Relatives and friends of Alexander Pichushkin are perplexed as to how from an ordinary, obedient boy who was no different from his peers, he grew up to be such a creepy monster? He was a little hooligan, never fought with anyone, and was a conflict-free and shy child.

Why he became like this is a mystery to me,” his mother Natalya Pichushkina admitted to Izvestia. - I don’t know at what stage I looked at my son.

However, psychologists from the Institute. Serbsky are sure that Natalya Edmundovna is disingenuous.

Invisible Man

We have already drawn the attention of readers to the fact that all maniacs have one thing in common: a difficult childhood (see Izvestia of September 5, 2007). A childhood saturated with loneliness, uselessness and even hatred of their loved ones. Pichushkin's grandfather and father were alcoholics. In 1973, when the boy was 9 months old, his father left the family. The mother married a second time and gave her son to his grandfather. Grandfather soon got tired of his grandson, and he, under the pretext that he was burring, sent him to a speech therapy boarding school. To say that life was difficult for him in the boarding school would be an understatement. Among aggressive children from dysfunctional families (there were mostly such children in the boarding school), he became withdrawn and completely lost himself in his fantasies.

When Sasha Pichushkin came home on the weekend, there was no holiday either. He saw that all the love and attention of this house belonged to his younger sister - his half-sister, from his stepfather. Outwardly, Sasha remained a loving and obedient boy. But did he justify his mother and grandfather in his soul? He wanted to please his loved ones, and sometimes he even succeeded. One day, when Sasha was older, his mother bought him a moped. He went for a ride, but an hour later he returned beaten. And without a moped.

However, there is one more circumstance that could affect Pichushkin’s psyche. When he was 3 years old, he fell off a swing and was hospitalized with a traumatic brain injury. It was after this that he began to confuse hissing sounds and at school he even wrote “s” instead of “sh”. According to the theory of the famous psychiatrist Alexander Bukhanovsky (it was he who at one time identified Chikatilo), people with sadistic tendencies had traumatic brain injuries in the past. If areas of the brain in the frontal and temporal parts die, the person becomes extremely aggressive. The temporal region is responsible for worldview, morality, ethics, and the frontal region is responsible for inhibition.

However, psychologists from the Institute. Serbian believe that environment nevertheless, it had a greater influence on the formation of Pichushkin’s personality.

In the footsteps of an idol

Growing up, Pichushkin changed before our eyes. From a downtrodden kid he turns into an aggressive teenager. Primary school students complained to teachers that they were being beaten by high school students, but Pichushkin was especially atrocious. The teachers didn’t believe: “It can’t be! The quietest, the most obedient, the best...”

“And he really was like that,” psychologist Mikhail Vinogradov, a member of the commission for examining Pichushkin, tells Izvestia. - And Chikatilo was an exemplary family man and an excellent teacher at school. But in the family and at school it’s one thing, and on the street it’s another. Both of them were extremely cruel outside the home. During the examination, I was shown a video filmed by one of Pichushkin’s comrades. He is fourteen years old there. The unbridled teenager showed his peers how to kill. He grabbed some small boy by the legs and began to threaten him that he would break his head. At the same time, his gestures and facial expressions were those of a typical sadist.

From the age of fifteen, his mother and teachers began to notice that the quiet Sasha began to have terrible attacks of rage. But neither of them thought of taking the teenager to the doctor.

At the construction vocational school-66, the future killer studied to become a carpenter. Here Pichushkin ceased to be an invisible man and tried with all his might to stand out. He pretended to be a superman - he even bought high-laced combat boots. He demonstratively courted the girls, but their relationship did not go further than that. Perhaps even then male weakness took its toll, and this, of course, became one of the factors in the mutation of his character. Pichushkin even began to write poetry, but this, like everyone else, only caused a hail of ridicule. To ingratiate himself with his classmates, Pichushkin easily gave loans. But he immediately demanded a receipt: “I am leaving this life voluntarily, because it is meaningless.” The boys easily gave him such receipts, laughing at his threats. "Why do you need it?" - they asked. Pichushkin explained that if his comrade does not repay the debt, he will kill him, and the police will consider it suicide.

The turning point in the life of the future maniac was the army draft. “They’ll take it anyway. I don’t mind,” he told his mother. But a psychiatrist from the medical commission sent him for examination to the hospital. Kashchenko.

“It was after the hospital that something broke in him,” recalls Natalya Pichushkina. - I don’t know what they did with him there. Maybe they injected something. He himself did not say anything. But he returned from there something different.

Pichushkin was declared unfit for combat due to psychopathy. The mother was warned that the disease would progress and the young man needed more thorough examination and, possibly, treatment. But the mother did not believe the doctors. After the hospital, Pichushkin began to work hard. He got a job as a loader in a store and was polite and efficient there. Probably, already then a plan for future murders had formed in his head, and he was often found in the back room, furiously cutting empty boxes with a knife. Like his father and grandfather, Pichushkin began to drink. This did not bring him joy - he threw it several times, again starting to swing, but lost. When I went on a binge, I didn’t crawl to the apartment. He fell at the entrance and waited for his mother to return from work and drag him into the house.

The trial of Chikatilo completed the matter. Pichushkin collected newspaper clippings and wore checkered shirts that his idol wore. When in 1992 the maniac was sentenced to death, calling him the bloodiest of serial killers, Pichushkin flew into a rage and told his friends that in fact he was the bloodiest killer. The friends burst out laughing. Pichushkin flew into a rage and on the same day suggested to Mikhail Odiychuk: “Let’s also start killing, like Chikatilo!” The friend replied: “Come on!” - and laughed. Pichushkin realized that even his close friend did not take him seriously.

Murder Streak

He committed his first murder in 1992 at the age of 18: he strangled his classmate Mikhail Odiychuk and threw him into a well. The body was never found.

During the series of murders in 2002-2006, he lived with his mother, Natalya Elmuradovna, in Moscow on Khersonskaya Street, not far from Bitsevsky Park. Until 2006, he worked as a loader in a grocery store on Khersonskaya Street.

