Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today, we are
opening a file that sits right at the intersection
of, well, neurology, sociology, and just pure
nightmare fuel. Yeah, it's a heavy one. We've
covered serial offenders before, but there's
usually a sense of chaos to them, right? A lack
of structure. Today's subject is, he's different.
He tried to impose this rigid, almost mathematical
structure on murder. It's a case that feels less
like a crime story and, you know, more like a
grim psychological experiment. Just gone horribly
wrong. We're talking about a man who treated
Moscow like a game board. And his citizens like
pawns. We are talking about Alexander Petrishkin.
The press had a few names for him. The Bitsa
Park Maniac was one, which is terrifying enough.
Just the location itself. But the name that really
stuck, the one that tells you everything you
need to know about his psyche, is the chessboard
killer. That name, the chessboard killer, it
just it immediately reframes the violence, doesn't
it? It suggests that for him, this wasn't just
about the act of killing. It was about completion.
It was about filling a quota, specifically the
64 squares on a standard chessboard. 64 lives.
That was the goal. And to understand how someone,
anyone arrives at that specific horrifying ambition,
we have to look at the source material we've
pulled for today. Yeah. What are we working with?
We have a really detailed breakdown of his life,
court transcripts, psychological evaluations,
and a lot of context on what Moscow was like
in the 90s and early 2000s. Yeah. Because the
environment here is, I think. Just as important
as the man. Absolutely. The setting is crucial.
We're looking at a timeline that stretches from
1992 all the way to 2006. 14 years. 14 years.
14 years of operating in one of the most populous
cities in the world. And for the most part, he
was completely undetected. He was convicted of
49 murders. Officially? Officially 49. But he
claimed the number was 60, maybe even higher.
He was actively trying to correct the court.
Trying to get credit for more kills. Yeah, which
is just a whole other level of psychopathy. It's
a mindset we absolutely need to untack. But before
we get to the horror, we have to start with the
why. This is the mission for this deep dive.
To try and figure out if Alexander Petushkin
was a product of a broken brain, a broken home,
or, you know, a broken society. Or is it? Is
it all three? I think that's the big question,
right? Nature versus nurture is the cliche. But
in this case, we have a very specific, very tangible
nature element, a traumatic brain injury. Right.
And that collides with a very specific nurture
element, social isolation and... Well, the entire
collapse of the Soviet Union happening around
him. So let's start at the beginning, the origin
story. Because when you look at the early reports
on Petrushkin, born in 74 in the Moscow region,
there aren't any immediate red flags. He wasn't,
you know, setting fires or torturing animals
as a toddler. No, not at all. By all accounts,
he was a sociable kid, a happy kid. He lived
on Kursonskaya Street with his mother. The father
left early, which is a common trope, sure. But
it didn't seem to define his early years. He
was, by all accounts, engaging. He played with
other kids. Went to the accident. We need to
spend some real time on this because he fell
off a swing. Sounds like something that happens
to every kid on a playground. Yeah, it sounds
so minor. But this wasn't a scraped knee. This
was something else entirely. It was a catastrophic,
pivotal moment. He was young, playing on a swing
set. He falls backward. Now physics takes over,
right? The swing seat, which is... Heavy. Oh,
yeah. Those old Soviet era swings were solid
metal. Exactly. So it swings forward, reaches
its apex and comes swinging back like a pendulum.
And it struck him directly in the forehead. The
source material mentions damage to the frontal
cortex. I know we hear that term a lot in these
kinds of profiles, but can we like break down
what that actually means for a developing child?
OK, so think of the frontal cortex as the CEO
of the brain or maybe a better analogy is the
braking system for your car. It's responsible
for impulse control, decision -making, social
behavior, understanding consequences. When you
have a thought like, I'm angry, I want to hit
that person, the frontal cortex is the part that
steps in and says, whoa, hold on, bad idea, don't
do that. So if you damage the brakes. The car
doesn't stop. And because Petrushkin was a child,
his brain was still wiring itself. This wasn't
damage to a finished structure. This was damage
to the very foundation while the house was still
being built. The experts and the sources all
speculated that this injury permanently impaired
his ability to regulate aggression. And the change
was immediate, wasn't it? It wasn't a slow burn.
