Vladimir Pokhilko
Vladimir Ivanovich Pokhilko (Russian: Владимир Иванович Похилько) (7 April 1954 – 21 September 1998) was a Soviet-Russian entrepreneur. He was an academic who specialized in human–computer interaction. Early life. Born in Moscow on April 7, 1954, he graduated from the Faculty of Psychology at Moscow State University in 1982. He was a junior researcher at the I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University. Psychological experiments using "Tetris". A friend of "Tetris" creator Alexey Pajitnov, he was the first clinical psychologist to conduct experiments using the game. He played an important role in the subsequent development and marketing  of the game, and a 1999 article in the "Forbes" magazine credited him for "co-inventing the seminal videogame Tetris". Technology company AnimaTek. In 1989, he and Pajitnov founded the 3D software technology company AnimaTek in Moscow. While attempting to create software for INTEC (a company that they started) that would be made for "people's souls", they developed the idea for El-Fish. Murder-suicide. After suffering financial difficulties at his software company, AnimaTek, Pokhilko murdered his wife Elena Fedotova (38) and their son Peter (12), by bludgeoning and stabbing them both to death. He then committed suicide by  slitting his own throat. Shortly before his death, Pokhilko penned a note. The police initially did not release the content of the note, saying that it was not a suicide note, and they didn't know who authored it. They later realized it was a suicide note and published the content of the note in 1999; it read: