For which the mayor of the French province was sent to the guillotine in 1946: "Parisian butcher" Marcel Petiot

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

It is extremely profitable and very safe to commit crimes during the war. This is precisely the conclusion reached by the Frenchman Marcel Petiot in the early 40s of the last century. While his country was in the power of Germany, he, as they say, released his inner demons.

Petio. First blood

There is no reliable information about the childhood of the future "Satan". It is known that he was a native of Auxerre, and was born in January 1897. As a child, Marcel was distinguished by violent and inappropriate behavior with sadistic inclinations, so they wanted to expel him from school several times. But education, albeit with a creak, but still received Petiot. In 1914, after another trick, he was sent for examination to specialists. And the medical commission found the guy mentally ill. Marcel, of course, was expelled from a regular educational institution and transferred to a specialized one.

Mobilization reached Petiot only in 1916, when France was in dire need of soldiers. Interestingly, now the medical commission did not see any mental abnormalities. Marcel went to fight.

The combat path of the Frenchman can hardly be called brilliant. In one of the first battles, he was wounded and was sent to the hospital. But even normal treatment for Petiot was an impossible task - he was caught stealing. Since the time was harsh, no one stood on ceremony with him. And Marcel went to jail. From there - to the hospital. It was only at the beginning of the summer of 1918 that Petiot again arrived at the front line. But only in order to be back in the hospital in a short time. It turned out that the Frenchman had simply shot himself in the leg …

War is over. In the victorious chaos that reigned, Marseille put on the mask of a war veteran. And what? He had every right, because he fought. Thanks to this, he managed to get a medical education and went to gain experience in one of the psychiatric hospitals in France. It is known that in the new field, Marseille showed himself so well that already in 1921 he managed to get a doctorate. And soon the newly-minted specialist settled in the Burgundian town of Villeneuve-sur-Yonne.

I must say that Marcel skillfully hid his essence from prying eyes. For the inhabitants of the city, he became almost a real hero, presenting for all to see the zeal and indifference of a true doctor, ready to come to the rescue at any moment. True, at the same time, Petio, if I may say so, had a "split personality." If he helped some patients in legal ways, others were much less fortunate. It was at the Villeneuve-sur-Yonne hospital that Petiot first began to conduct medical experiments using illicit drugs. Simply put, guided by only one logic known to him, he chose a patient and put him on drugs. Also, he secretly and for a lot of money "helped" women to terminate unwanted pregnancies.

According to one version, in 1926, Marseille killed a person for the first time. With a greater degree of probability, it can be argued that Louise Delaveau died at his hands. The woman was one of Petiot's patients. But then they quarreled violently. Whether by accident or intention, the doctor killed Louise. According to the official version, the woman simply ran away from him, deciding to move to another city, where no one knew about her past. The police were quite satisfied with this version. They were not even embarrassed by the fact that the neighbors saw how at night Marseille somehow loaded a large and heavy box into his car. This box then surfaced, in the truest sense of the word. And in it they found almost completely decomposed human remains. The examination was able to establish that there was a woman in the box. But with the definition of personality problems arose. Of course, the police remembered Petiot, but it was unrealistic to prove his guilt.

In the same year, a significant event for Marseille took place - he became the mayor of the city. His reputation has not been tainted by abortions or by the Delaveau disappearance proceedings. Becoming a "servant of the people" Petiot got a family and … began to steal simply on a cosmic scale. The residents of Villeneuve quickly realized that they had made the wrong choice and began to send numerous letters to the prefect, in which they accused the mayor of embezzling funds. And in 1931, Marseille resigned. His guilt was proven, but … He did not receive any punishment. Why? There is no answer to this question. And soon Petiot took up the embezzlement of public funds already being in the Council of the Yonne district. This time, the "trough" was covered in six months. Marcel put an end to his political career and went to Paris. At the same time, he left his family in the province.

Demons on the loose

Thanks to his charisma and eloquence, Marcel quickly settled in Paris. His ability to perform abortions and heal with drugs made him, albeit a clandestine, but very popular doctor. However, for camouflage, he was also engaged in, let's say, traditional medicine. And in 1936, Petiot reached a new level for himself - he was able to quite legally issue death certificates.

With the outbreak of World War II, Marseille's life changed dramatically. He changed his name, becoming Eugene and began to spin the wheel of criminal activity with renewed vigor. At first, he simply issued certificates of poor health for a solid reward. They were a kind of "lucky ticket", because the owner of such a certificate could no longer fear that he would be sent to forced labor in Germany.