It was like a switch flipped. Night and day,
he became hostile. He became impulsive, both
verbally and physically. And this leads to the
second real tragedy of his childhood, the reaction
of the adults around him. This is where the nurture
part just starts to completely fail him. His
mother, dealing with this suddenly aggressive,
difficult child, decides to transfer him out
of mainstream school. She moved him to a school
specifically for children with learning disabilities.
Now, in the context of the Soviet educational
system of the 80s, we have to be clear. This
wasn't a supportive environment in the way we
might think of it today. No, it was a dumping
ground. It was often a place of warehousing,
yeah, and a place of massive stigma. Huge stigma.
So by moving him there, she inadvertently just
slapped this label on him. When he would see
his old friends from the mainstream school or
just kids in the neighborhood, they knew where
he went to school now. They started calling him
that retard. That is just brutal. You take a
kid who already has a... You know, a biological
inability to regulate his own anger. And then
you give him a target. You poke the bear every
single day. Exactly. It just intensified his
internal rage. He felt superior to the other
kids at the special school because he didn't
actually have a low IQ. He had an impulse control
problem. But to the outside world, he was less
than. That creates a very dangerous pressure
cooker. A narcissist who is being treated like
he's stupid. He needed a way to prove he wasn't
stupid. He needed an outlet. And this is where
his grandfather enters the picture. This feels
like the one moment, the one fork in the road
where things could have gone differently. It
really is the sliding doors moment, isn't it?
Petrushkin's maternal grandfather was the only
one who seemed to see past the behavioral issues.
He saw that Alexander was actually quite bright.
He saw the kid underneath. Yeah, he realized
the special school wasn't challenging him, it
was just containing him. So he took Alexander
in. He moves him out of the mother's house. Yes,
he brings him into his own home. He wants to
nurture that intellect that he sees in him. And
the tool he chooses is chess. Which, I mean,
it makes perfect sense. It's logical. It's quiet.
It requires focus. Yeah. All things Pichishkin
desperately needed help with. And it's culturally
massive in Russia. Right. Being good at chess
isn't just a hobby there. It's a sign of sophistication
and intelligence. For Pichishkin, mastering chess
was a way to say to the world, I'm not the retard
you think I am. I can outthink you. And he was
good at it. He was excellent at it. The grandfather
encouraged him to play exhibition games in Bitsa
Park. Now, Bitsa Park is huge. We mentioned that.
It's this massive forest inside the city limits.
Right. And it had this whole culture of elderly
men sitting on benches playing chess all day.
So Petushkin starts going there to play against
them. But there's a dark side to this, too. Yeah.
It wasn't just about the sport for him, was it?
No. For Petushkin... chess became a channel for
his aggression. Psychologically, he wasn't playing
for the beauty of the game. He was playing to
dominate. He found this deep satisfaction in
just destroying the opponent. It was a safe way
to exert power. It was a safe, socially acceptable
way to exert total power over another man. I
control your pieces. I control your fate. And
for a while, that was enough. The violence was
contained to the 64 squares of the board. For
a while. But then the grandfather died. And this
seems to be the collapse of the dam. This is
the moment everything breaks. It was a massive
emotional blow. I mean, the grandfather was his
anchor, his only advocate, the only person who
truly respected him. When he died, Petrushkin
lost his housing. He had to move back in with
his mother and he lost his guidance. His whole
world fell apart. And the grief didn't manifest
as, you know, tears. It manifested as drinking.
Heavy, heavy drinking. He began consuming huge
quantities of vodka. Now, looking at the source
material, he claims this was to dull the pain,
but also to calm his aggression. He was self
-medicating. He knew something was wrong. I think
he did. He knew there was something violent bubbling
up inside of him, and he tried to drown it. But
he kept going to the park? He did. He kept playing
chess. But now the whole dynamic changed. He
wasn't just playing. He was drinking with these
older men, and he noticed something interesting.
What was that? He could handle his liquor. He
could drink massive amounts of vodka and still
standing, stay coherent, while these older, often
frail men would pass out or get sloppy drunk.
That's a very dangerous realization for a predator.
I am stronger than them. I am more clear -headed
than them, even when we're both drinking. And
that physical superiority started to merge with
his intellectual superiority from the chess game.