Detained on June 15, 2006 on suspicion of murder of a woman committed on June 14, 2006. He immediately began to confess. A few days later, Pichushkin testified on other crimes committed on the territory of Bitsevsky Park. A week later, Pichushkin was charged with the murder of Marina Moskaleva and another murder of a woman, committed by him on April 12, 2006.

In April 2007, Alexander Pichushkin was declared sane based on the results of an examination conducted since December 2006 at the Institute. Serbian.

In June 2007, the Moscow prosecutor's office completed the investigation into the criminal case of Alexander Pichushkin. He was charged with 52 premeditated murders, committed mainly on the territory of Bitsevsky Park. According to Pichushkin himself, he killed 62 people.

On August 13, 2007, preliminary hearings began in the Moscow City Court in the case of Alexander Pichushkin, accused of murdering 49 people and attempting to murder three more people.

Consequence

February 19 - A man was detained in Bitsevsky Park who tried to run away while trying to check his documents. The operatives opened fire and wounded him in the thigh. It later became clear that the detainee had nothing to do with the murders in Bitsevsky Park.

The press has two versions of the motives for his unusual behavior.

According to one version, the operatives who stopped the man were not in uniform, and the man decided that they were trying to rob him. According to the second version, the man carried a knife for self-defense (at that time there were many rumors about the Bitsa maniac in Moscow) and when operatives drew attention to him, he was afraid that he might be prosecuted for carrying a bladed weapon.

March 13 - A man disguised as a woman was detained in Bitsevsky Park; he tried to escape at the sight of police officers. A hammer was found in his bag. During the investigation, it turned out that the detainee had an alibi at the time the crimes were committed.

June 14 - The murder of Marina Moskaleva was committed, during the investigation of which the investigation came to her colleague Alexander Pichushkin. Marina, leaving on a date with Pichushkin, left her son his number mobile phone. Pichushkin himself knew about this fact, but still decided to kill.

June 15 - Alexander Pichushkin was detained in his home on suspicion of committing the murder of Marina Moskaleva. After some time, the detainee stated that he was the “Bitsa maniac,” but efforts to capture the maniac continued, as investigators did not rule out the possibility of self-incrimination.

April 2007 - According to the conclusion of specialists from the Institute. Serbsky, Alexander Pichushkin was declared sane, that is, the crimes of which he is accused were committed by him consciously.

June 29 - The Moscow City Prosecutor's Office completed the investigation into the criminal case of Alexander Pichushkin. Pichushkin is accused of committing 52 premeditated murders. After the indictment was approved, the case was sent to the Moscow City Court for consideration on the merits.

August 1 - According to the acting head of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation, Police Lieutenant General Iskandar Galimov, the investigation proved all 62 murders of the “Bitsa maniac.”

June 29 - The Moscow prosecutor's office completed the investigation into this case and sent it to court. Pichushkin was accused of 49 murders and 3 attempted murders.

August 13, 2007 - Preliminary hearings began in the Moscow City Court in the case of Alexander Pichushkin, accused of murdering 49 people and attempting to murder 3 more people.

The defendant was charged under Article 105 of the Criminal Code of Russia “murder of two or more persons in a knowingly helpless state, committed with particular cruelty.” The hearing is held behind closed doors. During this process, the form of legal proceedings will be determined and the time frame for consideration of the case on the merits will be set. Moscow Prosecutor Yuri Semin will act as the state prosecutor at the trial, prosecutor's office representative Maria Semenenko told reporters at the courthouse. According to her, there are 41 victims and 98 prosecution witnesses in the case. According to Semenenko's forecasts, the trial against Pichushkin will last at least two months.

The court granted the defendant's request to have his case examined by a jury and announced that the trial would be open. Jury selection is scheduled for September 13.

According to investigators, Pichushkin committed crimes from 1992 to 2006. The accused was most active in 2005-2006 on the territory of the Bitsevsky forest park in the south of Moscow. Most of the victims of the defendant were men; among the victims there were only four women - three were killed, one was attempted.

The defendant's appointed lawyer, Pavel Ivannikov, said that his client admits guilt in full. Earlier, in an interview with one of the TV channels, Pichushkin stated that he actually committed 61 murders. At the same time, according to him, many of his victims were his acquaintances.

According to Pichushkin, he led victims into a forest park under various pretexts, where he killed them with hammer blows to the head and hid their bodies. During the investigation, Pichushkin showed several burial places of the dead. “I even pointed out to the investigation those points that were not known to them,” Pichushkin said. Representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs expressed the opinion that Pichushkin surpassed even the famous serial killer Andrei Chikatilo in cruelty, executed in 1994 for the murder of 53 people. He also stated that if he had not been detained, he would not have stopped killing: “If they had not caught me, I would never have stopped, never. They saved the lives of many by catching me.”

October 24 - the jury of the Moscow City Court unanimously returned an indictment. Pichushkin was found fully guilty of 48 murders and 3 attempted murders.

October 25 - Pichushkin made his “last word” in court, where he once again said that he did not regret his actions.
All this time I did what I wanted... I have been under arrest for 500 days now and all this time everyone has been deciding my fate - the cops, judges, prosecutors. But at one time I decided the fate of 60 people. I alone was the judge, the prosecutor, and the executioner... I alone performed all your functions

October 29, 2007 - Pichushkin was sentenced to life imprisonment. The Moscow City Court made a decision in the case of the so-called Bitsa maniac Alexander Pichushkin. He was sentenced to life imprisonment in a special regime colony. There he will also undergo compulsory treatment by a psychiatrist due to homicidomania discovered in him. Pichushkin was found guilty of murdering 48 people, while he himself admitted to committing 11 more serious crimes.
November 2, 2007 - Alexander Pichushkin appealed the verdict. In his cassation appeal, he asks to reduce the sentence from life imprisonment to 25 years.