But soon Marcel came up with a new plan to make money. Moreover, this idea allowed to kill two birds with one stone: to hit a solid jackpot and at the same time "feed" the inner demons. Petiot, with the help of unsuspecting henchmen, established an escape route from France to the countries of South America. To people who could pay 25 thousand francs for the escape (a cosmic sum for the 40s), Dr. Eugene assured with the most serious and deed that he would save them from German oppression. Moreover, nationality did not play a role, the main thing was money. So, it is not surprising that Jews became his main clients. In fact, there was no saving way across the ocean. After receiving the money, Petiot injected clients with a certain serum (they say, a vaccine against South American diseases) and … after a short time he hid the corpse. The system worked. The man disappeared, as if he was actually getting to the conditional Argentina. In fact, the unfortunates died. But gradually getting rid of the bodies in the usual way became very dangerous - there was a high probability of running into either French police officers or German ones. And the killer realized that the bodies should not leave his house. Therefore, he built a furnace in the basement, and its dimensions were just enough to burn the dismembered remains. This decision led to the capture of one of the bloodiest and most cynical criminals in France.

Hunt for Satan

Petio's illegal activities brought in a lot of money. So big that he was able to buy a home in the respectable 16th arrondissement of Paris. Accordingly, rich and influential people became its neighbors. It was one of the neighbors on March 11, 1944, who reported to the police about a strange nauseous smell that saturates the entire district. And its source was the chimney of house No. 21. If such a call had been made from a “simpler” area, the police might not have bothered to bother, but the message from the 16th arrondissement had to be verified. It turned out that the neighbors did not deceive: smoke hovered over the house, exuding a nasty smell. Law enforcement officers quickly learned that Petio was the owner of the mansion. It was necessary to find out what the doctor was burning in the oven.

The gendarmes managed to get through to Marseilles, who promised to come as soon as possible. But, as expected, he disappeared. After waiting for him for a couple of hours, the police knocked down the door. The smell led them to the basement, where there was an impressive stove. In her furnace, they saw a smoldering hand. The forensics soon arrived and got to work. And then the doctor himself appeared. He was not at all embarrassed, on the contrary, he proudly declared to the police that he was a member of the Resistance, and all the remains belonged exclusively to the Nazis. And … they believed him. After all, it was 1944, and in the war, as you know, all means are good. As soon as the police left the mansion, Marcel fled. He understood that the next time the Germans would come, and they would definitely not believe in the legend of the war with the French in the name of Hitler.

But the case was not closed then. Forensic scientists have found the remains of more than 60 people. They also managed to establish the identity of some of the victims. Most of them were Jews, not soldiers of the Third Reich, with whom Petiot fought so actively. The policemen also remembered the dismembered corpses, which either washed up on the banks of the Seine, or were random people in garbage cans scattered across different districts of Paris. The puzzles, as they say, have come together in one picture. The serial killer that the law enforcement officers were looking for in vain a year before these events did not disappear. He just changed the scheme of actions. It was possible to prove this thanks to the work of criminologists. They found that all of his victims were stabbed in the thigh by Marseille, a sort of autograph of a serial killer.

Petiot's search led nowhere, he disappeared. For some time they forgot about him, but … the doctor unexpectedly returned. After the capital of France was freed from the invaders, the criminal for some reason decided that it was time to declare an unfair attitude towards himself. He chose newspapers as his weapon. Through the media, Petiot tried to convey to the public that he was framed by the Germans. In this way, they took revenge on him for not surrendering his comrades-in-arms in the liberation movement to them.

But then the police did not succeed in getting on the trail of the criminal. But they managed to find his brother - Maurice. He had no idea about the criminal activities of a relative (numerous interrogations confirmed this) and said only that, on behalf of Marcel, he had taken his things to some friends. Thus, the guards went to the accomplices of Petiot. But they were of no use either, they had no idea what Marcel was doing. The French believed that he really helped people hide from the Nazis overseas.

But the guards were not going to surrender. Despite the difficulties encountered at every turn, they continued to try to unravel the serial killer's case. The thread of the investigation led the police to the Gestapo archive, which the Germans either did not manage to destroy, or they simply forgot about it. The police found the protocols of the interrogations of the famous Ivan Dreyfus. Thanks to them, they were able to prove that it was Petiot who was hiding under the guise of Dr. Eugene.

The search for the killer went all over France. At the end of October 1944, at one of the suburban stations near Paris, the police stopped a man during an identity check. According to the documents, his name was Henri Valerie Watterwald, a former military man and a member of the Resistance. But the appearance and behavior of Watterwald aroused suspicion among the guards. After checking, it turned out that ordinary gendarmes managed to catch the bloody doctor.

Petiot behaved confidently during interrogations. The doctor took a line about the Resistance, trying to convince the police that he only killed the Germans and traitors to France. Marcel also said that, despite the status of "enemies of the homeland", he deprived them of their lives as humanely as possible: either he injected with poison, or added poison to coffee.

But this did not save the French "serial". The investigation proved the murder of 26 people. The result is the death penalty with the help of the guillotine. The verdict was carried out only at the end of May 1946. But the police have not been able to find out how many people the doctor killed. According to the most conservative estimates, 63 victims have blood on his hands.

While the trial was underway, the French media churned out articles about the murderer. And in each he had a new nickname: "Parisian butcher", "monster from the rue Leser" and others. But still, the main nickname was "Doctor Satan". It was under this name that he entered the criminal history of France.