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

by David King

  “Are you sure?” Petiot asked, the tone and timing of his question making some wonder if this man should be considered victim number 28 in the docket.

  Despite the impression Petiot’s comments made, this man was not his victim. Charles Lombard, or “Paul the Beautiful,” had fled France, where he was wanted for charges of “intelligence with the enemy.”

  “Your investigation was conducted very hastily, Inspector,” Floriot said.

  “I did not have a dozen secretaries to prepare my work, maître,” Battut said, glancing over at the defense counsel, who was supported by the “Floriot boys” and a number of other assistants who had joined them that day. The audience appreciated the remark.

  “Yet you have a dozen inspectors who work under your orders,” Floriot said.

  “Would you like to inform us,” Petiot interjected, “of how many patriots you arrested and sent to the Germans to be shot?”

  Inspector Battut glared at the defendant.

  “Of course,” Petiot answered for the officer. “There were too many to count.”

  “Who is the criminal here?” Véron asked.

  In rapid succession, three other police inspectors were called to the stand that afternoon to testify that the investigation could find no confirmation of Petiot’s claims of being a Resistance fighter. A Resistant, Captain Henri Boris, also confirmed that the group Fly-Tox was “completely unknown to Fighting France.” Petiot countered by arguing that his group was independent of the mainstream Resistance forces based in London.

  After Jean Hotin’s unimpressive testimony, which added little to the trial except comic relief, Captain Urbain Gouraud, formerly of the Villeneuve-sur-Yonne police department, called Petiot “an adventurer without scruple” and boasted of issuing him seven tickets. He also testified about his long-held suspicions that Petiot had killed his earlier lover, Louisette Delaveau.

  Floriot then pointed out a problem with the witness’s testimony: “Before he accused Petiot, do you know how many other people he knew were guilty? … Nine, gentlemen, nine. If they had not closed the case, he would have accused the entire town.”

  At the end of the first week of the trial, the police investigation appeared botched, hastily conducted, and riddled with many errors and omissions. The prosecution, likewise, looked lost in the thirty-kilo dossier. Swiss journalist Edmond Dubois summed up the strange dichotomy: While “the Parisian newspapers continue to treat Petiot as a monster and publish his sniggering photograph with the menacing eyes, the conversations that take place in the corridors [of the Palais de Justice] during the intermissions of the trial far from reflect that unanimity.”

  AFTER a welcome rest on Sunday, the trial resumed on day seven, Monday, March 25. First to take the stand was the widow Renée Guschinow, a small blond woman dressed in black mourning veils who looked young and thin—“thin as an umbrella,” one journalist put it. With quivering voice, she retraced the reasoning behind her husband’s decision to leave Paris and how Dr. Petiot had invited him to rue Le Sueur to discuss his escape to Argentina.

  Guschinow’s attorney, Maître Archevêque, turned to Petiot and asked why he took his client to rue Le Sueur if he was a patient at rue Caumartin.

  Petiot replied that he could not organize flights where his wife lived, his housekeeper worked, and medical practice flourished. The physician added with sarcasm that he would like to invite the court to his apartment, but he would have to give the matter some thought because of the mess everyone made at rue Le Sueur.

  “You are very intelligent,” Archevêque said.

  “You know, Maître, intelligence is only relative.”

  Archevêque asked about the injections Petiot had allegedly administered, wondering why they would be necessary for a clandestine journey to Argentina.

  “That’s totally idiotic,” Petiot said. The Australian INS correspondent for the trial remarked that Petiot seemed again to turn angry. “There were certainly no health regulations for admittance to Argentina. Everyone who thinks, like you, that I gave injections has just read the newspapers.”

  Madame Guschinow testified that her husband told her that Petiot would take care of all the details and he was not concerned, except for the injections.

  “Nonsense!” Petiot interrupted. “I gave him injections for a year. Why would he be worried?” He accused her of making up the story based on an article she read in Paris-Soir.

  Leser warned Petiot to choose his words wisely. The witness was testifying under oath.

  “No, that is just what she is not doing,” Petiot said.

  Leser, grabbing the edge of the table, lunged forward in anger at the defendant for this latest defiance. Petiot, however, was correct. The witness had not been sworn in; as a party to a civil suit, she was not legally required to take an oath.

  Maître Archevêque asked about the handwriting in the postcards and letters, which appeared shaky and more strained than usual. He was leading into his theory that Petiot had kept Guschinow as hostage for three days, forcing him to write letters to his wife.

  “It’s normal,” Petiot said, brushing aside the irregularities in the script. “He was a sick man on the point of making a long journey.” Petiot then challenged the witness, her attorney, and the prosecution to produce a single piece of Guschinow’s clothing or jewelry found at his apartment.

  “But a suitcase that he purchased was found there,” Dupin said.

  “I’m the one who told you that,” Petiot said. The suitcase had been left behind, he added, because it was too heavy for the upcoming journey. “You do not cross three frontiers with a weight like that. I then suggested to Guschinow that he should exchange that suitcase for a smaller bag.”

  Madame Guschinow recounted how she went to Paris every month to ask Petiot about her husband. Each time, the physician told her that his business was thriving in Buenos Aires, and suggested that she sell her belongings and join him. Other than the first communication written in code, Petiot would not show her any of the letters, because he claimed that they contained confidential information about his organization and he had destroyed them.

  Petiot accused her again of lying and of wanting to remain in Paris because she had a new lover. Floriot agreed, suggesting that she had memorized her testimony and repeated certain phrases verbatim. Several people began speaking at once.

