Marcel Petiot
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Doctor Marcel Petiot (1897–1946) was a French doctor who was convicted of multiple murder after the discovery of the remains of twenty-six people in his home in Paris after World War II.
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Early life
Marcel André Henri Félix Petiot was born January 17 1897 at Auxerre, France. Later accounts make various claims of his obnoxious childhood and criminal mentality, but is unclear how much of them have been invented afterwards for public consumption. However, on March 26 1914, psychiatrics pronounced him mentally ill and he was expelled from school many times. He finished his education in a special academy in Paris on July 1915.
During the First World War, Petiot was drafted into French infantry in January 1916. In Aisne he was wounded and gassed and exhibited more symptoms of mental breakdown. He was sent to various rest homes, was arrested for stealing army blankets and was jailed in Orleans. In a psychiatric hospital at Fleury-les-Aubrais he was again diagnosed for various mental ailments and was returned to front June 1918. He shot himself in the foot and was transferred for three weeks but attached to new regiment in September. New diagnosis was enough to get his discharged with a disability pension.
Into the medical profession
After the war Petiot entered the accelerated education program intended for war veterans, completed medical school in eight months and went to become an intern in Evreuz mental hospital. He received his medical degree December 1921 and moved to Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, where he received payment for his services both from the patients and from government medical assistance funds. He already favored addictive narcotics.
Petiot's first victim might have been Louise Delaveau, the daughter of an elderly patient, with whom he had a torrid affair in 1926. Delaveau disappeared in May and later neighbors said that they had seen Petiot load a trunk into his car. Police investigated but eventually dismissed her as a runaway. Also in 1926 Petiot ran for mayor of the town, hired an accomplice to disrupt a political debate with his opponent, and won. He kept embezzling from the town funds. In 1927 he married Georgette Lablais. Their son Gerhardt was born the next year.
The local prefect received numerous complaints about Petiot's behavior based on theft or shady financial deals. Petiot was eventually suspended as a mayor in August 1931 and resigned. The village council also resigned in sympathy. Five weeks later on October 18 he was elected as a councilor for the Yonne district. In 1932 he was accused of stealing electric power from the village of Villeneuve-sur-Yonne and he lost his seat in a council. Meantime, he had already moved to Paris.
In Paris Petiot attracted patients with his imaginary credentials and built an impressive reputation for his practice at 66 Rue Caumartin. However, there were rumors of illegal abortions and overt prescriptions of addictive remedies. In 1936 he was appointed médecin d'état-civil with authority to write death certificates. The same year, he was briefly institutionalized for kleptomania, but was released the following year. He still persisted in tax evasion.
After the outbreak of World War II and the fall of France, Petiot begun to provide false medical certificates to French citizens who were drafted to forced labour into Germany, and treated sick workers that had returned. He was also convicted, in July 1942, of over-prescribing narcotics, despite the fact that two addicts who would have testified against him had disappeared. He received a fine of 2400 Francs.
According to his own tall tales, Petiot also developed secret weapons that supposedly killed Germans without leaving forensic evidence, had high-level meetings with Allied commanders, engaged in resistance activities (planting booby traps all over Paris) and worked with a (nonexistent) group of anti-fascist Spaniards.
Fraudulent escape network
Petiot's most lucrative activity, however, was his own false escape route, Fly-Tox. He adopted a "code-name" "Dr. Eugène". He accepted anyone who could afford his price of 25.000 Francs per person regardless of whether they were Jews, resistance fighters or ordinary criminals. His aides Raoul Fourrier, Edmond Pintard and René-Gustave Nézondet directed his victims to his hands. Petiot claimed that he could arrange a safe passage to Argentina or elsewhere in South America through Portugal. He also claimed that Argentinean officials demanded inoculations and injected his victims with cyanide. Then he took all their valuables and disposed of the bodies. People who trusted him to deliver them to safety were never seen alive again.
At first Petiot dumped the bodies in the Seine, but he later destroyed the bodies by submerging them in quicklime or by incinerating them. In 1941, Petiot bought a house at 21 rue le Sueur.
What Petiot failed to do was to keep a low profile. The Gestapo eventually found out about him and by April 1943 they had heard all about his "route". Gestapo agent Robert Jodkum forced prisoner Yvan Dreyfus to approach the supposed network, but he simply vanished. A later informer successfully infiltrated the operation and the Gestapo arrested Fourrier, Pintard and Nézondet. Under torture they confessed that "Dr Eugene" was Marcel Petiot. Nezondet was later released but three other spent eight months in prison suspected of helping Jews to escape. Even under torture, they did not identify any other members of the resistance - because they actually knew of none. The Gestapo released the three men in January 1944.
