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

CHAPTER 4. Two WITNESSES

1 no fewer than ninety-five AN 334, AP 65, 3313 and 3422. This part of Petiot’s practice was already being reported by Le Matin, March 14, 1944.

2 Massu now learned Georges Massu, L’enquête Petiot: La plus grande affaire criminelle du siècle (Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1959), 45–46.

3 In early 1942 André Larue discusses some of the drug seizures at this time in Les Flics (Paris: Fayard, 1969), 213, and another view is in Gérard de Villiers, La brigade mondaine: Dossiers secrets révélés par Maurice Vincent, Officier de police principal honoraire (Paris: Presses de la Cité, 1972).

4 Jean-Marc Van Bever APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° I, particularly folder 13.

5 the most exposed See, for instance, Lucien Zimmer, Un Septennat policier: Dessous et secrets de la police républicaine (Paris: Fayard, 1967), 143–154.

6 Petiot had written AN 334 AP 65, 4168.

7 “go out and steal” … “only known cure” John V. Grombach, The Great Liquidator (New York: Zebra Books, 1980), 141.

8 He had, however, become AN 334 AP 65, 4171.

9 “Perhaps Jeannette had” Thomas Maeder, The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1980), 23.

10 In November 1941 AN 334 AP 65, 4182–4183.

11 “It is no longer necessary” … a fine Grombach, The Great Liquidator, 144.

12 “14 vials of heroin” AN 334, AP 65, 4193–4194.

13 It was hardly his fault AN 334, AP 65, 4192–4193. Both Baudet and Desrouet would later blame each other.

14 According to the police report Fernand Lavie, Audition, March 14, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° III.

15 Petiot offered to make Ibid.

16 “Do not trouble yourself” Claude Bertin, Les assassins hors-série: Gilles de Rais, Petiot, vol. 10 of Les grands procès de l’histoire de France (Paris: Éditions de Saint-Clair, 1967), 165.

17 Khaït also recalled AN 334, AP 65, 4201.

18 The maid, who received the letters AN 334, AP 65, 4206.

19 “You wretch!” Le Matin, March 14, 1944, and Petiot’s reply, Massu, L’enquête Petiot, 51.

20 “Rest assured” Marcel Jullian, Le Mystère Petiot (Paris: Edition No. 1, 1980), 142; Georges Massu reports the incident with slightly different words in L’enquête Petiot, 52.