By Katherine Ramsland

August 15, 2007

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Drinks over a Dead Dog

Moscow (Crime Library) -  In July 2003, ten women were found murdered around Moscow, and by September there were two more. Moscow newspapers speculated about a serial killer at large — once a forbidden topic in the former Soviet Union. Each of the women had been walking alone and most were young. All were either strangled or had their throats cut. Since the incidents occurred in different parts of the city, the daily paper Kommersant suggested that there might be two serial killers at work.

Bittsyevskiy Park

A police spokesperson, who noted that several suspects had been detained in these incidents, insisted, "There is no maniac in Moscow." How wrong he was. Even as the police investigated these crimes, they were already aware of what was going on in the southwestern part of the city, in Bittsyevskiy (or Bittsevsky) Park. Thus far, they'd been stymied in their attempts to catch the person bashing the heads of elderly people, but when they finally made an arrest, they found the case to be much bigger than they thought. One man had been playing a very gruesome game of chess.

Alexander Pichushkin

It was June 2006 before Russian officials stopped the fourteen-year spree of Alexander Pichushkin, 32. He had murdered a coworker from s supermarket, 36-year-old Marina Moskalyova, and left her body in the park. Video surveillance from a train showed Pichushkin walking with her and she had left a note for her son that she would be with Pichushkin, providing his phone number. The police arrested him at the apartment where he lived with his mother.

He initially denied his involvement, but after seeing the surveillance tape it did not take long for him to start talking. He even led police to some of the undiscovered bodies. Pichushkin claimed to have killed 62 people (61 by some sources) and his dream was to surpass the death toll of serial killer Andrea Chikatilo, whose official murder count was 53 woman and children. Pichushkin sought to make history, and the media had already dubbed him the Bittsa Maniac (or Bittsyeveskiy Beast). He said he'd known that killing Marina had been a risk, but he'd been in the mood that night, so he did it.

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By Katherine Ramsland

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