He started to view these men not just as opponents,
but as weak. As disposable. Exactly. Before we
get to the actual killing, there's this really
disturbing escalation that involves a video camera.
This really creeped me out in the notes. It's
not a murder, but it's almost worse than its
intent. It's the rehearsal. It's the bridge from
fantasy to reality. He developed this sinister
hobby, as the sources call it, where he would
take a video camera and threaten children. There's
a specific chilling account of him holding a
young child upside down by one leg out of a window.
And he's filming this the whole time. He's filming
himself holding the child and he's narrating.
He says to the camera, you are in my power now.
I am going to drop you and you will fall 15 meters
to your death. My God. That is pure sadism. It's
not about the kill at that point. It's about
the terror in that child's eyes and the absolute
total control he has in that moment. And he would
watch these take back over and over. He needed
to relive that rush of power. But as with any
addiction, and we have to view this kind of psychology
as an addiction cycle, the high from the tapes
started to fade. He needed the real thing. He
needed the real thing. Which brings us to 1992.
He is 18 years old. The Soviet Union has just
collapsed. The world is completely upside down.
And Pichushkin decides it's time to start his
game for real. And the first victim is Mikhail
Odichuk. And this is fascinating because Odychuk
wasn't a random target. He was a classmate. In
fact, according to Pichishkin, he was a co -conspirator.
Wait, wait, a co -conspirator. So they planned
this together. Allegedly, yes. They met to plan
killing 64 people together. It was a shared fantasy,
a folie a deux. They apparently discussed the
whole chessboard concept. Wow. But when the rubber
met the road, July 27, 1992, Odychuk got cold
feet. So they meet in Bitsa Park, presumably
to find their first victim. Right. That's the
plan. And O .D. Chuck says, I can't do this.
I don't want to do this. He tries to back out.
And Petrushkin doesn't just see this as a friend
changing his mind. He sees it as a betrayal,
personal insult. He felt teased. That's the specific
word used in the reports. He felt humiliated.
So all that aggression, he turned it on to O
.D. Chuck. He strangled him and threw his body
into a sewer entrance there in the park. And
just like that. The co -author of the plan becomes
the first square on the board. The very first.
Now, here's the part that makes me want to just
scream at the history books. The police investigated
this, didn't they? Oh, yeah, they did. Odichik
was reported missing. He was last seen with Pachishkin.
The police brought Pachishkin in for questioning.
And get this, Pachishkin admitted meeting him.
He didn't even deny it. Nope. He said, yeah,
we hung out in the park for a bit, but then I
left him there and went home. He just played
it completely cool. And because he had hidden
the body so well in the sewer system. Nobody.
No crime. Exactly. And we have to remember the
context. This is 1992 Moscow. The country is
in absolute freefall. The police are underfunded.
They're overwhelmed. They're dealing with the
explosion of the Russian mafia. A missing 18
-year -old boy. I mean, it's tragic, but it wasn't
a top priority. So they let him go. If they had
just pushed a little harder, if they had checked
the sewers, I mean, history changes. But they
didn't. And then, strangely, he stops. There's
a long hiatus. A really long one. From 1992 to
2001, that's nine years. Now, some criminologists
think he might have killed during this period
and we just don't know about it. But the official
record says he was dormant. What woke him up?
What brought him back? In 1996, Russia placed
a moratorium on the death penalty. It was part
of their process of joining the Council of Europe.
Petrushkin later claimed this reignited his interest.
That seems so counterintuitive. Usually killers
don't really care about the law. Was he saying
the stakes were lower now? Or maybe that the
system had become soft. I mean, he viewed himself
as a predator, a wolf. And if the state wasn't
going to be a wolf anymore, maybe he felt he
had to step in. It's a completely twisted logic.
But for him, the lack of a death penalty might
have removed the final psychological barrier.