Pichushkin in the courtroom

Alexander Yurievich Pichushkin(April 9, 1974, Mytishchi, Moscow region) - Serial killer , sentenced in October 2007 to life imprisonment on charges of 48 murders and three attempted murders. Committed crimes in the capital Bitsevsky forest park.

Childhood

His father left the family when Alexander Pichushkin was only 9 months old. After this, the boy grew up with his mother, and his grandfather took an active part in his upbringing. In 1976, he and his mother moved to live from the Mytishchi district to the Moscow microdistrict Zyuzino, on Khersonskaya Street, building 2, apartment 40.

Alexander was not a hooligan, seemed modest and unsociable, and loved to play chess. He showed strange behavior, once he shocked everyone by drawing Lenin in the nude. Soon, according to Pichushkin's mother, an accident occurs to him - he falls from a swing and receives a traumatic brain injury, after which he ends up in the hospital.

As a result of the injury, Pichushkin had complications with his speech - he confused “sh” and “s”, and also made mistakes in writing these letters, which is why his mother transferred him to the 138th speech therapy boarding school. After boarding school, Pichushkin goes to study at a vocational school to become a carpenter.

First murder

First murder Alexander committed this in 1992 at the age of 18: he strangled his classmate Mikhail Odiychuk and threw him into a well. The body was never found. “The first murder is like the first love...” - he admits during interrogation 14 years later.

Life between murders

Pichushkin pondered for quite a long time first murder . After some time, he realized that he wanted to kill more. He finally understood this after the trial of Andrei Chikatilo. He later admitted that he was jealous of him and wanted to surpass him in the number of victims. Pichushkin carefully prepared for the murders: he trained, pumped up his muscles. Like he wore checkered shirts and collected all the newspaper articles about him. There is a version that Alexander’s mother knew about this, but did not attach much importance.

Murder Streak

“Bitsevsky maniac” Alexander Yuryevich Pichushkin

During the series of murders in 2001-2006, he lived with his mother, Natalya Elmuradovna, in Moscow on Khersonskaya Street, not far from Bitsevsky Park. Until 2006, he worked as a loader in a supermarket on Khersonskaya Street.

After his arrest, Pichushkin stated that he wanted to kill at least 64 people so that the number of victims would be equal to the number of squares on the chessboard. After each kill, he pasted a number and covered the cell with some object (cork, checker, etc.).

However, during one of the interrogations he stated that after filling all the cells he would buy a new board. Only three managed to survive the assassination attempt. At first, Pichushkin tried to kill alcoholics, homeless people and other asocial individuals, who, in his opinion, had no right to life. Soon he switched to his acquaintances, claiming that “killing someone you know is especially pleasant.”

Bitsevsky maniac

In 2005-2006, rumors spread throughout the south-west of Moscow (with reference to police sources) that in Bitsevsky forest park There is a maniac at work who kills elderly people with particular cruelty.

From the beginning of 2006, publications began to appear in the press. The killer was dubbed " Bitsevsky maniac.”

Consequence

Bitsevsky maniac

February 19, 2006 at Bitsevsky Park a man was detained who tried to run away while trying to check his documents. The operatives opened fire and wounded him in the thigh. Later it turned out that the detainee had no relation to murders in Bitsevsky Park .

The press discussed two possible motives for his unusual behavior. According to one version, the operatives who stopped the man were not in uniform, and the man decided that they were trying to rob him. According to the second version, the man carried a knife for self-defense (at that time Bitsevsky maniac there were many rumors in Moscow) and when operatives drew attention to him, he was afraid that he might be prosecuted for carrying a bladed weapon.

March 13 at Bitsevsky Park another man was detained, disguised as a woman, who, upon seeing the police officers, also tried to escape. A hammer was found in his bag. During the investigation, it turned out that the detainee had an alibi at the time the crimes were committed.

On June 14, the murder of Marina Moskaleva was committed, during the investigation of which the investigation came to her colleague Alexander Pichushkin. Marina, leaving on a date with Pichushkin, left her son his mobile phone number. Pichushkin himself knew about this fact, but still decided to kill.

On June 16, Alexander Pichushkin himself was detained. After some time, the arrested person stated that he was the “ Bitsevsky maniac “, but search activities continued, as investigators did not exclude the possibility of self-incrimination. A few days later, Pichushkin testified on other crimes committed on the territory Bitsevsky Park.

In April 2007, Alexander Pichushkin was found to be of limited sanity (which implies the possibility, as a form of punishment, to place the convicted person in prison with mandatory compulsory treatment at the place of stay) based on the results of an examination conducted since December 2006 at the Institute. Serbian.

Court

In June 2007, the Moscow prosecutor's office completed the investigation into the criminal case of Alexander Pichushkin. He was charged with committing 52 intentional crimes, mainly in the territory Bitsevsky Park .

On August 13, 2007, preliminary hearings began in the Moscow City Court in the case of Alexander Pichushkin, accused of murdering 49 people and attempting to murder three more people. The defendant was charged under Article 105 of the Criminal Code of Russia “Murder of two or more persons in a knowingly helpless state, committed with extreme cruelty.”

Moscow Prosecutor Yuri Semin acted as the state prosecutor at the trial. According to his forecasts, the trial of Pichushkin should have lasted at least two months. There were 41 victims and 98 prosecution witnesses in the case. The court granted the defendant's request to have his case examined by a jury and announced that the trial would be open. Jury selection was scheduled for September 13.

Bitsevsky maniac gives an interview

According to investigators, Pichushkin committed crimes from 1992 to 2006. The accused was most active in 2005-2006 in the territory Bitsevsky forest park in the south of Moscow. Most of the victims of the defendant were men; among the victims there were only three women: two were killed (Larisa Kulygina, Marina Moskaleva), an attempt was made on one (Maria Viricheva). The appointed lawyer for the defendant, Pavel Ivannikov, said that his client admits guilt in full.

