Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris

31.

“A TASTE FOR EVIL”

THE COLDEST FISH AND THE MOST BRILLIANT CRIMINAL, YET THE MOST CONVINCING TALKER THAT I EVER MET IN MY LONG CAREER IN THE FIELDS OF CRIME AND MEDICINE.

—Dr. Paul on Marcel Petiot

ON Tuesday, March 26, the courtroom was again packed beyond capacity in what was arguably the largest audience yet. This was the highly anticipated session devoted to expert witnesses, including the main attraction, the celebrated forensic scientist Dr. Albert Paul. He would make jury and audience alike, as Le Pays put it, “grit its teeth,” but his testimony would not be as shocking or as pivotal as it had been in the Landru case.

Wearing a gray tweed suit with a white handkerchief in his left breast pocket, Paul described how the murderer had scalped his victims and removed the facial mask with a single cut, making a circular incision from the chin to the hairline. He then proceeded to dismember the body. Despite the detailed study of the remains, however, there were many fundamental questions that Paul and his forensic team could not answer. Wisely, Dupin, the prosecutor, decided to introduce the uncertainties before the defense could exploit them.

Paul explained that they found three main types of human remains: cadavers more or less intact, burned and broken fragments, and debris in “one hundred bony pieces.” The latter included four collarbones, ten shoulder blades, seven humerus bones (upper arm from shoulder to elbow), and five ulna and four radius bones (forearm). There were three complete sternums, a fourth sternum without an appendix, and one extension of the sternum known as a xiphoid process. The forensic team had also uncovered one complete pelvis, eight ilia (the largest bone in the pelvis), and seven sacrums (the triangular bone at the spine, pelvic cavity, and hips), as well as two kneecaps, two femora (thighbone), five tibias (shinbone), and two fibulas (calf bone). There were two “globular skulls,” both with an attached mandible, or lower jaw, and a number of scalps, in red, blond, brown, and almost black hair.

All the bones at rue Le Sueur were human. Only two bodies, however, were found complete, both “very mummified.” One was a man approximately forty to fifty years of age with an estimated height of five-foot-three. The other was of a woman, twenty-five to thirty, just under five-foot-six.

“How many bodies were there in all?” Dupin asked.

“We were able to conclude that the number of victims was a minimum of ten, but the vast amounts of hair recovered suggested a much greater number.”

Floriot asked if any white hair had been found on the premises of rue Le Sueur. “No, not a scrap,” Paul answered. This was significant because one of Petiot’s alleged victims, Dr. Braunberger, had white hair, and another one, Joachim Guschinow, had some white strands.

“Were you able to determine the age and gender of the victims?”

“Five were men, five women,” Paul said. The tallest victim was a male with a height of 1.78 meters (5′10″) and the shortest, a female of 1.50 (4′11″). The height was estimated based on measuring the humerus, radius, cubitus, and tibia bones. As for the ages of the victims, Paul testified that they ranged from twenty-five to fifty. The youngest was a female and the oldest a male; in fact, the male victims tended to be significantly older than the female and also, as his report put it, “robust.” It was difficult to add more specifics because the quicklime had devoured the bodies for too long a period before the discovery.

“What was the date of the murders?”

“We can say that these are old cadavers, but we cannot specify further because the level of putrefaction is such that we cannot determine the exact date when the subject was killed. In effect, the debris was in such a state of decomposition that the toxicology examination failed to provide definite conclusions.”

“What was the cause of death?”

Paul admitted that his team could not establish that either. “Not a single bullet wound or fracture of the skull. That leaves the possibility of asphyxiation, stabbing, strangling, and poison. There’s no way to tell. Could it have been an injection? Perhaps, but I am not in the habit of reveling in hypotheses.” Looking at the dissections, each cut beginning, as far as he could tell, in the same spot on the spine, the limbs, or the face, Paul believed that it must have been the work of someone highly skilled in anatomy, almost certainly a physician.

“Didn’t you make statements about similar, dismembered bodies that were found in the Seine in 1942?” Dupin asked.

“Yes,” Paul said, noting that for a period of eight months, between May 1942 and January 1943, the Seine had been “stuffed” with bodies and body parts in small parcels that had been fished out at a frightening rate. At that time, he further stated, “I shared my fears with a colleague that ‘it must be a doctor who did this and I am afraid that it might be one of my students.’ ”

As he had earlier told Commissaire Massu, Paul was struck in particular by the scalpel marks on the thighs of the cadavers, both of the victims on rue Le Sueur as well as those retrieved from the Seine. He explained that, when he changed instruments or took a break during an autopsy or dissection, he had the habit of not laying the scalpel on the table. Instead, he would stick it in the right thigh or arm of a subject “like a dressmaker sticks a pin in a pincushion.” This was a safe way to prevent injury and contamination. “Well, the bodies that I scrutinized have precisely these punctures of the scalpel.”