So we fast forward to 2001. The sewers period
begins. And this is. This is the bulk of his
crimes. We really need to slow down and look
at this period because between 2001 and 2005,
he attacks 36 people. 36 people. That is just
a staggering number. That's almost one a month
on average, though they were often clustered
together. And the modus operandi, the method,
was brutally, chillingly consistent. Walk us
through a typical event. It always starts with
the hunt in the park, right? It starts with the
hunt. He would go to Bits of Park. He's dressed
normally. He's a warehouse worker. He doesn't
look threatening at all. He finds a solitary
man, usually elderly, often homeless or, you
know, down on his luck. And he offers them a
drink. The universal icebreaker. But he doesn't
just say, let's get a drink. He invites them
to mourn his dead dog. A dead dog. It was his
go -to ruse every time. He would tell the victim,
my dog is buried here in the woods and I'm going
to visit his grave. Come have a drink with me
to toast his memory. It's genius in a sick way.
It invokes sympathy. It explains why they need
to go deep into the woods to find the grave.
And it introduces the alcohol immediately. And
not just any alcohol. He had a specific brand
he always used. Golden Magic Vodka. Golden Magic.
It sounds like something you'd buy at a gas station
for a dollar. It cost about 38 rubles. So, yeah,
pennies. It was rot gut. But Petrushkin had this
weird obsession with it. He actually claimed
he used that specific brand because he didn't
want to spoil the victims with expensive vodka.
That is such a chillingly dehumanizing detail.
Yeah. You're about to die, but you aren't worth
the good stuff. Right. So they walk into the
woods. They get to a secluded spot, usually near
a sewage well or a manhole. They drink. The victim
gets intoxicated. And then Petrushkin strikes.
Almost always from behind. A hammer blow to the
head, or sometimes he used the empty vodka bottle
itself. Just blunt force trauma to the back of
the skull. And then the disposal. This is why
it's called the sewers period. Bitsa Park has
this whole network of underground sewage canals.
Patrishkin would drag the body to a manhole or
a well and just... dump them in. And the current
would just take them away. Exactly. And this
is crucial. Sometimes the victims weren't even
dead yet. The autopsy reports that were eventually
done showed that many of them actually drowned
in the sewage. That is a pure nightmare. And
practically speaking, this is why he got away
with it for so long. The bodies weren't just
hidden. They were being actively flushed out
of his hunting ground. And think about the victims.
Elderly, homeless, alcoholics. In early 2000s
Moscow, these were the invisible people. When
they went missing, families often just assumed
they had drifted away or died of exposure. The
police weren't launching massive manhunts for
homeless men in the park. He knew that. He was
preying on the people that society had already
forgotten. He was. But he wasn't just killing
them. He was marking them. There was a signature.
Yes. This is where the organized killer profile
really comes in. He would often impale the open
skull wound with a stick. or sometimes the empty
vodka bottle. Why? I mean, what is the psychological
point of that? It's a signature. It's a claim
of ownership, like an artist signing their work.
But some psychologists and the sources also suggest
it was a way to, you know, keep the spirits of
the victims from escaping or conversely, a way
to plug the hole he made. It's ritualistic. It
signifies that this isn't a robbery gone wrong.
This is a ceremony. 36 people attacked. It's
just hard to wrap your head around the fact that
no one noticed a pattern. Well, bodies were being
found occasionally, usually miles and miles away
in water treatment plants. But because the decomposition
and the water damage were so severe, police couldn't
always identify the cause of death. They often
ruled them as accidental drownings or falls.
He was using the city's own infrastructure as
his accomplice. He absolutely was. But then,
in 2005, something shifts. The Sears period ends,
and the open period begins. Why change a winning
strategy? He was completely invisible. Why stop
hiding the bodies? He got arrogant. It's a classic
escalation. The satisfaction of the secret was
wearing off. He wanted the notoriety. He wanted
the city to know there was a predator in the
park. From 2005 to 2006, he stops dumping them
in the sewers. He just leaves the bodies right
there in the open for anyone to find. He wants
the headlines. He craves them. And the violence
escalated, too. The attacks became more frenzied,
repeated hammer blows. He was practically obliterating
the faces of the victims. And the geography changed,
too. This is the part that really makes me shiver.
He stopped hunting random strangers deep in the
woods and started hunting. Well. practically
on his own doorstep. It's unbelievably bold.
It's almost suicidal when you think about it.
He started targeting people he knew, his neighbors.
Let's look at the map from the sources. He lived
on Kirsten Skaia Street. Right. In a huge complex
of high -rise apartment blocks, 10 of his last
victims live in that same four -building complex.
