| “ | Gentleman, I have one last piece of advice: look away. This won't be pretty. I want you to keep a good memory of me. | ” |
— Marcel Petiot's last words.
| ||
Marcel André Henri Félix Petiot, a.k.a. The Butcher of Paris is a French psychopathic, narcissistic serial killer, poisoner, embezzler, con artist, and gang leader responsible for at least 27 murders of people whose remains were found in his basement on March 11, 1944. Petiot escaped justice, but was arrested, tried, and executed on May 25, 1946. He confessed to have killed as many as 63 people, but the official estimation is unknown.
Early Life and Crimes[]
Petiot was born on 17 January 1897 in Auxerre, Yonne, France. Little is known about his early life except for his many petty crimes and disciplinary issues, including firing his fathers gun in school, sexually harassing a girl in his class, and robbing a postbox, which led to his charged of damage of public property and petty theft. When he was deemed mentally ill from a psych eval, the charges were dropped. Petiot was continuously expelled until he finished school at a special academy in Paris in July 1915. Petiot volunteered for the French army during World War I, actively serving starting January 1916. During the Second Battle of Aisne, he was gassed and otherwise wounded, leading to his additional mental breakdowns. While in rest homes, he was arrested for a variety of petty thefts, including army blankets, morphine, other army supplies, photographs, letters, and wallets. He spent jail time in Orléans and was diagnosed with a slew of additional mental problems in a Fleury-les-Aubrais mental hospital. After he returned to the front in June in 1918, he injured his foot on a grenade three weeks later, leading to his transfer to another regiment in September. The army finally discharged with a disability pension after yet another mental health diagnosis.
Petiot went into the war veterans' division of accelerated education, earning a medical degree December 1921 within eight months and interning at an Évreux mental hospital. Funded by patients and the government, he operated business after moving to Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, but while he gained an addiction to narcotics, he also prescribed them and performed illegal abortions. In 1926, Petiot had an affair with Louise Delaveau, an elderly patient's daughter. She disappeared in May, and neighbor saw Petiot load a trunk into his car. Although police investigated and dismissed the case, she's believed to be Petiot's first murder victim.
He then ran for mayor of the town and paid a man to disrupt a political debate with his opponent, which had a hand in his election. In 1923, he married Georgette Lablais, an heir to a butchery business run by her wealthy landowning father in Seignelay. The city's prefect got complaints because Petiot embezzled town funds and conducted shady business transactions. Petiot was suspected and resigned from mayor, but his still-existent support led him to be a member of the council. That was short lived, as it was discovered he wired the city's electrical grid to his property. He fled to Paris before he was officially expelled from his seat. He continued his medical malpractice and evaded taxes, but even in spite of his institutionalization for kleptomania, he was appointed médecin d'état-civil and was assigned to right death certificates.
After Nazi Germany sieged France in 1939, Petiot forged disability certificates to citizens drafted into forced labor, as well as acted as urgent care physician for the returning citizens who came back ill. Petiot was placed on trial for his addictive narcotic descriptions on July 1942, but when two addicts testified for the prosecution, they vanished. Petiot was still convicted and find 2,400 francs. Petiot made claims of working with the Resistance with no concrete evidence to support them. The claims included inventing weapons that killed Germans without a trace of evidence, leaving booby-traps across Paris, had meetings with high-ranking Allie commanders, and assisting a fictitious group of Spanish fascists. U.S spymaster Col. John F. Grombach cited Petiot as a source of intel, ranging from the Katyn Forest massacre, the Peenemünde Center developing missiles, and the names of Abwehr agents in the U.S. In 2001, "Pond" records found from those days would mention Petiot in a cable.
Murders, Escape, and Arrest[]
Petiot took advantage of the times by recruiting three accomplices, Raoul Fourrier, Edmond Pintard, and René-Gustave Nézondet, into running a collective con of a fake "escape network" to Argentina. His accomplices would route fugitives of the Nazis and the Vichy autocrats to him while he posed as "Dr. Eugène". Charging each victim 25 grand francs, Petiot would lie he could smuggle them to South America through Portugal, but Argentinian official required immunization. Through this ruse, Petiot successfully killed his victims with injections of cyanide before disposing of their remains. He started throwing their corpses in the Seine river, but after buying his own property at 21 Rue le Sueur, ironically near the Arc de Triomphe, he started burning and dissolving their remains.
Henri Lafont, the leader of the French Gestapo, returned with funding from the Abwehr to recruit more soldiers, and the Gestapos found out about Petiot's operations assuming he was legitimately with the Resistance. Prisoner Yvan Dreyfus was forced to approach the network, but when his vanishing led to that operation's failure, his accomplices were taken into custody after another informant succeeded. All three were brutally tortured by the soldiers and confessed Petiot was the mastermind. Nézondet was released, but Fourrier and Pintard were imprisoned with three other men for months more and tortured for more information on the resistance, but they knew no information due to not even being affiliated.
