Marcel Petiot

Marcel André Henri Félix Petiot (17 January 1897 – 25 May 1946) was a French doctor and serial killer. He was convicted of multiple murders after the discovery of the remains of 26 people in his home in Paris during World War II. He is suspected of killing around 60 victims during his life, although the true number remains unknown.^[1][2]

Early life

Petiot was born 17 January 1897 at Auxerre, France. Later accounts make various claims of his delinquency and criminal acts during childhood and adolescence, but it is unclear whether they were invented afterwards for public consumption. It should be noted, however, that a psychiatrist diagnosed him as mentally ill on 26 March 1914, and he was expelled from school many times. He finished his education in a special academy in Paris in July 1915.

During World War I, Petiot volunteered for the French army, entering service in January 1916.^[3]

In the Second Battle of the Aisne, he was wounded and gassed and exhibited more symptoms of mental breakdown. He was sent to various rest homes, where he was arrested for stealing army blankets and jailed in Orléans. In a psychiatric hospital at Fleury-les-Aubrais, he was again diagnosed with various mental ailments but was returned to the front in June 1918. He was transferred three weeks later after he shot himself in the foot, but was attached to a new regiment in September. A new diagnosis was enough to get him discharged with a disability pension.

Medical and political career

After the war, Petiot entered the accelerated education program intended for war veterans, completed medical school in eight months and became an intern at the mental hospital in Évreux. He received his medical degree in 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. At this point, he was already using addictive narcotics. While working at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, he gained a reputation for dubious medical practices, such as supplying narcotics, and performing then-illegal abortions.^[1]

Petiot's first victim might have been Louise Delaveau, the daughter of an elderly patient, with whom he had an affair in 1926. Delaveau disappeared in May and neighbors later said that they had seen Petiot load a trunk into his car. Police investigated, but eventually dismissed her as a runaway. That same year, Petiot ran for mayor of the town, and hired an accomplice to disrupt a political debate with his opponent. He won, and in office, he embezzled town funds. In 1927, he married Georgette Lablais. Their son Gerhardt was born the next year.

The Prefect of Yonne Département received many complaints about Petiot's thefts and shady financial deals. Petiot was eventually suspended as a mayor in August 1931 and resigned. However, he still had many supporters, and the village council also resigned in sympathy. Five weeks later, on 18 October, he was elected as a councilor of Yonne Département. In 1932, he was accused of stealing electric power from the village and he lost his council seat. Meanwhile, 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 de Caumartin. However, there were rumors of illegal abortions and excessive 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.

World War II activities

After the 1940 German defeat of France, French citizens were drafted for forced labor in Germany. Petiot provided false medical disability certificates to people who were drafted. He also treated the illnesses of workers that had returned. In July 1942, he was convicted of overprescribing narcotics, even though two addicts who would have testified against him had disappeared. He was fined 2,400 francs.

Petiot later claimed that during the period of German occupation, he was engaged in Resistance activities. Supposedly, he developed secret weapons that killed Germans without leaving forensic evidence, planted booby traps all over Paris, had high-level meetings with Allied commanders, and worked with a (nonexistent) group of Spanish anti-fascists.

There was no evidence to support any of these tall tales. However, in 1980, he was cited by former U.S. spymaster Col. John F. Grombach as a World War II source.^[4] Grombach had been founder and head of a small independent espionage agency, later known as "The Pond", which operated from 1942 to 1955.^[5] Grombach asserted that Petiot had reported the Katyn Forest massacre, German missile development at Peenemünde, and the names of Abwehr agents sent to the U.S.^[4] These claims were not supported by any records of other intelligence services. However, in 2001, some "Pond" records were discovered, including a cable which mentioned Petiot.

Fraudulent escape network

Petiot's most lucrative activity during the Occupation was his false escape route. Under the codename of "Dr. Eugène", Petiot pretended to have a means of getting people wanted by the Germans or the Vichy government to safety outside France. Petiot claimed that he could arrange a passage to Argentina or elsewhere in South America through Portugal, for a price of 25,000 francs per person. Three accomplices, Raoul Fourrier, Edmond Pintard, and René-Gustave Nézondet, directed victims to "Dr. Eugène", including Jews, Resistance fighters, and ordinary criminals. Once victims were in his control, Petiot told them that Argentine officials required all entrants to the country to be inoculated against disease, and with this excuse injected them with cyanide. Then he took all their valuables and disposed of the bodies.

