Moscow Serial Killer Suspect Charged With 49 Counts of Murder

Moscow prosecutors have charged Alexander Pichushkin, 32, nicknamed Bitsa Killer by the media in a reference to a locality where he had allegedly committed his crimes in recent months, with killing 49 people near the Bitsa Park in southwestern Moscow.

“The man has been detained, arrested and charged on 49 counts of murder,” a top police official told a news conference organized by the Interfax news agency on Thursday.

Pichushkin has so far confessed to killing 62 people but investigators say they do not have sufficient proof to believe everything he says.

When asked whether the suspect was sane and could be held responsible for his actions, head of the Interior Ministry’s criminal investigation department Alexander Kshevitsky said the man was yet to undergo psychiatric tests but added that the accused was willing to answer investigators’ questions.

The probe into Pichushkin’s alleged crimes was launched several months ago. Investigators suspect the man does suffer from a certain mental disorder after all. At times he is very depressed and taciturn, at times he is quite cooperative and willing to talk to investigators, Komsomolskaya Pravda wrote.

Alexander Pichushkin, a loader at a small grocery store in southwestern Moscow, was arrested in June of this year on suspicion of killing his colleague. Her body was found in Bitsa Park in mid-June, a day before his arrest.

Pichushkin confessed to killing the woman and said that he had planned to kill as many as 64 people.

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