Ten. Ten. Four from building number two, two
from building number four, three from building
number six, and one from building number eight.
So he's killing the guy he sees at the mailbox.
He's killing the guy he rides the elevator with
every day. It completely destroys the concept
of stranger danger. These people trusted him.
They knew him as Sasha from down the hall. When
he said, hey, let's go for a walk and have a
drink, they didn't think twice. He was familiar.
But how did he think he would get away with that?
If you kill your neighbor, eventually someone
is going to connect the dots. Hey, you know,
the last time I saw Yavin, he was walking out
with Sasha. That's the thing. I think he might
not have cared anymore. Or his narcissism was
just so high, he thought he could talk his way
out of it like he did back in 1992. But this
proximity, this boldness, it's ultimately what
doomed him. Which brings us to the final victim,
June 2006, Marina Muskaliova. Marina was 36 years
old. She worked with Pachushkin at a local grocery
store. He invited her for a walk in the park.
Now, unlike the homeless man or some of the elderly
neighbors, Marina was actually a little suspicious.
The notes say she hesitated. She did. People
in the neighborhood were starting to get weird
vibes from Petrushkin. The rumors were starting.
But he was persistent. She eventually agreed
to go. But she did something very, very smart.
Something that saved who knows how many future
victims. She left a note. She wrote a note for
her son. It said, I'm going for a walk with Petrushkin.
And she left Petrushkin's phone number right
there on the paper. Okay, and here is the detail
that makes absolutely no sense to me. Petrushkin
knew about the note. Yes. She either told him
or he saw it. The sources are a bit unclear on
how, but he knew that if she disappeared, there
was a literal paper trail pointing directly at
him. And he killed her anyway. He did. He walked
her into the park. He attacked her. He left her
body to be found. Why? I mean, if you know you're
going to get caught, why do it? It doesn't track.
There are two main theories. One is that the
compulsion was just too strong. He physically
couldn't stop himself even if he wanted to. But
the other theory and the one Petrushkin himself
later pushed is that he was just done. Suicide
by arrest. Exactly. He said in an interview later,
I just couldn't go on. I was severely depressed
at the time. He claimed he effectively handed
himself over to the police because he wanted
the game to end. But I think he also wanted the
credit. So Marina's body is found on June 14th.
The police find the note, but they also find
a Metro ticket in her pocket. And that ticket
was the nail in the coffin. It gave him a time
stamp. They pulled the CCTV footage from the
Metro station, and there they were. Marina and
Pichushkin walking together, smiling, just hours
before her death. It's undeniable proof. They
arrest him on June 16th, 2006. And I have to
imagine the police were expecting a fight. They
were expecting denial lies. Instead, they got
a performance. Petrishkin didn't just confess.
He opened the floodgates. He seemed relieved.
He wanted to tell them everything. Starts bragging.
Oh, absolutely. He takes him to the park. There's
actual footage of this. Him handcuffed, walking
the police through the woods, pointing out spots.
Here's where I killed this one. Here's where
I killed that one. He demonstrated a phenomenal,
almost photographic memory for detail. And this
is where the chessboard motivation really comes
out into the open. Yes. The police charged him
with 49 murders. And Pichushkin got angry. He
actually got offended. He said, no, no, you're
shortchanging me. He claimed the number was 60.
He wanted credit for every single square he had
filled. He was keeping score. Literally. Police
found a chessboard in his apartment. He had been
marking off squares with dates. And in some cases.
Names. He had 61 squares filled in his mind,
if you count the attempted murders that he considered
wins. He was only three away from completing
the entire board. What happens when the board
is full? Did he ever say what the plan was then?
He said he would have just bought another board.
That chills me to the bone. Bought another board.
Like it's just a grocery list. No end game. It
speaks to the infinite nature of his hunger.
He wasn't trying to achieve a specific goal and
then retire. The killing was the lifestyle. Let's
talk about the competition aspect. Because he
wasn't just competing with himself and the board.
He was competing with history. Right. Andrei
Chkatilo, the butcher of Rostov. He was the Soviet
Union's most prolific, most infamous serial killer
with 52 victims officially. Petrushkin was obsessed
with him. He wanted to beat Chikatilo's high
score. It's the gamification of murder. It is.