The exact number of victims of the “Bitsa maniac” is still unknown. Earlier, in an interview with one of the TV channels, Pichushkin stated that he actually committed 61 murders, without knowing that Maria Viricheva escaped after the attack. According to various sources, Pichushkin claimed to have killed 60, 61, 62, or 63 people. In the last interview he spoke only about sixty:

At the same time, according to him, many of his victims were his acquaintances. According to Pichushkin, he led victims under various pretexts into a forest park, where he killed them with blows to the head with a hammer and hid the bodies. During the investigation, Pichushkin showed several burial places of the dead. Representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs expressed the opinion that Pichushkin surpassed even the famous serial killer Andrei Chikatilo in cruelty, executed in 1994 for the murder of 53 people. He also stated that if he had not been detained, he would not have stopped killing:

When Pichushkin was filmed by a film crew from the NTV channel, Pichushkin stated:

On October 24, the jury of the Moscow City Court unanimously returned an indictment. Pichushkin was found fully guilty of 48 murders and 3 attempted murders. On October 25, he made his last statement in court, saying that he did not regret his actions:

On October 29, 2007, Pichushkin was sentenced to life imprisonment in a special regime colony. He was found guilty of murdering 48 people and three assassination attempts, while he himself admitted to committing 12 more serious crimes, including the murder of Mikhail Odiychuk committed in 1992.

On November 2, 2007, Alexander Pichushkin appealed the verdict. In his cassation appeal, he asked to reduce the sentence from life imprisonment to 25 years. In February 2008 Supreme Court The Russian Federation rejected the cassation appeal.

Story "Bitsa maniac" was the basis for the four-part film “Gardener” (“When the Rain Stops”) - a joint special project of the television company “Teleroman” and the First Channel of Russian Television, based on the detective series “Sled”.

From December 16, 2010 to April 3, 2011, a wave of murders took place across Irkutsk, committed by 19-year-old Artyom Anufriev and 18-year-old Nikita Lytkin, who lived in the academic campus there. The entire motive of the killers was based purely on Nazism and sadism; there was no specificity in the choice of victims (among the victims were a 12-year-old boy and an unknown homeless woman). The guys used hammers and knives as weapons. During the investigation, the killers reported that in 2007 they watched a TV program about Alexander Pichushkin, became interested in him (Anufriev even created the group “Pichushkin is our President” on the Internet), and it was after this that they had a desire, following Pichushkin’s example, to kill those who, in their opinion, did not have the right to exist.

“Repent? I don’t repent, again, a stupid formality. For the sake of simplicity, I won’t say that. All the same, they won’t replace my sentence. From an early age I wanted... Everything was different then. Everything turned out the way I wanted...”

The famous “Bitsevsky maniac” received his nickname because he committed crimes exclusively in the capital’s Bitsevsky forest park. Pichushkin inserted bottles and sticks into the victim’s head; among them were men, women, and elderly people. From 1992 to 2006, the killer kept all of Moscow in fear.

Alexander Pichushkin did not know his father’s upbringing; his mother raised the boy alone from the age of 9 months. As a result of falling from a swing, Sasha received a traumatic brain injury, which caused complications with his speech - he confused “sh” and “s”, and also made mistakes in writing these letters, the boy had to study in a speech therapy boarding school.

Having received a specialty as a carpenter at a vocational school, he could not count on a highly paid job; he had to work in a store as a salesman, an auxiliary worker, or a loader. Many believe that Pichushkin suffered from a “little Napoleon complex”, low self-esteem, but the recognition of others was so important to him. In addition, he was not married and had no experience of long-term relationships with girls. The future killer almost came to terms with loneliness, but he did not want to admit his own inferiority in the eyes of society, and therefore he found a way for himself to become something more, to rise above everyone.

He committed his first murder in 1992 at the age of 18: he strangled his classmate Mikhail Odiychuk and threw his body into a well. He had previously admitted to his friend that he dreamed of killing as many as possible more people. The body was never found.

While killing, Pichushkin experienced a feeling of comfort and unprecedented excitement. For his victims, he was both judge and executioner, he decided who should die and carried out the sentence. He was not interested in the contents of the victims' wallets, he did not experience any sexual experiences, and he had no preference in choosing victims. He didn’t care who he killed – children, old people, men, women. For him, the main thing is murder, in the process of which he received satisfaction. Such people, or rather “non-humans,” commit crimes not for pleasure, but only to get rid of the feeling of mental and physical discomfort.

After the first murder, the maniac calmed down for 10 years, and then continued his activities on a special scale. During a series of murders from 2002 to 2006, Pichushkin lived with his mother not far from Bitsevsky Park; it was during this period that visitors to the park came across terrible finds - mutilated, decomposing bodies...

At first, Pichushkin simply strangled or threw people who were still alive into a well, then he beat them to death with a hammer, and later he developed a kind of “signature” - he began to insert objects into the wounds on the skulls of the dead. Beforehand, he gave the victims plenty of alcohol to drink so that they would resist as little as possible. Most of them were ready to go with Pichushkin anywhere if a glass of alcohol was waiting for them in the future.

In 2005, rumors spread throughout Moscow that a maniac was operating in the Bitsevsky Forest Park, killing elderly people with particular cruelty, and from the beginning of 2006, publications began to appear in the press. A methodical hunt began for the maniac, and the case was transferred to the Moscow prosecutor's office. An experienced investigator from the Department for the Investigation of Banditry and Murders, Andrei Suprunenko, took over the investigation. The task before him was not an easy one - there was not a single clue that would help him get on the trail of the maniac. Suprunenko turned to psychological experts for help: two possible psychological portrait maniac (later it turned out that the second match was almost half). But a conventional description of the object of the search did not help the police much, there were very different versions, investigators found it difficult to predict the gender of the alleged killer: a woman could kill men, just as a teenager could easily cope with older people.

