Review: Biography, “The Chessboard Killer: Alexander Pichushkin”
on October 2, 2011 in Serial Killers, Video Reviews by Brian CombsMrs. SK Podcast and I switched to to AT&T U-verse recently, and it seems we have something like six true crime stations now. That’s a good thing; what else am I supposed to do on a Friday evening?
This last Friday, we watched a couple of true crime shows. The first was an episode of Biography called “The Chessboard Killer”, about Russian serial killer Alexander Pichushkin.
One of the reasons I love the Biography series is that it’s virtually free of sensationalism. They simply present the facts.
I also like the simple, chronological approach they take to their presentation. So many shows jump around trying to enhance the story telling. The usual result is confusion.
“The Chessboard Killer” held true to form, with a simple, direct story that was easy to follow.
As it happens, the Alexander Pichushkin story was not one that I knew very well, so I learned a great deal.
Pichushkin was clearly a very solid example of a thrill killer, one who killed for the sheer joy of doing so. There was no sexual or criminal enterprise aspect to the murders at all.
I don’t want to reveal too much of the story, but let me leave you with this: Pichushkin’s inspiration was Andrei Chikatilo. That should tell you what type of killer he aspired to be.
There are no comments yet, add one below.