ID special focuses on solving the puzzle of The Tetris Murders
By Carla Davis
Tetris was created in 1984, and was at one time the most popular video game in the world. A puzzle-based game, many people still play it to this day. But most of us do not know the tragic event tied in with the game, and ID special The Tetris Murders aims to change that.
The Tetris Murders tells the story of Moscow-born Vladimir Pokhilko, who helped develop the game with Alexey Pajitnov. Pajitnov ended up getting most of the credit, and Pokhilko ultimately ended up mostly forgotten.
The two men founded 3D software company AnimaTek together, but by 1998, financial difficulties had pushed Pokhilko to a breaking point. On September 22 of that year, he, his wife and their young song were found dead in their home in Palo Alto, California. After an investigation, the outcome was decided: Pokhilko had bludgeoned and stabbed his wife Elena and their 12-year-old son Peter to death, then stabbed himself fatally in the neck.
The Tetris Murders will air in three parts on ID on Monday, December 5, 9:00 ET. It will be available to stream the same day on discovery+.
Palo Alto PD CSI Tech Investigator Sandra Brown investigated the crime scene, and it was immediately evident that something wasn’t right. There was a suicide note reading: “I’ve been eaten alive. Vladimir. Just remember that I am exist. The davil. (sic)” But the physical evidence Brown and her team found didn’t seem to fit in with the murder-suicide theory.
As Brown continued to work on the case, the mystery of the Tetris murders deepened when it turned out that the FBI was also very interested in Pokhilko.
24 years later, Sandra Brown and other investigators revisited the case. New theories and evidence came to light, including some pretty frightening connections to Russia. Jason Sarlanis, President of Crime and Investigative Content at ID says the detectives will “piece together a crime that could be even more sinister than previously believed and possibly part of an insidious conspiracy reaching all the way behind the Iron Curtain.”
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Are you familiar with the story of The Tetris murders? Let us know what you think about the case in the comments section.