Editing Alexander Pichushkin (section)

==Early life==
Pichushkin was born on April 9, 1974. When he was little he fell off a swing and hurt his head, and when he got back up the swing hit him again in the head when it swung back. It caused damage to his frontal lobe, which causes an easily triggered aggression. Pichushkin frequently became very hostile at random times. This got so bad that his mother sent him to a school for children with listening disabilities. He was frequently bullied physically and verbally. They would refer to him as "That retard". The bullying only accelerated his rage. Pichushkin's maternal grandfather thought that Alexander was intelligent and is wasting his talent and abilities.

Pichushkin grew up on 2 Khersonskaya Street in Moscow. He lived there with his mother, younger half sister, her husband, and their son in a two-bedroom apartment on the fifth floor a six-minute walk from the north end of Bitsevsky Park. This house is a typical example of khrushchyovka, the Soviet Union’s first large-scale public-housing projects.

===Murders===
Pichushkin committed his first homicide on 27 July 1992 when he was 18. The victim was Mikhail Odichuk. They had been classmates, and Pichushkin had invited Odichuk on a killing expedition. Pichuskin had openly told Odichuk that he wanted to kill someone, and suggested they cooperate in the act. Odichuk had tagged along, half in jest, probably not quite sure what to expect. When Pichushkin realized that Odichuk was not serious about killing, he killed Odichuk instead.

Pichushkin stepped up his crimes in 2001. Pichushkin targeted primarily elderly homeless men by luring them with the offer of free vodka. After drinking with them, he would throw them down sewers in a park.

As Pichushkin said, "the fact the victims had disappeared has no longer been able to satisfy me; I needed more emotions". Since this moment he had killed them with repeated blows to the head with a hammer. In what became his trademark, or signature, he would then push a vodka bottle into the gaping wound in their skulls. He also targeted younger men, children and women. He would always attack from behind in order to take the victim by surprise and to avoid spilling blood on his clothes. Ten of his victims lived in the same four-building complex where he lived—four from 2 Khersonskaya; two from 4 Khersonskaya, next door; three from 6; and one from 8.

===Arrest===

He was arrested on June 16, 2006 when murder victim Marina Moskalyova, 36, was seen on a security camera with Pichushkin in a subway station. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole with the first 15 years in solitary confinement for 49 murders, and 3 attempted murders, even though he claimed to have murdered 60 people. He was dubbed the Chessboard Killer because he wanted to kill 64 people, the same number of squares on a chessboard. He also frequently played chess.