 |
Marcel PetiotCynical killer
Date of Birth: 17.01.1897
Country:  France |
Content:
- Biography of Marcel Petiot
- Medical career and criminal activities
- Mysterious crimes and downfall
- The House of Horror
- Arrest, investigation, and trial
- Discovery of the House of Horror and the trial
Biography of Marcel Petiot
Marcel Petiot, a cynical killerMarcel Petiot, often referred to as the king of French murderers, was born on January 17, 1897, in the small town of Oissery on the banks of the Ivonne River. His father, an executive postal official, registered him at the mayor's office under the name Marcel Andre Henri Felix Petiot. It was in 1914, during World War I, that Marcel first caught the attention of psychiatrists. While serving in the war, he was wounded in the leg by a grenade fragment and sent to a hospital. It was there that the first signs of paranoia appeared, leading to a psychiatric examination. At that time, doctors deemed him healthy and attributed his nervous system instability to the conditions of wartime.
Medical career and criminal activities
After the war, Marcel Petiot studied medicine in Lyon and completed his studies with a magnificent dissertation. He then settled in Villeneuve and started a medical practice. Contrary to his later criminal activities, Petiot became known as a bold innovator in the medical field, successfully applying new treatment methods. He actively participated in shaping local government policies, published exposé articles in the local press, and gained increasing popularity in both politics and medicine.
Mysterious crimes and downfall
However, neighboring Villeneuve became the site of mysterious crimes that the police were unable to solve. The former maid and lover of Petiot disappeared without a trace. The house of Petiot's neighbors, who reported the missing maid's pregnancy by Petiot to the police, burned down. One of Petiot's patients was found strangled in her own apartment. A resident of the town named Frascot, suspecting Petiot's involvement in these crimes, died shortly after taking medicine prescribed by the doctor. The police and the public did not suspect any foul play in Frascot's death, as he had agreed to try Petiot's new therapy involving bee venom.
Petiot's downfall came when he was caught stealing a gasoline can. He was sentenced to a fourteen-day imprisonment and a minimal fine, effectively ending his political career. Petiot decided to leave Villeneuve and moved to Paris, where he opened a medical practice on Rue Chomartin in 1933.
The House of Horror
Petiot's criminal activities resurfaced when he was caught stealing a book from a second-hand bookstore owned by Jibert on Boulevard Saint-Michel. He was sent to a psychiatric clinic, from which he was only released when war broke out. At that time, human life seemed to have lost its value. It was then that Petiot came up with the "bright" idea. France was filled with people persecuted by the Nazis, especially Jews. Petiot first subtly hinted at his abilities to these people, and then promised to illegally and safely smuggle them to the United States.
In May 1941, he bought a house at 21 Rue Lezay for half a million francs. This house became the starting point and the end of his "smuggling operation." Petiot killed those who trusted him, using either curare poison or suffocating gases, and disposed of their bodies in lime pits. The door to Petiot's office had a peephole through which he would observe the agony of his victims.
Arrest, investigation, and trial
During the investigation into Petiot's crimes, the police meticulously collected any information about missing persons. Relatives of the disappeared were presented with a "collection of items" found in Petiot's possession for identification, and descriptions of the discovered clothing items were published in the press. Step by step, the police identified twenty-seven victims, whose names were later mentioned in the trial documents.
It was revealed that Petiot's victims were not only Jews but also many of his patients in occupied Paris who knew too much and could have become dangerous for him. Petiot's activities as a smuggler of people hiding from the Nazis ultimately caught the attention of the German police, who suspected him of being involved in the Resistance. In 1943, several provocateurs were sent to him, but they disappeared without a trace, just like the refugees.
Petiot was arrested by the Germans, but a search of his house yielded no evidence. Surprisingly calm and composed, Petiot was released. He immediately returned to his death factory. The only goal that drove him was to quickly dispose of the corpses. However, on one Saturday, Petiot arrived at Rue Lezay on his bicycle and discovered that the police were on his property. The neighbors couldn't bear the repulsive odor coming from Petiot's house and had complained to the station.
Discovery of the House of Horror and the trial
Commissioner Massieu, deeply shaken, inspected the sinister house. Next to the furnace, neatly arranged, were sorted limbs, ribs, and hair. Some unidentifiable charred remains still smoldered, and a large pile of charred bones lay in front of the furnace. Later investigations revealed that Petiot had only started burning the bodies of his victims in March 1944. Until then, he had disfigured the faces of the deceased beyond recognition, dismembered their bodies, and dispersed the parts in the surrounding area, burying or throwing them into the Seine. Petiot was indicted for twenty-seven murders, cases where the evidence clearly pointed to him. However, during the trial, the criminal himself confessed to sixty-three murders.
Investigators managed to find 80 witnesses who reported various suspicious facts, although no one had witnessed the actual murder procedure, which was executed flawlessly. Journalists present at the trial dubbed Petiot's triangular office the gateway to hell.
Two years after the discovery of the Death House on Rue Lezay, on March 28, 1946, a jury sentenced Marcel Petiot, one of the most cynical murderers in the history of criminology, to death by guillotine.
