Moscow serial killer claims 62 murders

Moscow, Dec 14 (UNI) Serial killer Alexander Pichuzhkin, who was charged with 49 murders has claimed that he killed 62 people, Deputy head of the Russian Interior Ministry's operations and investigations bureau Alexander Kshevitsky said today.

Mr Kshevitsky told RIA Novosti news agency that in some of the murder cases which Pichuzkin claimed to have committed, the victims were still considered missing.

Pichuzhkin, 32, who was arrested last June, was earlier charged with killing at least ten people, most of them in Bitsa park, a stretch of dense woodland in south Moscow, where he was apprehended by police.

According to the investigation, he began his murders in 2000.

Most of the victims found in the park were killed with a blow to the head after Pichuzhkin approached them from behind.

If Pichuzkin claim turns out to be true, he will become the bloodiest serial killer in Russian history, well ahead of Andrei Chikatilo.

Pichuzkin has already been dubbed the ''Bitsa Maniac''.

Chikatilo, or the ''Rostov Ripper,'' killed 53 people between 1978 and 1990. Many of the victims were young women and boys, in and around the city of Rostov, near the Black Sea.

He was eventually caught, found guilty of multiple murders, sentenced to death and executed in 1994.

In 1996, Russia imposed a moratorium on the death penalty and if Pichuzhkin is found guilty of the murders he claims, the most severe punishment he faces will be a life sentence.

UNI XC SHB ND1828