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 this "route" for the escape of wanted persons, which they assumed was part of the Resistance. Gestapo agent Robert Jodkum forced prisoner Yvan Dreyfus to approach the supposed network, but Dreyfus simply vanished. A later informer successfully infiltrated the operation, and the Gestapo arrested Fourrier, Pintard, and Nézondet. Under torture, they confessed that "Dr Eugène" was Marcel Petiot. Nezondet was later released but three others 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 of murders

On 11 March 1944, Petiot's neighbors in Rue Le Sueur complained to police of a foul stench in the area and of large amounts of smoke billowing from a chimney of the house. Fearing a chimney fire, the police summoned firemen, who entered the house and found a roaring fire in a coal stove in the basement. In the fire, and scattered in the basement, were human remains.^[6]

Evasion 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.

During the liberation of Paris in 1944, Petiot adopted the name "Henri Valeri" and joined the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) in the uprising. 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 31 October, Petiot was recognized at a Paris Métro station, and arrested. Among his possessions were a pistol, 31,700 francs, and 50 sets of identity documents.

Trial and sentence

Petiot was imprisoned in La Santé Prison. He claimed that he was innocent and that he had only killed enemies of France. He said that he had discovered the pile of bodies in 21 Rue le Sueur in February 1944, but had assumed that they were collaborators killed by members of his Resistance "network".

But the police found that Petiot had no friends in any of the major Resistance groups. Some of the Resistance groups he spoke of 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 ill-gotten gains ran to 200 million francs.

Petiot went on trial on 19 March 1946, facing 135 criminal charges. 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 found in his house, and claimed that they were Germans and collaborators – part of a total of 63 "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.

On 25 May, Petiot was beheaded, after a stay of a few days due to a problem in the release mechanism of the guillotine.

Portrayal in popular culture

Petiot's life and career were dramatised in the 1990 film Docteur Petiot, directed by Christian de Chalonge and starring Michel Serrault as Petiot. The 1957 war film Seven Thunders (also called The Beasts of Marseilles) included an almost identical character, Dr. Martout, played by James Robertson Justice. The 2006 film Zwartboek, directed by Paul Verhoeven, is set during the German occupation of the Netherlands and includes among its characters a doctor who is "known" to the resistance as sympathetic to their cause. Ultimately he is revealed to have been working for the Nazis. Though offering an escape route for wealthy Dutch Jews, the character in fact betrays them and steals their money.

The eponymous 1977 debut album by Univers Zéro inciudes a track named "Docteur Petiot".

See also

• Dr John Bodkin Adams
• Dr Thomas Neill Cream
• Dr Hawley Harvey Crippen
• Dr H. H. Holmes
• Dr William Palmer (murderer)
• Dr Maxim Petrov
• Dr Harold Shipman
• Dr Michael Swango

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Smith, Jo Durden. 100 Most Infamous Criminals, Metrobooks, New York, 2004 ISBN 0-76074-849-7
2. ^ Newton, Michael Crime Library : Dr. Marcel Petiot
3. ^ King, David. Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris. 2011, Kindle ed., Chapter 2.
4. ^ ^{a b} Stout, Mark The Pond: Running Agents for State, War, and the CIA
5. ^ "'The Pond': US Spy Agency That Operated Before CIA Revealed In Classified Documents Disclosure". Huffingtonpost.com. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/29/the-pond-us-spy-agency-th_n_663447.html. Retrieved 2010-07-29. 
6. ^ David King, op. cit. Preface.

• Newton, Michael. "Dr. Marcel Petoit". http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/history/petiot/1.html. Retrieved 10 November 2011. 

Bibliography

• Tomlins, Marilyn Z. Die in Paris. Raider Publishing International, 2010. ISBN 9781616671211
• Grombach, John. The Great Liquidator. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1980.
• Kershaw, Alister. Murder in France. London: Constable, 1955.
• King, David. Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris. 2011, Kindle ed.
• Maeder, Thomas. The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1980.
• Seth, Ronald. Petiot: Victim of Chance. London: Hutchinson, 1963.

External links

• Tomlins, Marilyn Z. Dr. Petiot Will See You Now in Crime magazine
• Marilyn Z.Tomlins website
• Newton, Michael Crime Library : Dr. Marcel Petiot

Persondata
Name	Petiot, Marcel
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	17 January 1897
Place of birth
Date of death	25 May 1946
Place of death