Marcel Petiot

Marcel André Henri Félix Petiot (17 January 1897 – 25 May 1946) was a French medical doctor and serial killer. He was convicted of multiple murders of Jews after the discovery of the remains of 23 people in the basement of his home in Paris during World War II. He is suspected of the murder of about 60 to 200 mostly Jewish victims during his lifetime, although the true number remains unknown. During the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, Petiot set up a fake escape network under the name “Dr. Eugène.” He claimed he could help Jews and others wanted by the Gestapo flee to South America via Portugal, for a large fee. He lured his victims to his home at 21 Rue Le Sueur in Paris, promising them safety. Instead, he murdered them—often by injecting them with poison under the pretense of giving them vaccinations—and then stole their valuables and disposed of their bodies, frequently by burning them.

Despite showing early signs of mental illness and criminal behaviour, Petiot served in the First World War, graduated from an accelerated medical program, and began a dubious medical career that included performing abortions and supplying narcotics. His political career was marked by scandal, theft, and corruption. Captured in 1944, Petiot claimed to be a Resistance hero who killed only the enemies of France. He was convicted of 26 counts of murder and was executed by guillotine in 1946. His life and crimes have been depicted in film and comic books.

Early life

Marcel Petiot was born on 17 January 1897 in Auxerre, Yonne, in north central France. During his teenage years, he robbed a postbox and was charged with damage to public property and theft. Petiot was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, resulting in charges being dismissed when it was judged that he had a mental illness.

Later accounts make various claims of Petiot's delinquency and criminal acts during his youth, but it is unknown whether they were invented afterwards for public consumption. A psychiatrist reaffirmed Petiot's mental illness on 26 March 1914. After being expelled from school many times, he finished his education in a special academy in Paris in July 1915.

Petiot volunteered for the French Army in World War I, entering service in January 1916. He was wounded and gassed in the Second Battle of the Aisne, and exhibited more symptoms of a mental breakdown. Petiot was sent to various rest homes, where he was arrested for stealing army blankets, morphine, and other army supplies, as well as wallets, photographs, and letters; he was jailed in Orléans. In a psychiatric hospital in Fleury-les-Aubrais, Petiot was again diagnosed with various mental illnesses but was returned to the front in June 1918. He was transferred three weeks later after he allegedly injured his foot with a grenade, but was attached to a new regiment in September. A new diagnosis was enough to get him discharged with a disability pension.

Medical and political career

After the war, Petiot entered the accelerated education program intended for war veterans, completed medical school in eight months, and became an intern at the mental hospital in Évreux. He received his medical degree in December 1921 and relocated to Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, where he received payment for his services both from the patients and from government medical assistance funds. At this time Petiot was already using addictive narcotics. While working at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, he gained a reputation for dubious medical practices, such as supplying narcotics and performing illegal abortions, as well as for petty theft.

Petiot's first murder victim might have been Louise Delaveau, an elderly patient's daughter with whom Petiot had an affair in 1926. Delaveau disappeared during May of that year, and neighbours later said they had seen Petiot load a trunk into his car. Police investigated but eventually dismissed her case as a runaway. That same year, Petiot campaigned for mayor of Villeneuve-sur-Yonne and hired somebody to disrupt a political debate with his opponent. He won, and while in office embezzled town funds. The next year, Petiot married Georgette Lablais, the 23-year-old daughter of a wealthy landowner and butcher in Seignelay. Their son Gerhardt was born in April 1928.

The prefect of Yonne received many complaints about Petiot's thefts and dubious financial dealings. He was eventually suspended as mayor in August 1931 and resigned. However, Petiot still had many supporters, and the village council also resigned in sympathy with him. Five weeks later, on 18 October, he was elected as a councillor of Yonne Département. In 1932, he was accused of stealing electricity from the village and lost his council seat. By this time he had already relocated to Paris.

In Paris, Petiot attracted patients by using fake credentials, and built an impressive reputation for his practice at 66 Rue de Caumartin. However, there were rumours of illegal abortions and excessive prescriptions of addictive remedies. In 1936, Petiot was appointed médecin d'état-civil, with authority to write death certificates. The same year, he was institutionalized briefly for kleptomania, but was released the next year. He persisted in tax evasion.

World War II activities

After the 1940 German defeat of France, French citizens were drafted for forced labour in Germany. Petiot provided false medical disability certificates to people who were drafted. He also treated the illnesses of workers who had returned. In July 1942, he was convicted of overprescribing narcotics, even though two addicts who would have testified against him had disappeared. He was fined 2,400 francs.

Petiot later claimed that during the period of German occupation, he was engaged in Resistance activities. He supposedly developed secret weapons that killed Germans without leaving forensic evidence, planted booby traps all over Paris, had high-level meetings with Allied commanders, and worked with a (nonexistent) group of Spanish anti-fascists.

There is no evidence for any of these statements. However, in 1980, he was cited by former U.S. spymaster Col. John F. Grombach as a World War II source. Grombach had been founder and commander of a small independent espionage agency, known later as "The Pond" that operated from 1942 to 1955. Grombach asserted that Petiot had reported the Katyn Forest massacre, German missile development at Peenemünde, and the names of Abwehr agents sent to the U.S. While these claims were not corroborated by any records of other intelligence services, in 2001, some "Pond" records were discovered, including a cable that mentioned Petiot.

Fraudulent escape network

Petiot's most lucrative activity during the Occupation was his false escape route. Using the codename "Dr. Eugène," Petiot pretended to have a means of getting people wanted by the Germans or the Vichy government to safety outside France. Petiot claimed that he could arrange a passage to Argentina or elsewhere in South America through Portugal, for a price of 25,000 francs per person. Three accomplices, Raoul Fourrier, Edmond Pintard, and René-Gustave Nézondet directed victims to "Dr. Eugène," including Jews, Resistance fighters, and ordinary criminals. Once victims were in his control, Petiot told them that Argentine officials required all entrants to the country to be inoculated against disease and with this excuse injected them with cyanide. He then took all their valuables and disposed of the bodies.

At first, Petiot dumped the bodies in the Seine, but later he destroyed bodies by submerging them in quicklime or incinerating them. In 1941, Petiot bought a house at 21 Rue le Sueur, near the Arc de Triomphe. He purchased the house the same week that Henri Lafont returned to Paris with money and permission from the Abwehr to recruit new members for the French Gestapo.

The Gestapo eventually learned about this "route" for the escape of wanted persons, which they assumed was part of the Resistance. Gestapo agent Robert Jodkum forced prisoner Yvan Dreyfus to approach the supposed network, but Dreyfus simply vanished. A later informer successfully infiltrated the operation and the Gestapo arrested Fourrier, Pintard, and Nézondet. During the torture, they confessed that "Dr. Eugène" was Marcel Petiot.

Nézondet was later released, but three others spent eight months in prison, suspected of helping Jews to escape. Even during torture, they did not identify any other members of the Resistance because they didn't know any. The Gestapo released the three men in January 1944.

Discovery of murders

On 11 March 1944, Petiot's neighbours in Rue Le Sueur complained to police about a foul stench in the area and large volumes of smoke billowing from a chimney of the house. Fearing a chimney fire, the police summoned firemen, who entered the house and found a great fire in a coal stove in the basement. In the fire, and scattered in the basement, were human remains.