Posted by Cockney Robin | Look at this picture.
This is the face of the Russian serial killer, Alexander Pichushkin.
He is called "the chessboard killer" because he recorded each exploit
by placing a bottlecap on a chessboard. (BBC News) His crimes continued for a period of 14 years
He did all his killing in a suburban park. (BBC News) He began his career drowning his victims in the sewer. Later, he began shooting them in the head with a homemade gun. (BBC News) Finally, he moved on to more violent methods: beating them to death with a hammer. His victims were elderly people (mostly elderly men), drug addicts, sick, or homeless. He got them to accompany him by luring them with vodka, poor sods. (BBC News) When they were drunk enough, he struck. He didn't bother to dispose of the bodies and in some cases disfigured them by sticking the bottles into their smashed skull. (BBC News)
At the age of 33, he has been charged with 49 murders and 3 attempted murders, though he boasts that he killed 61(BBC News) His mum thinks it was because he was dropped on his head (well, something like that) as an infant .(BBC News)
Whatever the first causes, if he'd not been caught, he's been clear he'd have carried on killing, though presumably he'd have had to start a new chessboard, since 62 of the 64 of the squares on his one were filled. (BBC News)
He himself told the court that his first murder was "like first love, unforgettable".
He then became obsessed with killing, deriving perverse gratification from what he was doing.
As chief prosecutor Yury Syomin told us: "His wish was to kill as many people as possible." (BBC News)
Oddly, the murderer loved animals. One elderly lady----age 70---to whom he had an attachment said she found him sitting one day on the stairs, drunk and nearly speechless with grief, because a beloved cat had died. (BBC News) I wonder how, given that so many serial killers seem to start with animals. But perhaps this one is an exception.
In the manner of a Russian novel, his mum----who is now having to live with this new vision of her son----said, "How could I know he would become such a beast?"(BBC News) He was "a polite young man." (BBC News) The lives he took were generally those that society itself holds cheap. Polite indeed.
I don't believe in capital punishment, being from a civilised----all
right; sorry, sorry, sorry, but though I love the US and Americans
generally, this is a subject on which I feel strongly. I was saying:
I don't believe in capital punishment, but if I were to make an
exception---which I would not , but if----I could almost justify it
here, with a person so utterly lacking in remorse, empathy, grief,
understanding. He's not an animal, since no animal would behave in
this way. One often sees criminals who from some essential lack are
helplessly and pathetically enslaved to their evil impulses, but this
bloke isn't enslaved: he's driving the car. Or so it appears. All I know is what I've read in the press. Damozel, my mate and this blog's sole God-botherer, often points out that Christ instructed his followers that one can't judge the worth or the meaning of a human soul or sin in the eyes of God and that only God knows the whole story from first to last. I'm not a believer, but as a gesture of solidarity with Jesus I'll say no more.
But---speaking of capital punishment--- did you know that even the Russians don't execute killers? Pichushkin will receive a life sentence. (BBC News)
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