After the men were released in January 1944, neighbors complained of smells in the area and Petiot's house letting too much smoke out the chimney. Police summoned firemen from believing it was a chimney fire, but the coal stove in the basement was lit. Throughout the basement, especially in the fire, as well as in a quicklime bath and canvas bag in the yard, the force found remains of at least ten humans. His building was littered with property of Petiot's victims, including suitcases and clothes. Europe's media celebrating covering the story, especially in Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Belgium. The Gestapo arrested all of Petiot's family as accessories after the fact, but Petiot by then hid with friends by lying that the Gestapo were after him over killing German soldiers and informants, the refuge spanning for seven months. Petiot then hid with patient Georges Redouté and used several aliases while his beard grew. When Paris was liberated, Petiot lived as "Captain Henri Valeri" and became a captain in charge of counterespionage and prisoner interrogations in the French Force of the Interior.
The Resistance paper published an article on him, leading to his defense attorney from the 1942 narcotics trial receiving a letter from Petiot than the allegations in the paper were lies. The police knew from this Petiot was still in Paris and played his ego, organizing a volunteer search force, with "Valeri"'s name on the list. Despite his looks, Petiot was recognized at a Paris metro station, which resulted in his swift apprehension. On his person were a pistol, 31,700 francs, and 50 identity document sets.
Trial and Execution[]
Petiot testifying as his own witness at his trial
While imprisoned in Prison de la Santé, Petiot pretended to be innocent and said he only killed French enemies, and that he "discovered" the remains at his building, which he blamed on his accomplices he said killed more accomplices to cover their tracks. Police found no contact affiliated with Petiot in Resistance groups, and he couldn't even prove several of the nonexistent groups he alleged to be affiliated with. Petiot was estimated of robbing 200 million francs when he was charges with 27 counts of murder for profit, amidst his total 135 charges at his trial.
The trial started on March 19, 1946, with Petiot represented by René Floriot against a coalition of prosecutors and twelve lawyer for the victims' loved ones who filed civil suits. Petiot, as the usual braggart he was, taunted the prosecutors and alleged the victims were "Germans", "collaborators", and "double agents", or that his operation was real and the victims were alive and well in South America under aliases. He confessed to a total of 63 murders, including 19 of the 27 people found in his house. Floriot presented Petiot as a Resistance "hero" at the trial, but no judges or jurors were even convinced. They had no hesitation to find Petiot guilty of all charges, especially 26 murder charges, and sentence him to capital penalty. His execution was delayed due to problems with the mechanisms of the guillotine. The day arrived on May 25, 1946, where Petiot's last words to not watch his beheading and remember him fondly. He was executed and now lays buried in the Ivry Cemetery.
Modus Operandi[]
Petiot and his accomplices targeted escapees during the occupation of Nazi Germany in France, under the false pretenses of having a route out of the country open and available for them all and into Argentina. He'd charge 25 grand francs for the ruse, and his accomplices would send the victims to him while he posed as "Dr. Eugène". Most often attracting Jewish citizens, Resistance fighters, and petty criminals, Petiot would "inoculate" the victims by lying Argentina required that for immigrants, when in reality, he killed then with injections of cyanide. He then stole all their belongings to pawn and then disposed of their remains in the basement of his property, dissolving them in quicklime or burning them in his furnace. Petiot originally through their corpses into the Seine river but switched M.Os of disposal.
Known Victims[]
Confirmed[]
- 1908-1943 France: Numerous charges of illegal weapon discharge, sexual harassment, robbery, illegal abortion, addictive medicine overprescription, forgery, fraud, and tax evasion.
- 21 Rue le Sueur, Paris, France: At least 27 people; named ones include:
- Adriene Estébétéguy
- Annette Basset
- Claudia Chamoux
- Dr. Paul-Léon Braunberger
- François Albertini
- Gisèle Rossny
- Jean-Marc Van Bever
- Joachim Guschinov
- Joseph Piereschi
- Joseph Réocreux
- Kurt Kneller
- Lina Wolff
- Margaret Kneller
- René Kneller (Margaret's daughter)
- Nelly-Denise Hotin
- Joséphine-Aimée Grippay
Possible[]
- Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, France; May 1926 (disappeared): Louise Delaveau (Petiot's mistress)
- Paris, France:
- June 1942 (disappeared): Two unnamed drug addicts (patients of Petiot; witnesses at his narcotics trial)
- 1943 (disappeared): Yvan Dreyfus (a Gestapo informant)
Note: Petiot confessed to killing as many as 68 people, but the exact number of murders was never confirmed, nor all the people he killed identified. Some source have said Petiot could've committed as many as 160 murders.
On Criminal Minds[]
- Season Four
- "Rite of Passage" - While never directly mentioned or referenced in the show, Petiot appears to be an inspiration for the episode's unsub, Ronald Boyd - Both are prolific serial killers of evacuees needing to flee across national borders to safety, targeted victims of various ages and races, and both genders, and kept the victims' remains buried at their private properties.
On Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders[]
- Season One
- The Lonely Heart - Petiot is directly referenced by name by the episode's main unsub, Paul Mossier, who coincidentally shares the same nickname and angrily rejects it because of his profile.