Alexander Pichushkin

Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin (; born 9 April 1974), also known as the Chessboard Killer and the Bittsa Park Maniac , is a Russian serial killer and former warehouse worker who is believed to have killed at least forty-nine people, and possibly as many as sixty, between 1992 and 2006. Pichushkin was active in Moscow's Bittsa Park, where a number of the victims' bodies were found. On 29 October 2007, he was sentenced to life imprisonment. At time of imprisonment, he was unmarried with no children. Following this accident, Pichushkin frequently became hostile and impulsive.

Due to his behaviour, Pichushkin's mother decided to transfer him from the mainstream school he had been attending to one for children with learning disabilities. Prior to this transfer, children from the mainstream school were known to have physically and verbally bullied Pichushkin, referring to him as "that retard". This abuse served to intensify Pichushkin's anger. Upon reaching early adolescence, his maternal grandfather recognized that Pichushkin was highly intelligent and felt that his innate talents were being wasted, as he wasn't involved in any activities at home and the school he was enrolled in focused more on overcoming disability than on promoting achievement.

Pichushkin moved into his grandfather's home and was encouraged to pursue intellectual pursuits outside of school. The deepest of these interests was chess. Pichushkin was taught how to play, and after demonstrating his ability was introduced to the exhibition games against elderly men who played publicly in Bittsa Park. An outstanding chess player, Pichushkin found a channel for his aggression when dominating the chessboard in all of his games. However, he continued to be bullied by mainstream school children and suffered an emotional blow when, toward the end of his adolescence, his grandfather died. Pichushkin was left to return to his mother's home, after which he enrolled as a student.

According to reports, the death of his grandfather greatly affected Pichushkin. In an effort to both dull the pain of the loss as well as to calm his severe aggressive tendencies, he began to consume large quantities of vodka. He continued to play chess both at home and in Bittsa Park, now joining the other men in drinking vodka, though unlike them he could play without being greatly affected by the alcohol. It was at this time that Pichushkin began to develop a more sinister hobby that, at the time, remained unknown to anyone: whenever he knew he was going to come into contact with children, he would take a video camera along and proceed to threaten them. On one occasion that has since been made public, he held a young child by one leg, upside down, and said to the camera: "You are in my power now... I am going to drop you from the window... and you will fall fifteen meters to your death..." He then watched these videos repeatedly to reaffirm his power. However, by 1992, this practice had become insufficient to satisfy his urges.

Murders Russian media have speculated that Pichushkin was motivated, in part, by a macabre competition with another notorious Russian serial killer, Andrei Chikatilo, who was convicted of killing fifty-two children and young women over a twelve-year period. Pichushkin has said his aim was to kill sixty-four the number of squares on a chessboard. He later recanted this statement, saying that he would have continued killing indefinitely had he not been stopped. Another report stated that after reaching his earlier goal, he intended to buy an international checkers board and kill one-hundred.

First victim (July 1992) Pichushkin's first murder occurred on 27 July 1992, when he was aged 18. Pichushkin arranged to meet his classmate, Mikhail Odïtchuk, in Bittsa Park to jointly hatch a plan to kill sixty-four people. However, when they arrived at the meeting point, Odïtchuk changed his mind and told Pichushkin that he no longer wanted to take action. Feeling teased by his best friend, Pichushkin strangled him with a rope and threw his body in a sewer entrance at Bittsa Park, then returned to his mother's apartment a short distance away. The body was never found.

After Odïtchuk's disappearance, Moscow police opened an investigation. The Chief Investigator on the case was Andrei Suprunenko. Pichushkin was arrested at his mother's home on 30 July and taken to Moscow police station for questioning. When asked about his schedule on the day of Odïtchuk's disappearance, Pichushkin confirmed having met with Odïtchuk but claimed to have left him unharmed in the park. With no evidence tying him to the disappearance, Pichushkin was released.

Arrest In June 2006, Pichushkin offered to go for a walk with his 36-year-old coworker, Marina Moskalyova. Though she was reportedly suspicious of him, and left his phone number. In a later interview, Pichushkin recounted, "I hit her several times with a hammer. She screamed and then fell backwards. She lay on her side." He was filmed reenacting his crimes in great detail, a process which is a regular part of Russian criminal investigation. Pichushkin also revealed that some of the murders he committed were not done using his preferred method (hammer blows to the back of the head), but by throwing his victims down into the sewer lines beneath Bittsa Park (although one of his victims did survive this ordeal). Chief investigator Andrei Suprunenko stated in later interviews that the chessboard wherein Pichushkin was stated to keep track of his murders was an extension of his alleged, "chess genius," skills. The skills were nonsense. In other interviews he stated, "Without the murders, my life would no longer have made sense. I needed it like oxygen to feel good. What should I have done instead? Grow cucumbers or go fishing? I sent people to another world without torturing them. I killed them so I could live myself." He asked a Russian court to add an additional eleven victims to his body count, bringing his claimed death toll to sixty, and three surviving victims. During his trial, Pichushkin was housed in a glass cage for his own protection.

Upon conviction, Judge Vladimir Usov sentenced Pichushkin to life imprisonment, Pichushkin appealed his sentencing, claiming it was "too harsh" and asking for a reduction to twenty-five years. As of 2026, Pichushkin was spending his days in solitary confinement at the Arctic penal colony "Polar Owl".

In popular culture Books

Music The Finnish death metal band Torture Killer made a studio album, Sewers, dedicated to Pichushkin.

Television Serial Killers: Chessboard Killer (2009). The first series of the Discovery documentary is focused on the case of Alexander Pichushkin.

Podcasts My Favorite Murder covered Pichushkin's case in its 23rd episode titled "Making a Twenty-Thirderer". And That's Why We Drink did a two-part episode about Pichushkin titled "The Chess Board Killer". Crime, Conspiracy, Cults and Murder did an episode about Pichushkin titled "The Most Prolific Serial Killer You've Never Hear Of| The Chessboard Killer".