Floriot intervened, pointing out that Marcel Petiot had received only “mediocre” in his dissection course in medical school.

“That astonishes me,” Paul said. “In any case, it is regrettable because he dissects very well.”

“Pardon me,” Floriot said. “You should say, ‘The dissector dissects very well.’ ”

Two other forensic experts, Dr. René Piédelièvre of the Institut médico-légal and Professor Henri Griffon of the Toxicological Laboratory at the Préfecture de Police, were scheduled to appear on the stand that afternoon. Like Paul, Piédelièvre praised Petiot’s skill with the scalpel. Later in his memoirs, he went further, calling Petiot simply his “colleague.” At the trial, he offered no earth-shattering revelation. The bodies were simply too “putrefied and damaged by the quicklime” to draw many conclusions, including the time of death.

Petiot, who appeared to be taking notes, asked the witness if they could not have used a method based on insect larvae.

“Yes, the diptera and coleoptera lay eggs on corpses. By measuring the size of the larvae and examining their tracks as they burrow through the flesh, one can arrive at a fairly accurate estimation. In this case, the lime and fire had destroyed the traces of the insects.”

“Yes, you know these things better than me, as I am not a forensic scientist,” Petiot mumbled. “Diptera and coleoptera … hmmm. This is fascinating. Could you tell me more about it?” When Piédelièvre responded that the subject did not pertain to the case, Petiot agreed and invited himself over after the trial to discuss the matter further.

Professor Griffon then testified that he had not found any evidence of poison. But “that does not mean that there wasn’t any,” he added, noting that the small triangular room was well suited to serving as a gas chamber.

“But there was a gap of over two centimeters under the door,” Floriot objected.

“It would have been easy to close it,” Griffon said, suggesting a simple rug.

“That’s only a hypothesis. Can you produce this rug?”

“If it were gas, then what kind of gas?” Dupin asked.

“Almost any one you would like, except perhaps lighting gas because we found no trace of equipment.” Griffon then reminded the court that Petiot’s apartment on rue Caumartin contained “a pharmaceutical arsenal of uncommon size” with an “abnormally high proportion of narcotics.”

“They were used for painless deliveries,” Petiot said.

“Did you find a single poison at rue Caumartin?” Floriot asked.

“Morphine.”

“Morphine is not a poison.”

“That depends upon the dose.”

“Did you find any morphine at rue Le Sueur?”

“No.”

“I see,” Floriot said. “No poison at rue Le Sueur. No way to block the opening in this famous gas chamber of yours. Nothing at all? Thank you very much.”

The psychiatrists who had examined Petiot came next, including Dr. Georges Paul Génil Perrin, who had noted Petiot’s attempts to pretend he was insane to escape punishment.

“I have examined Petiot from a mental point of view,” Génil Perrin said, “and found him endowed with a lively intelligence and a remarkable gift for repartee …,” a statement that drew laughter from members of the audience and prompted Dupin to note that he had observed this quality himself even without psychiatric training. Génil Perrin then testified about Petiot’s troubled or “arrested moral development,” before concluding, as in his previous report, that the defendant was “fully responsible for his acts.”

Another psychiatrist, Dr. Paul Gouriou, testified that Petiot was not “a monster or a madman,” but rather “perverse, amoral, a scamp and a simulator. In times of trouble, he has attempted to avoid prosecution by faking insanity.” Petiot’s “lack of moral education,” he added, “has allowed him to develop a taste for evil.”

Floriot objected that the doctor’s patients found him quite the opposite.

“I know of doctors whose mental disequilibrium is expressed by an increased devotion to their patients.”

“Did he pretend to be insane with you?” Floriot asked.

“No, he lied about many points, but not that.”

“You concluded that Petiot completed his studies in a ‘mysterious’ fashion. Do you know his examination results?”

“I saw his grades. He had ‘mediocre’ in dissection,” Gouriou said to laughter in the courtroom. “His thesis received the grade ‘très bien,’ but that is done easily. A thesis can be bought if desired. At any rate, it is based on books and does not give an indication of the personal worth of a physician.”

Floriot pointed out that the witness was making insinuations without proof. He then asked the expert if, in his examination of Petiot’s relatives, he found anything unusual about his sister. After a slight hesitation, Gouriou said, “She is in good health.”

“Sorry, but Petiot does not have a sister.”

The courtroom erupted in laughter, prompting Leser to call for a recess.

THE trial recommenced with the prominent graphologist Professor Edouard de Rougemont, who was asked to testify about the handwriting of the letters supposedly sent by Van Bever, Khaït, Braunberger, and Hotin. In each case, Rougemont believed the letters were genuine, though the text was in disagreement with the actual sentiments of the writer. Rougemont detected a high degree of stress, probably even dictation under duress or the influence of drugs.