Law enforcement officers, dressed in civilian clothes, walked around the park in the hope of catching the criminal, which is called “live bait.” Operatives and patrol officers were on duty around the clock in the Bitsevsky forest park, the adjacent tents and shops were taken under surveillance, near which drinkers usually gathered, the medical histories of those living in the area were studied, everyone who was associated with the forest park - foresters - were trained , employees of the Bitsa equestrian center, employees and patients of the drug treatment hospital on the territory of the forest park. Behind a short time More than 600 people were checked and several arrests were made:

So on February 19, 2006, a man was detained in Bitsevsky Park, who tried to run away while trying to check his documents. The operatives opened fire and wounded him in the thigh. It later turned out that the detainee had nothing to do with the murders in the park. And on March 13, a man was detained, disguised as a woman, who tried to escape at the sight of police officers. A hammer was found in his bag. During the investigation, it turned out that the detainee had an alibi at the time of the crimes.

On June 14, Pichushkin killed his last victim, Marina; he and the woman worked in the same store. The maniac invited her to a picnic in the park... While leaving on a date with the killer, the woman left her son a note with his name and mobile phone number. This note ultimately led the investigation to the true culprit.

For several weeks Pichushkin tried to persuade Marina to go for a walk with him in the forest - he called, pestered, begged, pulled out to kill, like a sacrificial lamb for a ritual. In the end, the woman agreed. The maniac was afraid to go to his usual places - all the hatches there were concreted, there were patrols and disguised police officers everywhere, and therefore he took the victim by metro to another part of the forest park, the one adjacent to the Konkovo ​​metro station. That’s how he ended up on security cameras in the underground passage, and later, having a photograph of the murdered woman, investigators looked at all the films and saw the killer for the first time.

The criminal was detained on June 16, 2006 on suspicion of murdering a woman, committed on June 14, 2006. He immediately began to confess to the charged episode, and a few days later he testified to other crimes committed on the territory of Bitsevsky Park.

The maniac did not want to cede his “laurels” to anyone, and therefore it was easy to work with him during interrogations; he himself, without coercion, spoke in great detail about his actions, proud of himself and hoping for admiration or horror from his listeners.

So, first of all, he said: “They discussed: am I or not me, was he caught or not. In fact, the Bitsevsky maniac, as they called me, is me.”

It was hard to believe, but when he began to remember details that no one but the killer knew about, the investigators looked at him with different eyes. The last suspicions disappeared when the maniac’s testimony began to be confirmed by examinations, physical evidence, and testimonies of relatives of the murdered, the last suspicions disappeared.

One fine day, the monster proudly declared: “I am the first mokrushnik of Russia!” When asked by investigators whether Pichushkin raped his victims, he grinned and replied: “Why? I had sexual intercourse regularly. I needed something else - that very edge when there is once and there is no person.”

Pichushkin immediately admitted to committing 61 murders, and he planned to have 64 victims. Why? By the number of squares on a chessboard. The fact is that the maniac had two serious hobbies in his life: murder and chess. During a search in his apartment, the same chessboard was found, with small squares with numbers glued to its squares. Total 61. Each number is someone's death. This is how the maniac celebrated his “exploits.”

On August 13, 2007, preliminary hearings began in the Moscow City Court in the case of Alexander Pichushkin, accused of murdering 49 people and attempting to murder 3 more people. The defendant was charged under Article 105 of the Criminal Code of Russia “murder of two or more persons in a knowingly helpless state, committed with particular cruelty.”

Alexander Pichushkin entered the hall accompanied by a convoy of three riot policemen, one of whom was with a machine gun. After this, his representative filed a motion to have the case heard by a jury. Judge Zubarev went into the room to make a decision. Pichushkin stretched on the bench, yawned and looked at the journalists crowding at the door... The presiding officer did not think long, it was decided to conduct the trial in open mode with the participation of a jury.

First of all, the defendant challenged one of his lawyers, Roman Shirkin, who was hired by Pichushkin’s relatives at their own expense: “He is going to defend not my interests, but the accusations. I had a conversation with him, and I know what tactics he chose. She doesn’t suit me.”

Judge Vladimir Usov had no choice but to accept Pichushkin’s decision; lawyer Roman Shirkin immediately left the courtroom. After this, Alexander Pichushkin continued: he was outraged by the fact that 21 victims appeared at the preliminary hearings, and not 41, as indicated in the materials of the criminal case.

“I believe that it is impossible to hold court hearings,” Pichushkin said. “I want there to be a full lineup.”

“Are you insisting on your point?” – Judge Usov was surprised. "Undoubtedly!" – answered the alleged maniac. The judge tried to explain that the victims are people too, and many of them are busy at work, but the defendant did not listen to him. The victims present in the hall complained, but Pichushkin did not even take his hands out of his pockets.

The request was ultimately rejected.

Once the preliminary hearings were completed, the jury selection process began. To do this, 44 people were sent to a room at the back of the courtroom and they began to call one at a time, read their questionnaires and ask questions. As a result, in a couple of hours they managed to select 12 main and six reserve jurors...

The defendant's appointed lawyer, Pavel Ivannikov, said that his client admits guilt in full. According to Pichushkin, he led victims into a forest park under various pretexts, where he killed them with hammer blows to the head and hid their bodies. During the investigation, Pichushkin showed several burial places of the dead. “I even pointed out to the investigation those points that were not known to them,” Pichushkin said. Representatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs expressed the opinion that Pichushkin surpassed even the famous serial killer Andrei Chikatilo in cruelty, executed in 1994 for the murder of 53 people. He also stated that if he had not been detained, he would not have stopped killing: “If they had not caught him, I would never have stopped, never. They saved the lives of many by catching me.”

Employees of the Serbsky Institute, who conducted a psychological and psychiatric examination, recognized Alexander Pichushkin as sane.

On October 24, 2007, the jury of the Moscow City Court unanimously returned an indictment. Pichushkin was found fully guilty of 48 murders and 3 attempted murders.

“... All this time I did what I wanted... I have been under arrest for 500 days now and all this time everyone has been deciding my fate - the cops, judges, prosecutors. But at one time I decided the fate of 60 people. I alone was the judge, the prosecutor, and the executioner... I alone performed all your functions..."

On October 29, 2007, Alexander Pichushkin was sentenced to life imprisonment in a special regime colony. The maniac tried to appeal the verdict, asking to reduce the punishment to 25 years in prison, but the cassation appeal was rejected.

