"Chessboard Killer" Alexander Pichushkin Killed 48 People Over a Dozen Year Span — Where Is He Now?

Something we don't speak about often enough is how many prolific killers are unrepentant geeks. To be clear, we are not minimizing what they did and this is not a slight against any victims. We're merely pointing out the fact that beyond committing monstrous acts, many of these murderers are kind of pathetic.

Take Dennis Rader for example. He would eventually be known as BTK (Bind Torture Kill), and his crimes were equal parts horrifying and devastating. However, he also fancied himself a poet and penned truly embarrassing prose about his offenses. He had Big Dork Energy. Alexander Pichushkin, a serial killer from Russia, was more dangerous yet equally as big a loser. The media dubbed him the Chessboard Killer and his murders stretched on for nearly 15 years. Where is he now? Here's what we know.

According to NBC News, Pichushkin was sentenced to life in prison in October 2007. He was dubbed the Chessboard Killer based on his macabre plan of killing 64 people, one for every space on a chessboard. Although he was found guilty of taking the lives of 48 individuals, Pichushkin bragged that he nearly met his gory goal.

He was sent to a hard labor colony called the Polar Owl which he likened to a "concentration camp," per The Mirror. Clearly it couldn't have been that bad as he told the outlet in 2017, a decade after being sent there, that his popularity was quite the mood booster: "I would get to work, and everyone was discussing my murders. I was exultant inside." It probably helped that Pichushkin swears he had 80 women writing him love letters.

Even though capital punishment was not legal at the time of Pichushkin's sentencing, he commented on what that would have meant for him. Pichushkin has no remorse and, furthermore, doesn't believe what he did was wrong. Because of this, he considered the death penalty to be an exceedingly inappropriate punishment. Pichushkin said that what he did wasn't murder but rather, an action guided by "the hand of God."

In what can only be described as stranger than fiction, Pichushkin's earlier kills involved the death of a phantom dog. He would lure his victims to a quiet spot, with promises of sharing a drink at the grave of his deceased pet. Most of them were homeless men suffering from alcoholism who couldn't resist scratching that itch, regardless of the circumstances. In 2001, Pichushkin killed 11 people using this bizarre and deeply upsetting tactic.

Four years later in 2005, Pichushkin's methods grew more savage. During his trial, prosecutors said he had begun killing with "particular cruelty." As described by NBC News, this involved "hitting his intoxicated victims multiple times in the head with a hammer, then sticking an unfinished bottle of vodka into their shattered skulls." He later confessed that his motivation was not only God-like, but was also a kind of sustenance. "For me, a life without murder is like a life without food for you," said Pichushkin.

He claimed his last victim in February 2006. By this point it was almost an addiction which is why Pichushkin made an obvious mistake. He met a woman who had left a note in her home stating she was going for a walk with him. Despite knowing that his entire name was on a piece of paper in her home, he was unable to stop himself. "I killed so I could live myself: you kill someone and immediately feel relieved, your shoulders straighten up and you want to live," explained Pichushkin.

At the end of the day, Pichushkin was like a lot of serial killers. He craved attention regardless of how he attracted it. The fact that he used a chessboard as a way to keep track of his victims is equal parts horrifying and incredibly pitiful. It's helpful to sometimes reduce these individuals to their most human qualities. Pichushkin was not just a killer, he was a desperate man with a piteous flair for the dramatic. How utterly boring.