Floriot asked if the scholar could really draw these conclusions based only on looking at the handwriting. When Rougemont answered yes, Floriot scribbled something on his pad, ripped off the sheet, and handed it to the expert. Would he mind informing the court if Floriot believed what he had written? Rougemont read the paper and then refused to say anything. Floriot had written: “Monsieur de Rougemont is a great scholar who never makes a mistake.”

“If we had asked Petiot to write out his story and Monsieur de Rougemont to read it, we could have dispensed with this whole trial,” Floriot said, to another round of laughter in the courtroom.

Colonel André Dewavrin, director of the DGER intelligence service under General de Gaulle, was scheduled to testify. When the bailiff called his name, however, another man stood and announced that he represented Dewavrin. Président Leser was often criticized during the trial for his relaxed courtroom, but he was not going to accept a spokesman for a witness. Floriot also objected, claiming that the defense was counting on Colonel Dewavrin’s testimony, because as de Gaulle’s chief of intelligence, he could officially confirm Petiot’s work as a Resistance fighter.

Instead, a witness with much greater potential for damaging Petiot took the stand, Jacques Yonnet, who had published the article “Petiot, Soldier of the Third Reich,” which had played an important role in the capture of the physician. Yonnet had also investigated Petiot’s claims to have fought Germans and their collaborators, and drafted his summary for the court, which had concluded that Petiot had no Resistance credentials whatsoever.

Asked by Floriot about the newspaper article, Yonnet admitted that the piece was based on a copy of a report that he claimed later to find out had contained many falsehoods. He had published the article with the caveat that he could not vouch for all the allegations. As for the investigation, which Floriot criticized for its lack of objectivity, Yonnet stood by its results.

Petiot could not have known any of the people he mentioned, such as Brossolette, Cumuleau, or the other members of Arc-en-Ciel. Yonnet and his colleague Brouard could not find a single person who had heard of his so-called Fly-Tox organization, which moreover was not included on the files of Fighting France that were housed at 76 Avenue Henri-Martin. Fly-Tox, Yonnet concluded, had not existed other than in Petiot’s imagination.

Despite Yonnet’s sweeping claim, the files of the Brigade Criminelle show that several people had in fact heard of Fly-Tox, including the widows of Brossolette and Cumuleau. Still, no evidence of the group’s existence has ever been made public, and, if Fly-Tox existed, did Petiot really belong to it, or did he just exploit it for his own purposes?

It is unfortunate that Dewavrin did not appear at the Petiot trial. He could have helped clear up the matter of Petiot’s Resistance credentials, or lack thereof. Instead, his absence only raised questions. Dewavrin did not refer to the episode in his memoirs and never spoke of it, at least publicly, except for one time. On that occasion, he gave a terse rejection of Petiot: “Organized Resistance has never, for any reason whatsoever, had dealings with Dr. Petiot.”

Véron asked the defendant to elaborate on his claim of killing sixty-three people, thirty-three collaborators and thirty German soldiers. Beginning with the latter, Véron wanted to know how specifically Petiot had killed them. Petiot said vaguely that many of them had been his patients. Véron countered that Petiot was not authorized to treat German citizens.

“I refuse to tell you,” Petiot said. “I did not work to earn a stripe or a decoration. When there are invaders, there are always avengers.”

Véron persisted in his demands.

“I do not have to explain murders that I am not accused of committing. When I have been acquitted, you can indict me for the thirty Boches that I have taken down,” Petiot said, his usual bluster likely strengthened by his belief that the trial was swinging in his favor. Actually, several reporters in the room agreed with him. Headlines the next day noted that Petiot’s conviction looked doubtful.

Véron asked Petiot about his relationship to the Gestapo. Why did they not react to his so-called killings of German soldiers, and more important, once they had arrested him, why did they release him from prison? This was an important question that deserved more attention. Civilians arrested for helping evaders could expect no mercy from the Gestapo.

“Obviously,” Yonnet said, “this man should have been shot.”

“Monsieur Ibarne,” Petiot said, using Yonnet’s Resistance alias, “I saw you somewhere that you would not like me to mention.”

“On the contrary, I demand that you say it, because I am sure that I have never seen you.”

Petiot, who did not say a word, sat there beaming with a smirk that suggested that he held some valuable inside knowledge. Yonnet demanded that he answer.

“Do you not play tennis at the Racing Club?” Petiot asked, suggesting that Yonnet was affiliated with an institution requisitioned by the Germans and favored by many elite French collaborators. No, Yonnet said, he did not play tennis and had never been to that club. Petiot made no rebuttal.

Yonnet’s DGER colleague, Lieutenant Brouard, next testified that Petiot could not pick out Cumuleau in a group of photographs. Moreover, he reiterated the results of their investigation, which included no fewer than twenty-five instances where Petiot’s testimony contradicted basic facts about the Resistance. By the time Leser adjourned the court at seven that evening, these last two prosecution witnesses had dealt harsh blows to Petiot’s credibility.