Russian Chessboard Murderer Who Killed 48 People for PLEASURE

A Russian man has been convicted for killing 48 people! (possibly more) Why did he do it? Just for PLEASURE!!!

I feel sick just reading it. How can a human being become so insane?

"MOSCOW, Oct 24 (Reuters) - A Russian supermarket worker, dubbed "the chessboard murderer", was convicted on Wednesday of killing 48 people after he confessed in court that the first time he took a life was like falling in love.

Given his nickname by Russian media because he had hoped to put a coin on every square of a 64-square chessboard for each of his victims, Alexander Pichushkin also admitted to killing 11 more people not included in the court case.

The verdict, handed down by a jury in a Moscow courtroom, makes 33-year-old Pichushkin Russia's deadliest serial killer since Andrei Chikatilo, known as the "Rostov Ripper". He was convicted in 1992 of killing more than 50 people and executed.

The accused, sitting in a glass cage, showed no emotion and instead stared at the ground between his feet, frowning occasionally, before being led away in handcuffs.

Wearing a grey V-neck jumper with the sleeves rolled up, Pichushkin wore the same frown throughout the trial.

Prosecutors say he lured most of his victims to secluded parts of Bitsevsky Park, in a suburb of Moscow, where he plied them with vodka and then beat them to death with a hammer or threw them down drains.

Since many of his victims were elderly and had a record of drug and alcohol addiction, police often did not know for months that someone was missing because no relatives came forward.

"A first killing is like your first love. You never forget it," he said earlier in his trial after explaining how he started killing at the age of 18 with the murder of a classmate.

Russia suspended use of the death penalty under a moratorium. Sentencing is expected in the coming days.

Defence lawyer Pavel Ivannikov said he did not believe Pichushkin was guilty on all the counts but said it was hard to argue this when his client had "confessed to everything he was accused of and some things he was not."

Ivannikov said his client had been expecting the guilty verdict. "He regrets nothing, which for me is strange," said the lawyer. "He does not regret what he has done." - Source: Reuters

It's a tragedy that Russia has stopped enforcing the death penalty. It's more than bloody murderers like this deserve.