and it is the place where Pichushkin not only killed his victims, but also where he left their bodies. Locals describe the neighborhood near the park, where Pichuskin lived (it was a six minute walk from his home to the edge of the park) as a bad neighborhood. The easy access to the park and the homeless people who lived around it are just two of the many reasons why Pichushkin chose it as his killing and dumping ground. 

Unlike other serial killers who tried to cover up their crimes, Pichushkin didn't. At first, he tossed his victims's bodies in a nearby sewage works, but after awhile, he stopped caring. He began to leave their bodies where they died - right out in the open, along the pathways and other areas of Bitsa Park. However, he did place some of them in a stream that ran through the park.

One of Pichushkin's main sources of prey were homeless men living in the streets near Bitsa Park in Moscow. He did this for two reasons - the older men reminded him of his deceased grandfather who he felt abandoned him, and no one truly kept track of them. Many serial killers go after so-called "easy prey" who will not be reported missing, and Pichushkin was no exception. Because of his choice of victims, no one immediately realized there was a serial killer in the area until Pichushkin began leaving the bodies in plain sight. 

Some serial killers keep souvenirs from their victims, whether they are small items or even internal organs. Pichushkin kept a small notebook in his pocket on which he had sketched out a chessboard. Each square had a date written in it that corresponded to one of his murders. At the time of his arrest, 61 of the 64 squares on the chessboard were filled in. 

With the exception of four people - three women and a child - Pichushkin killed adult and elderly men. His father abandoned the family when Pichushkin was a year old, and his grandfather (and only father figure) died when Pichushkin was young. It could be said that he was taking out his aggression and anger towards men with his choice of victims. Reportedly, the few women he killed were people he took on dates.

His last victim - and one of his only female victims - was Marina Moskaloyova. She was a coworker of Pichushkin's. The two went on a walk in Bitsa Park when he killed her. In her pocket was a metro ticket and a piece of paper with Pichushkin's phone number on it, leading authorities to search his home where they found his list of kills.

One of Pichushkin's rare female victims was found with small metal stakes pounded into her skull. The stakes were also around her eyes. When he was arrested, he claimed to have lured his childhood ex-girlfriend Olga into the park to meet her doom. The body with stakes was never identified, and it's possible that this was her body. However, the names of all of his victims have not been released - at least not in an English language publication.

Pichushkin lured some of his victims into the park (some were already there, relaxing or walking one of the paths) where he hit them in the back of the head with blunt objects. Pichushkin would tell them his dead dog's grave was in the park as a way of getting his victims to let down their guard. The two would stoop down to pray over the grave, and then Pichushkin would hit them in the back of the head with a blunt object, like a hammer, a wrench, a log, or anything else that was handy. He claimed to aim for the back of the head in order to avoid getting blood on his clothing. He often left the murder weapon near the body, and in some cases, he would insert an empty bottle of vodka into the indentations in his victim's skulls. 

By all accounts, Pichushkin was a loving, very social child - at first. However, when he was young, he was in an accident with a swing. He fell backwards off of the swing and it reared back and hit him in the head, damaging the front lobe of his brain. He was never the same afterwards; he became aggressive, impulsive, and hostile, and later attended a school for students with learning disabilities. According to experts, damage to the frontal lobe of the brain can cause these personality changes. This, combined with his early abandonment issues (from both his father and his grandfather) may have led to Pichushkin becoming a serial killer.