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

CHAPTER 23. INTERROGATIONS

1 “a hero of the Resistance” … later Simonin would say Simonin to Decaux, Alain Decaux, C’était le xxe siècle, 293, 284–288.

2 Petiot denied … He returned to rue Le Sueur Marcel Petiot, Procès-verbal d’interrogatoire, October 31, 1944, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

3 Years later Simonin told this to Marcel Jullian, Le Mystère Petiot (Paris: Edition No. 1, 1980), 203.

4 “My conscience does not” Alomée Planel, Docteur Satan ou L’affaire Petiot (Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, 1978), 250; Front National, November 3, 1944.

5 “A demon for detail” Time, July 28, 1967. See also Françoise Giroud vous présente le tout-Paris. Préface de Marcel Achard (Paris: Gallimard, 1952), 88–93.

6 Mussolini, who at the height Information on Magda Fontages’s relationship with Mussolini comes from his chaffeur, Ercole Boratto, whose memoir was discovered by Mario J. Cereghino in 2004, in his work with Giorgio Cavalleri and Franco Giannantoni, La Fine: Gli ultimi giorni di Benito Mussolini nei documenti dei servizi segreti americani (1945–1946) (Milan: Garzanti, 2009).

7 Petiot’s sector was reserved Pierre Montagnon, 42, rue de la Santé: une prison politique, 1867–1968 (Paris: Pygmalion/Gérard Watelet, 1996), 259.

8 “I have been” … “A five-ton truck” Marcel Petiot, November 2, 1944, published in Planel, Docteur Satan, 254–258.

9 When a handful Megan Koreman, The Expectation of Justice: France, 1944–1946 (Durham: Duke University Press, 1999), 50.

10 “too uncultivated” Jean-François Dominique, L’affaire Petiot: médecin, marron, gestapiste, guillotiné pour au moins vingt-sept assassinats (Paris: Éditions Ramsay, 1980), 179.

11 “in a great disorder” … “I was absolutely bewildered” Jacques Perry and Jane Chabert, L’affaire Petiot (Paris: Gallimard, 1957), 111–112.

12 April 4, 1936 Report, April 6, 1936, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

13 “bash his face in” Ibid.

14 According to this document Reports of April 6 and June 18, 1936, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

15 “If I hadn’t given it” Ibid.

16 “wept convulsively” Dr. Ceillier, Rapport Medico-Legal, July 22, 1936, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

17 “mental debility” … “dangerous to himself and others” Ibid.

18 The physician arrived APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° I, folder 43.

19 “cyclothymic” Dr. Achille Delmas, August 15, 1936, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

20 “to justify his past acts” Ibid.

21 “attempting a variety of simultaneous tasks” Ibid.

22 “calm, lucid, and non-delirious” Dr. Rogues de Fursac, Medical Report, August 18, 1936, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

23 “a state of mental equilibrium” Dr. Achille Delmas, August 25, 1936, Extrait du registre du contrôle de psychiatrie de la Vo Région, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

24 “I am absolutely sane in mind” Marcel Petiot to the procureur de la république, August 18, 1936, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.

25 “amoral and unbalanced” … “should not weigh excessively” Rapport Medico-Legal, December 19, 1936, APP, Série J, affaire Petiot, carton n° V.