Chessboard Killer Convicted of 48 Murders

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Oct 25 2007 By Ben Spencer

Killer Lured Victims To Park With Vodka

A SHOP worker who claimed he wanted a murder victim for every square on a chessboard has been convicted of killing 48 people.

Psychopath Alexander Pichushkin drowned his victims or battered them to death with a hammer.

Many were lured to a park by the promise of vodka if they would join him in mourning the death of his dog.

The Russian serial killer committed most of the murders over five years in Bittsa Park in Moscow. He became known as the Bittsa Maniac.

Yesterday, it took a jury less than three hours to convict him.

Pichushkin, 33, originally said he planned 64 killings - one for each chessboard square.

But he later denied this, saying he would have carried on killing indefinitely if he had not been arrested.

He puts the number of his victims at 63. Prosecutors were only able to find evidence for 48 murders.

Pichushkin was also found guilty of three attempted murders.

He never denied the charges and he stared at the floor in a reinforced glass cage as the judge read out the verdict of his five-week trial yesterday.

The jury found there were no mitigating circumstances and rejected a defence request to clear him of 18 of the killings.

The prosecution requested a life sentence.

The courthouse was packed with relatives of victims, many of whom want Pichushkin executed.

Russia has imposed a moratorium on the death sentence but it has not been abolished. Pichushkin will be sentenced before the weekend.

He began his 14-year killing spree in 1992 when he was 18 and was finally arrested in June last year.

Many victims - a lot of them homeless - were elderly men, although he also killed three women.

Prosecutors said Pichushkin lured them to the sprawling park in southern Moscow by asking them to drink with him in mourning his dog's death.

They said he killed 11 people in 2001, including six in one month.

Most were thrown in a sewer when drunk. In other cases, he smashed them in the head or strangled them.

But police say that in 2005, he began to kill with "particular cruelty", hitting his intoxicated victims multiple times in the head with a hammer.

He would then stick an unfinished bottle of vodka into their shattered skulls.

Pichushkin also no longer tried to conceal the bodies.

He admitted killing one of his last victims in February 2006 to demonstrate he was still at large following reports in Russian newspapers that the Bittsa Maniac had been caught.

Pichushkin was arrested last summer after a woman left a note at home saying she was going for a walk with him and was then found dead.

Pichushkin said he was aware of the note but killed her anyway.

He said during the trial: "I'm a professional. I burned myself - there's no need for the cops to take credit for catchingme."

Before the Pichushkin case, Russia's most notorious serial killer in recent times was Andrei Chikatilo.

He killed 53 women and children in the southern city of Rostov. He was convicted and executed in 1994.