Discovery
On March 6 1944, neighbors noticed that the smoke from the chimney of 21 Rue le Sueur in Paris smelled noxious. When neighbors went to complain on March 11, they found a note on the door that said the resident would be away for a month.
Neighbors notified the police and told them that Petiot owned the house. When police called Petiot, he told them to wait for him. However, 30 minutes later, police were obliged to call the fire department to stop the spreading fire. When firemen came through a second-story window, they found a grisly display of bodies and body parts.
When Petiot arrived, he claimed that he was a member of the French Resistance and claimed that the bodies were those of Germans, traitors and collaborators. Because people in general approved of resistance activities, the police were reluctant to arrest Petiot, and so they released him.
When police searched the garage, they found a pit filled with quicklime with human remains in it. On the staircase they found a canvas sack containing human remains. There were enough body parts for at least ten complete bodies.
The prominent Paris police Commissaire Georges-Victor Massu took charge of the investigation. His first problem was to establish if Petiot was killing for the Resistance, or for the Gestapo. The latter possibility was eliminated when he received a telegram where Germans ordered Petiot to be arrested as a "dangerous lunatic". Police found Petiot's apartment on Rue Caumartin abandoned, but also found large amounts of chloroform, digitalis and various other poisons in addition to large amounts of more usual medical remedies.
Robert Jodkum told them that the Gestapo had arrested Petiot on suspicion of smuggling Jews. Police also found a man who had intended to escape but changed his mind. He said that Petiot had offered him passage to South America for Fr25.000.
Police managed to identify two victims who would have been testified against Petiot in the 1942 narcotics trial. It was the first time police had proof of their suspicions that the witnesses had been murdered. Petiot's brother Maurice confessed that he had delivered quicklime to Petiot's house on his brother's orders; he was charged with conspiracy to commit murder, and jailed. Georgette Petiot was also arrested on suspicion of having aided her husband, as were Petiot's accomplices, Nezondet and Porchon, and Albert and Simone Neuhausen, who confessed that they had helped to remove suitcases from the Petiot's charnel house.
On June 6 1944 the police had to put the investigation on hold when other matters interfered; the Normandy Invasion had begun.
Avoidance and capture
During the intervening seven months, Petiot hid with friends, claiming that the Gestapo wanted him because he had killed Germans and informers. He eventually moved in with a patient, Georges Redouté, let his beard grow and adopted various aliases.
When the Resistance and the Paris police rose against German troops in Paris, Petiot adopted the name "Henri Valeri" and joined the French Forces of the Interior (FFI). He became a captain in charge of counterespionage and prisoner interrogations.
When the newspaper 'Resistance' published an article about Petiot, his defense attorney from the 1942 narcotics case received a letter in which his fugitive client claimed that the published allegations were mere lies. This gave police a hint that Petiot was still in Paris. The search began anew - with "Henri Valeri" among those who were drafted to find him. Finally, on October 31 Petiot was recognized at a Paris metro station, and arrested. Among his possessions were a pistol, Fr31.700 and 50 sets of identity documents.
Trial and sentence
Petiot was placed on death row at Santé prison. He continued to claim that he was innocent and that he had only killed enemies of France. He claimed that he had discovered the pile of bodies in 21 Rue le Sueur in February 1944, and assumed that they were collaborators that members of his "network" had killed.
Police noticed that Petiot had no friends in any of the major resistance groups. Some of the groups he'd mentioned had never existed, and there was no proof of any of his claimed exploits. Prosecutors eventually charged him with at least 27 murders for profit. Their estimate of his loot ran to Fr200 million.
Petiot went on trial on March 19 1946, facing 135 criminal charges. Lawyer René Floriot acted for the defense, against a team consisting of state prosecutors and twelve civil lawyers hired by relatives of Petiot's victims. Petiot taunted the prosecuting lawyers, and claimed that various victims had been collaborators or double agents, or that vanished people were alive and well in South America under new names. He admitted to killing just nineteen of the twenty seven victims founds in his house, and claimed that they were Germans and collaborators - part of a total of sixty three "enemies" killed. Floriot attempted to portray Petiot as a resistance hero, but the judges and jurors were unimpressed. Petiot was convicted of 26 counts of murder, and sentenced to death.
Marcel Petiot was executed by guillotine on May 26 1946.
Books
- Thomas Maeder - The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot (1980)fr:Marcel Petiot