A jury at the Moscow City Court on Wednesday found Alexander Pichushkin, the “chessboard” serial killer, guilty of 48 murders and three attempted murders.
Pichushkin (33), a shop assistant in a supermarket, confessed to killing 63 people, which he recorded on a 64-square chessboard.
During interrogation, he repented that he was short of killing one person and could not fill the last square of his chessboard.
The jury rejected his defence lawyers’ plea against 18 of the murder charges and found him guilty on all counts, observing he did not deserve any leniency.
Russian TV channels reported Pichushkin sat expressionless as the judge read out the convictions.
Prosecutor Yury Syomin recommended to the court that the convict serve a life sentence in a high-security prison. He is expected to be sentenced later this week.
Pichushkin, known as “Bitsa Maniac”, killed most of his victims between 2001 and 2006 in the forest areas of south Moscow’s Bitsa Park and never denied his killings.
Media reports said he showed no remorse as his murder trial wrapped up Monday, mocking both prosecutors and his own defence team. He also refused to make a final statement from the glass cage where he was held in the courtroom.
“A final statement? It sounds grim. I donate my final statement to all the deaf and mute,” Pichushkin said through a microphone, adding “All that is being said here by the prosecutors and lawyers is so pitiful.”
As Russia has imposed a moratorium on carrying death sentence since 1996, he faces instead a sentence of life in jail. Pichushkin began his 14-year killing spree in Moscow in 1992 and was arrested on June 16, 2006.
Many of the victims were elderly men and women who got drunk with him, prosecutors said. Pichushkin lured his victims by promising them vodka if they would join him in mourning the death of his dog.