A Russian court has found a former supermarket worker guilty of murdering 48 people.
33-year-old Alexander Pichushkin repeatedly claimed he had killed many more people.
Judge Vladimir Usov told the court that Pichushkin was found guilty with no mitigating circumstances.
Pichushkin, sitting in a glass cage to one side of the courthouse, showed no emotion and stared at the ground before being led away in handcuffs.
He committed his first murder as a student in 1992.
He told investigators that he aimed to kill one person for every square on a chessboard.
Most of Pichushkin's victims were described as elderly alcoholic men whom he invited to join him for a drink under various pretexts, such as that he was mourning the death of his dog.
In 2001, he began bludgeoning his victims to death with a hammer.
Earlier victims were said to have been killed by pushing them through a manhole, where they drowned due to their inebriated state.
The murders were committed in the city's Bitsevsky park.
Three women were also among the victims. The killing of the third woman, a shop assistant who had worked with Pichushkin, led police to identify their suspect, as she left a note for her son with his phone number before she went on a walk with him.
After he was arrested in June of last year he said: 'I never would have stopped, never. They've saved many people by catching me.'