His horrific and chilling atrocities, which resulted in the death of innocent people, caused an unprecedented resonance in society in the mid-2000s. A man who carried out murders in the southwestern part of the capital’s metropolis, namely in Bitsevsky Park, committed his monstrous fanaticism, as he later put it, because of “the love of art.” It is noteworthy that his ideological inspirer and idol was the odious serial killer Andrei Chikatilo, executed in the 90s. It was him who Alexander Pichushkin tried to imitate in everything, to whom the status of “Bitsevsky maniac” was firmly established.

How did it happen that a young guy who was studying, albeit not at professional basis, bodybuilding, turned into a seasoned killer and murderer?

Difficult childhood

Experts studying the reasons why in appearance normal person with signs of natural behavior in everyday life, transforming into a monster and a tyrant, begins to kill, they declare that the root of the problem should be sought in the period of life that covers childhood. It is then that the personality psyche begins to form. And a lot depends on what factors will influence it. The Bitsevsky maniac also suffered psychological trauma in childhood. The mere fact that his father and grandfather abused alcohol speaks volumes.

Alexander Pichushkin is a native of Moscow. He was born on April 9, 1974. When he was not even a year old, his father left the family. The mother, without thinking twice, began to arrange her personal life and intended to get married a second time. Her son interfered with her implementation of this plan, and she gave him to his grandfather to raise. However, there was another hypothetical reason why Pichushkin’s mother did not want her son to stay with her.

The fact is that, at the age of four, Alexander fell from a swing and hit his head. Doctors diagnosed him with a traumatic brain injury. After that, he began to confuse the hissing sounds.

Boarding school

However, Alexander’s relative was clearly not happy with the fact that he would have to perform the duties of a nanny, so under the pretext that his grandson could not speak correctly, he sent him to a specialized boarding school where speech defects are treated for children.

But social environment This establishment left much to be desired. Here Pichushkin had to communicate with people like him - children from disadvantaged families. The feeling of being useless to one’s relatives, contacts with peers who did not know parental affection, one way or another left their negative imprint. Yes, outwardly then the future Bitsevsky maniac did not show aggression and cruelty, but, on the contrary, demonstrated calmness and goodwill to those around him. But did he feel peace within himself? Hardly. On weekends he went to visit his mother, who already had another family. He wanted to attract her attention, but all the affection and love went to his stepsister.

Oddities in behavior

Having matured a little, Pichushkin began to change before our eyes. Increasingly, he showed rudeness and cruelty towards his peers at school. In one of the videos that investigators managed to obtain, Alexander, being in the company of teenagers, tells them how to properly kill a person. Moreover, Pichushkin’s hooligan actions do not receive the proper response from teachers, who, despite the complaints of schoolchildren, consider him a normal and obedient boy. But after some time they realized how wrong they were. Alexander often began to be overcome by insane fits of rage...

Vocational school

After boarding school, Pichushkin (the Bitsevsky maniac) decided to study as a carpenter, enrolling in a construction vocational school. In that educational institution he tried in every possible way to attract attention to his person, and to a greater extent from the fairer sex.

To please the girls, Alexander Pichushkin (the Bitsevsky maniac) even began to write poetry, but for some reason the young ladies did not appreciate the talent young man. He tried to make friends with his classmates by lending them money. But behind such courtesy there was a cruel calculation. Alexander demanded that the borrower write a receipt with the following content: “If I do not repay such and such an amount on time, I undertake to voluntarily die from life, since I consider it meaningless.” And there was no doubt that if the person had not fulfilled his obligations, Pichushkin would have taken his life. His hand would not have trembled.

Failed Soldier

After some time, the young man receives a summons from the military registration and enlistment office. It is noteworthy that the future Bitsa maniac does not refuse to serve in the army. Criminal Russia, whose ideologists in the 90s were the leaders of gangster structures and the leaders of organized crime groups, could only welcome such defenders of the Motherland. But, fortunately, the conscript did not pass medical commission. Pichushkin’s behavior seemed very strange to the psychiatrist from the military registration and enlistment office. Without hesitation, he wrote out a referral for the young man to undergo examination at the hospital named after. Kashchenko to check the mental state of his health. And the specialists there, having placed Alexander in a hospital for a while and observing him for several days, made a disappointing diagnosis: “Psychopathy.” According to doctors, the young man needed prompt treatment, otherwise the dangerous illness could begin to progress. However, Pichushkin’s mother did not attach serious importance to the psychiatrists’ words, hoping that after some time her offspring’s attacks of aggression would go away on their own.

"Good-natured loader"

After some time, Alexander unexpectedly decided to take up bodybuilding and ultimately brought his figure to an athletic level. The young man got a job in one of the stores as a loader.

He tried to be polite to his work colleagues and was friendly towards the staff. But Pichushkin’s behavior was just the front side of the coin. The downside was that the guy, while working in a store, gradually became addicted to alcohol and could drink for days on end. And in between binges, sitting in the utility room, he amused himself by cutting empty cardboard boxes with a knife with some kind of frenzy.

He also spent a lot of time playing chess and amused himself by placing small pieces of paper with numbers on the squares, thereby determining who would be among his victims. By 2006, the chessboard was 99% full.

Start of criminal activity

Alexander’s mental state deteriorated even more when he learned that his idol and ideologist Andrei Chikatilo was sentenced to death. He collected any information in the press concerning the identity of the “Rostov Ripper”. Once, while in the company of his peers, Pichushkin odiously declared that the judges’ verdict against his mastermind was a monstrous injustice. At the same time, he added that he intends to become a successor to Chikatilo’s “mission.” No one took his words seriously then. The young man invited his friend Mikhail Odiychuk to become his partner in criminal matters. He agreed, thinking that this was nothing more than a funny prank. Several times, accomplices combed Bitsevsky Park, tracking down potential victims and discussing the details of the murder. Gradually, it dawned on Mikhail that this was not a game, and his friend Alexander’s intentions were indeed the most serious. Having finally realized what was happening, Odiychuk declares that he does not want to participate in crimes. But his partner took his words as a personal insult... When the young people were once again sitting in the park, Pichushkin quietly threw a noose around his friend’s neck and strangled him.

