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Russia's "Chessboard" Serial Killer Gets Life Sentence
World | October 29, 2007, Monday // 00:00
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A Moscow court on Monday sentenced a man convicted of 48 murders to life imprisonment, ending one of Russia's worst serial killer cases.
The sentence for Alexander Pichushkin, who claimed to have killed 60 in an effort to mark all 64 squares on a chessboard, was the severest possible under Russian law and met prosecutors' request.
The sentence was read out by judge Vladimir Usov, as Pichushkin, a 33-year-old former supermarket worker, looked at the ground. Pichushkin stood in a reinforced glass cage with his hands cuffed behind his back while the judge read the sentence for 45 minutes. When judge Vladimir Usov asked Pichushkin whether he understood the sentence, the defendent replied, "I'm not deaf."
Pichushkin will also have to undergo psychiatric treatment at the prison.
Most of Pichuskin's victims were killed in the sprawling Bittsa Park in southern Moscow from 2001 until his arrest in 2006.
Prosecutors said Pichushkin lured 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.
They said he killed 11 people in 2001, including six in one month. He killed most of his victims by throwing them into a sewage pit after they were drunk, and in a few cases strangled or hit them in the head, prosecutors said.
Beginning in 2005, he began to kill with "particular cruelty," hitting his intoxicated victims multiple times in the head with a hammer, then sticking an unfinished bottle of vodka into their shattered skulls, prosecutors said. He also no longer tried to conceal the bodies.
Pichushkin was given his nickname by the Russian media because he told detectives in a confession that he had hoped to put a coin on every square of a 64-square chessboard for each of his victims.
He is Russia's deadliest serial killer since Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted in 1992 and executed for killing more than 50 people. Russia is now observing a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty.
The sentence for Alexander Pichushkin, who claimed to have killed 60 in an effort to mark all 64 squares on a chessboard, was the severest possible under Russian law and met prosecutors' request.
The sentence was read out by judge Vladimir Usov, as Pichushkin, a 33-year-old former supermarket worker, looked at the ground. Pichushkin stood in a reinforced glass cage with his hands cuffed behind his back while the judge read the sentence for 45 minutes. When judge Vladimir Usov asked Pichushkin whether he understood the sentence, the defendent replied, "I'm not deaf."
Pichushkin will also have to undergo psychiatric treatment at the prison.
Most of Pichuskin's victims were killed in the sprawling Bittsa Park in southern Moscow from 2001 until his arrest in 2006.
Prosecutors said Pichushkin lured 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.
They said he killed 11 people in 2001, including six in one month. He killed most of his victims by throwing them into a sewage pit after they were drunk, and in a few cases strangled or hit them in the head, prosecutors said.
Beginning in 2005, he began to kill with "particular cruelty," hitting his intoxicated victims multiple times in the head with a hammer, then sticking an unfinished bottle of vodka into their shattered skulls, prosecutors said. He also no longer tried to conceal the bodies.
Pichushkin was given his nickname by the Russian media because he told detectives in a confession that he had hoped to put a coin on every square of a 64-square chessboard for each of his victims.
He is Russia's deadliest serial killer since Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted in 1992 and executed for killing more than 50 people. Russia is now observing a moratorium on carrying out the death penalty.
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