And during his interrogation, he made some statements
that really just give us a window into his God
complex. He said, quote, I felt like the father
of all these people. It was me who opened the
door for them to another world. He didn't see
himself as a murderer. He saw himself as a reaper?
A psychopomp? A deity? He believed he was the
one deciding who lived and who died. And that
gave his own meaningless life ultimate significance.
He said, life without murder is like life without
food for you. That quote, life without murder
is like life without food. That's not a motive.
That's a biological imperative in his mind. It
reframes everything. He's not killing for money.
He's not killing for sexual gratification in
the traditional sense. He's killing for like
physiological regulation. He claimed he needed
to like oxygen. When he wasn't killing, he felt
like he was suffocating. The trial in 2007 must
have just been a circus. It was intense. They
kept him in a glass cage, an aquarium basically,
in the courtroom. This was for his own protection
from the victim's families, but also because
he was just so unpredictable. Did he show any
remorse at all? Zero. None. He smirked. He paced.
He treated the court like an audience. He was
finally the star of the show. The retard from
the special school was now the most feared man
in Russia. In his mind, he had won. He was convicted
of 49 murders and three attempted murders. The
sentence? Life imprisonment. The judge, Vladimir
Yusov, ordered that the first 15 years be served
in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement
for 15 years straight. I mean, that breaks people.
That turns the brain to mush. And Petrushkin
actually appealed the sentence. He claimed it
was too harsh. He asked for it to be reduced
to 25 years. The audacity is just unbelievable.
I killed 60 people, but this lonely cell is a
bit much, guys. The appeal was obviously denied.
So where is he now? It's 2025. Is he still in
that cage? He is. He's at the Polar Owl Colony.
Polar Owl. Sounds pleasant. It's a penal colony
deep in the Arctic Circle. It's one of the harshest
prisons on Earth. It's where Russia sends the
lifers who are never, ever getting out. He spends
his days in a small cell surrounded by nothing
but snow and ice. He's unmarried, no children,
just him and his memories of the chessboard.
It's a bleak ending, but a fitting one. But before
we wrap up, I do want to touch on the cultural
impact. Because weirdly, he kind of got what
he wanted in the end. He's famous. He is. True
crime culture has immortalized him. There is
a Finnish death metal band, Torture Killer, that
wrote an entire album about him called Sewers.
Wow. Podcasts like My Favorite Murder and Last
Podcast on the Left have covered him. Books have
been written. He wanted to be a legend, a boogeyman,
and well... We gave that to him. It really makes
you wonder if by telling these stories, we're
feeding the beast for the next guy. It's the
ultimate paradox of true crime, isn't it? We
need to understand the evil to prevent it. But
in doing so, we sometimes glamorize the monster.
So let's try to bring this back to something
grounded. We've looked at the brain injury, the
bullying, the vodka, the chess. And we come right
back to that central question we started with.
Was it the swing? Was it the school? Or was he
just born wrong? There's a quote from him that
I think. sums up the tragedy and the sheer absurdity
of it all. He was asked why he did it, why he
didn't choose a different path, and he replied
with a question of his own. What should I have
done instead? Grow cucumbers. Grow cucumbers.
It's such a mundane, such a bizarre alternative.
But it shows his complete lack of moral imagination.
In his mind, the only two options for a human
life were legendary serial killer or vegetable
farmer. He couldn't conceive of a middle ground
where he was just a guy living a life not hurting
anyone. It really highlights the banality of
evil. He wasn't a criminal mastermind. He wasn't
a demon. He was a warehouse worker who fell off
a swing, got bullied, drank cheap vodka, and
decided that killing was his hobby. And that's
the most terrifying part. He was the neighbor
next door. He was the guy you play chess with
in the park. He was invisible until he decided
he wasn't. And that leaves us with a final thought
for you listening. We like to think that monsters
look like monsters, that they have horns or glowing
red eyes, but sometimes they're just the guy
offering you a drink to toast a dead dog. At
what point did the accident end and the choice
begin? That's the line we'll never truly be able
to draw. Thank you for listening to this deep
dive into the mind of the chessboard killer.
It's been a heavy one. Take care of yourselves.
And be careful who you play chess with. See you
next time.