After that, Alexander came home as if nothing had happened, took out a notebook and wrote with a pen: “No. 1.” Subsequently he will say: “The first murder is like the first love. I've never experienced anything like this. In order to feel this feeling of a superman again, I am ready to kill again and again.”

Murder pattern

However, after the first murder, they did not talk about the Bitsa maniac as apotheotically as they do today. He waited a full 9 years before committing his second crime. It was committed in the spring of 2001.

He chose a good place for the atrocities - the forest of Bitsevsky Park. Its victims in most cases were people without a fixed place of residence and subjects suffering from alcohol addiction.

The murderer could spend hours, hiding, tracking down the victim. Having found one, Alexander invited her to some deserted spot, of which there were many in the park, and offered her to drink alcohol. He had more than enough reasons for this. He told one that he wanted to remember his beloved dog, he suggested to another to celebrate the arrival of spring, and to the third he declared that he had a birthday that he had no one to celebrate with. After drinking alcohol, Alexander took out a hammer and beat the victim to death, and then dumped the body into the sewer. Sometimes he killed using only his muscular arms.

But one time Pichushkin made a mistake. Walking through the park, he suddenly saw the man whom he thought he had taken life. After this, his atrocities became more brutal: he began cutting off the heads of his victims.

For several years, Muscovites had no idea that the Bitsa maniac was operating in the southwest of the city, whose photos of victims would number in the dozens. But in 2005, Pichushkin, having changed the style of his crimes, became almost criminal No. 1 in the capital’s metropolis.

New tactics

The moment came when the authorities tightly closed the sewer hatches. Naturally, Alexander began to harbor the idea of ​​a new way of committing atrocities. And he quickly came up with a simple plan of action.

The murderer began to catch with live bait. The fact is that on the central alleys of the park there were feeders for birds and squirrels. Seeing that such a product was hanging near a busy path, Pichushkin hung it in a more deserted area of ​​the forest. And then he waited for one of the older people to come and feed the birds here. In this seemingly trivial way, the victims of the Bitsa maniac fell into the nets they had laid out.

A criminal who has become feared...

After Alexander stops hiding the corpses and the public learns that a serial killer is operating in the south-west of Moscow, almost all newspapers begin to write about him. Moreover, representatives of the yellow press, in an effort to win high ratings, introduced into the story about the maniac a lot of things that were not true. And this frightened Muscovites even more, who tried to bypass Bitsevsky Park using the tenth road. The forest area where Pichushkin allegedly worked began to be patrolled by police. But serial killers manage to increase the number of victims even in such conditions.

But why didn’t anyone look for the monster before? Why weren’t the police given the command to comb the Bitsevsky forest back in 2001? The maniac committed murder and remained unpunished for several years. Why? The fact is that no one found tortured corpses in the forest, and the disappearance of people in the area alarmed few people.

But, sooner or later, anyone, even the most experienced criminal, makes a mistake and reveals himself. Alexander Pichushkin was no exception.

The Last Crime

In the summer of 2006, a young man chose his former work colleague as a victim. She turned out to be a middle-aged woman who raised her son alone. Pichuzkin invited Marina Moskaleva to take a walk in Bitsevsky Park. The maniac decided to act according to a proven scheme: lure the lady to a secluded place in the forest, give her alcohol, and then take her life. But Alexander initially could not even imagine that before leaving on a date, the woman left a note for her son and the phone number of the person with whom she went for a walk. Unfortunately, this time the criminal managed to realize his intention, but the episode turned out to be his last. Thanks to the note and phone number law enforcement agencies finally managed to find the serial killer and catch him. Thus ended a series of crimes in which the Bitsa maniac took part, a photo identikit of whom the police posted in the vicinity of the area where he operated. Finally, residents of the southwest of the capital could breathe easy. After some time, detectives, conducting an investigative experiment, again descended on Bitsevsky Park. The maniac subsequently confessed to all the crimes charged against him, and to other crimes unknown to the investigation as well. It was established that he took the lives of 61 people.

Suicide attempts

Operatives arrested a serial killer after raiding his home. He was sleeping peacefully, and when his mother woke him up and said that representatives of the law had come to them, for some reason Pichushkin was not surprised. He quickly got dressed and went with the police to the station.

The confession of the Bitsevsky maniac is noteworthy: “For almost a year and a half I have been in isolation, and all this time a whole army of investigators, prosecutors, and criminologists are deciding my fate, while I alone was able to send more than 60 people to the next world. I am the only one who was both a prosecutor, a lawyer, and a judge for them. I was no different from God!”

However, while sitting in the pre-trial detention center, Alexander repeatedly attempted to commit suicide. But vigilant law enforcement officers managed to prevent them. The first time he simply banged his head against the bars, thus trying to crack his skull. The guards arrived on time, and soon the Bitsevsky maniac was transferred to a special medical facility.

A second suicide attempt occurred after Alexander was visited by his mother in the hospital. He wanted to use an elastic band from his prison underpants and hang himself, but again the vigilant guards arrived in time.

Court

In the fall of 2007, the serial killer, monster and maniac received a well-deserved punishment in the form of life imprisonment. According to representatives of Themis, he is guilty of 61 episodes. Where does the Bitsevsky maniac sit? In the special regime colony "Polar Owl" (Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug), where seasoned murderers are serving their sentences.

A few weeks after the verdict, Pichushkin sent a cassation appeal to a higher court, in which he asked that his sentence be changed from life imprisonment to 25 years in prison.

In the winter of 2008, the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation considered the statement of the Bitsevsky maniac and left the verdict unchanged.

