Episode Details

In this episode of pplpod, we explore the chilling case of Alexander Pichushkin, a Russian serial killer known to the world as the "Chessboard Killer" and the "Bitsa Park Maniac". Active between 1992 and 2006, Pichushkin turned Moscow's Bitsa Park into a hunting ground, claiming he intended to kill sixty-four people to match the number of squares on a chessboard.

We trace Pichushkin's dark origins, from a childhood accident involving a swing that damaged his frontal cortex to his first murder of a classmate in 1992. Listen in as we discuss his "sewer period," where he lured elderly victims with vodka before disposing of them in sewage canals, and his later, more brutal "open period".

Finally, we examine how a note left by his final victim, Marina Moskalyova, led to his capture, his chilling courtroom confession where he compared life without murder to life without food, and his ultimate sentencing to the "Polar Owl" penal colony.