  After order was restored, Floriot wanted to know why Guschinow did not join her husband.

  “My health, my business,” she began, before Petiot again interrupted.

  “She had found a younger lover.”

  “But you had confidence in Dr. Petiot?” Floriot asked.

  “Yes, I had confidence in him.”

  “You said during the investigation that you didn’t leave because you didn’t have faith in the doctor.”

  Petiot asked if she knew about her husband’s condition and the injections he received for his treatment. The way he said the words made it clear that Guschinow had caught a venereal disease. Leser did not like the way the questioning was proceeding. There were many witnesses scheduled to appear, he said, and asked Guschinow to stand down. Otherwise, he added, the trial might drag on until July.

  After Guschinow’s former associate Jean Gouedo testified about the fortune that his friend had carried and that the furs in Petiot’s possession were certainly not gifts, Floriot went on the attack. He wanted to know if a court-appointed commission had been sent to Buenos Aires to look for Guschinow.

  When Dupin dodged the question, Floriot insisted that the prosecution had had ample opportunity to investigate Guschinow’s whereabouts and neglected this simple means of verification. He was relentless. Leser said that the court should “send a telegram.”

  “No one is dead or missing,” Floriot started, before members of the audience laughed and he realized how the words sounded.

  “No one is dead or missing in the Guschinow case,” Floriot corrected himself. “Let’s first make these confirmations in Argentina.”

/>   ONE of the more interesting witnesses in the trial took the stand that day. Michel Cadoret de l’Epinguen, a thirty-three-year-old interior designer, was one of the few known people who had attempted to escape through Dr. Eugène but, after gaining admission, backed out. He had left Paris with his wife and son by another underground route in July 1943. When the family returned to the capital after the Liberation, they found that they had been listed among Petiot’s victims. Cadoret de l’Epinguen had a valuable perspective indeed.

  The witness explained that he had been referred to Petiot through Robert Malfet, a chauffeur who had been arrested after the Liberation with more than 300,000 francs and a fortune of jewels in his possession, in addition to fur coats, clothes that did not match his size, and a collection of fifty-five newspaper articles about the Petiot case.

  Malfet, the witness said, had spoken of the process ahead, including the acquisition of false papers, the stay in a town house belonging to the organization, and the necessity of injections to enter Argentina. These injections, Petiot said, would “render us invisible to the eyes of the world.”

  Petiot scoffed. “The mad doctor with his syringe. It was a dark and rainy night. The wind howled under the eaves and rattled the windowpanes of the oak-paneled library.”

  Leser admonished him. “Petiot, please.”

  Cadoret and his wife, a psychiatrist, had been skeptical of the need for papers and injections, and more than a little concerned about Petiot’s knowledge of drugs like peyote. Petiot himself seemed to be under the influence, as did the woman Cadoret called “his secretary, Eryane.” There was only one Eryane close to Petiot in 1943: Eryane Kahan, the alleged recruiter who herself would soon take the stand.

  In December 1944, Cadoret had told the police that he and his wife had met with Kahan. On their way to the hair salon, the three of them passed a number of German soldiers, who, worryingly, saluted Kahan and exchanged a few words in German with her. The Cadorets had also been concerned about Petiot’s vague responses and the inability to get a straight answer from him about the place of departure and the place of arrival in Argentina. What particularly disturbed them, however, was something else: “He had black stains under his fingernails, which we found unusual for a doctor.” Petiot laughed again.

  The witness testified that they had also been surprised that a supposed member of the Resistance operating a philanthropic organization would charge a fee of 50,000 francs for passage out of the country.

  Wasn’t the charge, Petiot asked, at first 90,000?

  Cadoret did not remember.

  “It’s very important,” Petiot said. “That’s what saved your life!”

  At these words, members of the audience shrieked in horror. Petiot tried to clarify his meaning, claiming that he asked such a high fee to discover if the witness was a real candidate for departure. The Cadorets’ refusal showed that they were not Gestapo informers and so he had reimbursed them for their expenses.

  Floriot wanted to underscore this point. Who had backed out first? Cadoret admitted that he contacted Eryane Kahan to decline, but she immediately announced that Petiot would have no further dealings with him and his family.

  The defense counsel had scored again, but the question remained why Petiot would, all of a sudden, refuse a client who passed his test for not working for the Gestapo. Wasn’t he claiming to be operating an escape organization, and if not, what did this new admission mean for his assertion that he had helped other clients reach South America? The questions were unfortunately not addressed.

  “Will we have the pleasure and honor of seeing Madame Cadoret this afternoon?” Petiot asked, as the witness left the stand.

  The next man to testify was Joseph Scarella, a maître d’hôtel at the Café Weber, and a Petiot patient who had, in fact, with his physician’s help, escaped deportation to Germany. Petiot had written a false certificate claiming that Scarella suffered from syphilis. Scarella also told how he had wanted to flee because there was not much work for a master chef in Occupied Paris who did not want to serve the Germans. When he approached Petiot about departure, Scarella said, he was told to bring 100,000 francs and some jewels as a precaution because it sometimes took a lot of time before people found work.

  Why didn’t the Scarellas attempt to leave with Petiot’s escape organization? He was prepared to depart, the witness said, but his wife had refused.

  By the time Scarella left the stand, it was already a quarter after five in the afternoon and the witnesses scheduled to testify next had left the courtroom. Leser adjourned the court. It had been another long day in a trial that only seemed to become more sensational and controversial, and no closer to resolution.

  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.”