Movie

The atrocities of Alexander Pichushkin caused a lot of noise. Simple people shuddered when they heard about the maniac. He killed for the sake of bloody mathematics. A few years ago, the NTV channel released a documentary film, “The Bitsevsky Maniac.” Its creators interview those who were personally acquainted with the maniac: his classmates at vocational school and his mother. In the film, Pichushkin demonstrates equanimity and calmness, telling journalists the details of all his atrocities. Most of the victims were his acquaintances - only one woman miraculously managed to survive. Alexander Pichuzhkin himself admitted that he is that elusive Bitsa maniac. The film turned out really well.

A simple store employee imagines himself as a superman who can decide people's destinies. The successor to Chikatilo’s case, the Bitsa maniac, whose story excited the whole country, considered himself a seasoned and eccentric murderer for a long time, but fair retribution eventually overtook him.

The police have so far been stingy in their official comments about what happened. The Moscow department of the Russian Investigative Committee reported that 2 corpses were found directly in Bitsa and next to the park. According to the department, on the same day, October 4, the dismembered body of a man was found near one of the grocery stores on Miklouho-Maclay Street and the body of a woman born in 1980, which local residents found directly in the park, in the part of it that adjoins Ostrovityanova streets, Sevastopolsky Avenue and Miklouho-Maclay.

But a source in the Moscow criminal investigation department notes that there are actually 4 corpses - the Investigative Committee decided not to notify the media about all of them.

“Although one death occurred in last days in Bitsevsky Park, is clearly not of a criminal nature - a 68-year-old pensioner died there from a heart attack, three other people were clearly “helped” to die. Of these, two are women and one is a man. The following can be said about one of the dead: there was alcohol in her blood at the time of death, and there was a gas canister in her bag. The killer inflicted more than 30 stab wounds on her,” the source said, adding that, according to available data, the woman was seriously involved in martial arts during her lifetime, but so far little is known about her personality. He did not voice her name so as not to interfere with the investigation.

As he reports, parts of the man's body - the torso, severed head, arms and legs, which were found near a store on Miklouho-Maclay Street - were neatly wrapped in plastic bags. The third corpse was also disfigured after the murder: his head was cut off.

“Now it’s difficult to say anything specific about them, but presumably these were people who led an asocial lifestyle or did not have a permanent place of residence. Now their identities are being established,” he said.

According to another police source, it is premature to conclude that all 3 murders are somehow connected.

“In any case, we need to wait for the results of the investigative medical examination, and this is not a quick matter. It is possible that the woman born in 1980 was killed during a drunken fight, although this is not yet fully known. It remains unclear why the criminal dismembered the man’s corpse. If we assume that he tried to cover up his tracks in this way, then it is unclear why he left the cut off hands along with other parts of his body. After all, fingerprints can be used to establish the identity of the deceased,” the interlocutor noted. He also clarified that over the past summer, several dismembered corpses of men were found in the Moscow River, and the identity of some of them could not be established.

“But this happens regularly, so it’s too early to conclude that another serial killer has appeared in the city,” he said.

On Tuesday, sketches of the suspects in the Bitsevsky Park murders appeared in the press. One of the sketches depicts a man with coarse short dark hair, protruding ears, and slightly squinted eyes. The second portrait is a little similar to the first, but slightly different: a crooked nose, larger cheekbones, brown hair.

It is worth noting that it was in Bitsa Park that Alexander Pichushkin, also known as the “Bitsa maniac,” operated in the 2000s. According to the police, he committed at least 49 murders, and the maniac himself spoke of more than 60 victims. Pichushkin was a loader, played sports, lived next to Bitsa and knew this park very well. The history of his search is replete with police mistakes, due to which he remained at large for quite a long time. So, in 2002, a woman whom Pichushkin threw into a sewer manhole miraculously remained alive, got out of another sewer and ended up in the hospital. The local police officer called to the medical facility was more concerned not with the name and characteristics of the criminal, but with the victim’s lack of registration and asked her not to write a statement.

After the maniac was caught in 2007, they returned to this case and the unscrupulous policeman was brought to justice.

That same year, the killer threw a teenage substance abuser living with the criminal in the same area into the sewer. He was also able to survive, and after the victim met Pichushkin on the street, he immediately ran to the nearest police officer. But the teenager’s words were not given any significance at that time. And in 2003, Pichushkin, having taken a significant dose of alcohol, came to surrender to the regional police department, but they did not believe him, mistaking the maniac’s words for drunken inventions. At that time, the “Bitsa maniac” had about 30 murders to his name. Only on July 16, 2006, Pichushkin was arrested, and in October 2007 he was sentenced to life in prison. The prosecution at this trial was personally supported by the capital's prosecutor, Yuri Semin. The ex-maniac is serving his sentence in the Polar Owl colony in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug.

“The general practice is that law enforcement officers do not like to officially admit that there is a maniac in the city. What worries me in this situation is that among those killed, presumably, there are homeless people and alcoholics. As a rule, maniacs begin their murders with victims who cannot resist either due to physical weakness or alcohol or drug intoxication. Often such people have no relatives and stable social connections, and no one will file a missing person report. Establishing the identity of such people will be problematic. Pichushkin, by the way, also often killed homeless people and alcoholics, although not only them,” said a source in the Moscow criminal investigation department.

Some of the interlocutor’s colleagues focus on the fact that various offenses are often committed in Bitsevsky Park: robberies, fights and sometimes murders.

“There are a lot of idiots in the world. So what? We must take into account what Bitsevsky Park is. When the investigation into Pichushkin was underway, three or four corpses were found there that had nothing to do with this criminal. But everyone was screaming that the maniac, it turns out, was free, continuing his dirty work, and we “closed” the unfortunate man,” said Andrei Suprunenko, a former investigator for especially important cases of the Russian Prosecutor’s Office, who led the case of the “Bitsa maniac.”

“Currently the situation is escalating on social networks, but it is too early to draw conclusions. Even the sketches of those who are supposedly behind the recent murders are made up of different people. Therefore, it is better not to succumb to this hysteria, which, it is possible, is being fanned on purpose,” said a source in the leadership of the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs.