by Landru's Secret- The Deadly Seductions of France's Lonely Hearts Serial Killer (retail) (epub)
“Stand up, Landru,” Lagasse snarled, “and tell us where she [Annette] is.” Head down, Landru carried on scribbling in his colour-coded dossiers, studiously ignoring this rude interruption to his labours.
***
At the end of Saturday’s hearing, a reporter for the highbrow Journal des Débats Politiques et Littéraires watched Landru as he prepared to leave the court:
“Slowly, Landru closes his dossiers, wipes his pen and puts his pencils in his pocket, with the attention to detail of a meticulous bureaucrat who, on Saturday evening, orders his office accessories with greater care than on other days. For almost four hours by the clock, two orators [Surcouf and Lagasse] have called for his head. This head he now inclines graciously towards the jurors, in a gesture which says quite simply, ‘Till Monday, messieurs’.”
The day was not yet over for Navières. Most evenings for the past three weeks, a young woman with “a bitter mouth, creased forehead and feverish eyes” had waited in a little anteroom for Navières to brief her about the latest session.
On this Saturday evening, Navières would have been careful not to give Landru’s daughter Suzanne false reasons for hope. Her father was destined for the horrors of a penal settlement in Guyane even if he was acquitted of the 11 murder charges; and the circumstantial evidence that Landru had killed all 11 individuals was substantial. Everything pointed to his guilt, from the missing women’s silence and the telltale notes in the carnet, to Landru’s theft of their assets and above all, the charred bone debris.
Yet Navières, taking his cue from Moro, was still cautiously confident that Landru could avoid the guillotine. Throughout the trial, Moro had repeatedly reminded the jury that a death penalty required them to be certain of Landru’s guilt, because the sentence could not be reversed. Moro had shown how doubt, ambiguity and police incompetence lurked in every corner of a murder case with no bodies. Even Dr Paul, the prosecution’s star forensic expert, had conceded that the bone fragments were a “puzzle”.
Only one fact was clear. That Sunday, as Godefroy worked on his closing speech, he was under more pressure than Moro, the acknowledged master of the plaidoirie; for Godefroy would have to prove the prosecution case beyond all reasonable doubt.
Chapter 20
You Have Death in Your Soul
Nineteenth Day: Monday, 28 November
Godefroy caught flu over the weekend. In chilly weather, he arrived at the Palais de Justice on Monday with a fever and a rasping cough, determined to read every word of the plaidoirie he had laboriously written. Shortly after 1.00 pm he stood up, lent heavily against the lectern, and surveyed the tumultuous scene before him.
On Gilbert’s authority, the press was camped in the well of the court, allowing more spectators to cram into the gallery. It was standing room only in the gangways and aisles, while “elegant ladies [had] clambered up to the high window ledges, shamelessly displaying their legs to the spectators placed beneath them,” Le Journal reported in dismay.
Mistinguett and her one-time lover Maurice Chevalier were back, seated near General Robert Nivelle, author of the deranged military offensive in 1917. Gabriel Bonin, the investigating magistrate, had also come to watch Godefroy, adding to the prosecutor’s nerves.
Godefroy coughed twice, looked down at his script and began. L’affaire Landru was not “a political invention” aimed at distracting public attention from the grave problems of post-war France, Godefroy said. Nor was Landru a comic figure, a criminal Charlie Chaplin.
“You know the character of this man, his cheating ways, his downcast look like a hunted fox,” Godefroy told the jurors. “For sure, Landru has killed ten women and one young man.”
Godefroy “confessed loyally” that the prosecution could not produce any witnesses who could speak to this certainty. “But I consider that the testimony of the experts has made the sliced-up corpses of his victims appear before the eyes of the jury.”
Landru was not “devoid of all decent feeling”, Godefroy went on, because his infidelity “had not lessened his love” for his wife. “When she was accused of being his accomplice, he strenuously defended her.”
Somewhere outside the Palais de Justice a cock crowed. Landru glanced up from his notes, momentarily distracted, and then returned to his meaningless homework, utterly uninterested in Godefroy.
Several reporters were already struggling to pay attention to Godefroy’s speech, delivered in a hoarse monotone. “He reads without any éclat,” L’Excelsior remarked. Godefroy was also obviously ill, mopping beads of sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief.
His biggest mistake was to fail to offer the jury a clear line of argument. He deplored Landru’s insistence that it was up to the prosecution to prove his crimes, even though Landru was correct in law. Godefroy then wandered back to Landru’s early career, seeking to extrapolate clues in the defendant’s “true character” to explain the terrible events in Vernouillet and Gambais.
What followed was a mishmash of contradictions. Here was “an accomplished swindler” (prompting a smirk from Landru) who nonetheless kept getting caught by the police. Faced with the “horrors” of deportation in 1914, Landru had decided to assure his “peace and comfort” by resuming a life of crime. So began the “tragic litany of the ten fiancées”, robbed and then killed by Landru to prevent them going to the police:
“Before you, messieurs les jurés, is a monster dripping with the blood of 11 victims. It remains for me to unmask him completely to obtain from you the suppression of this dangerous, rotting branch of the social tree.”
Gilbert called an interval; Godefroy slumped in his seat. He had been talking for more than an hour and had not yet reached the first alleged murder on the charge sheet.
***
“When the session resumes, the din is indescribable,” Le Petit Journal reported, using the present tense to convey the drama. “The whole audience stands up solely to catch a glimpse of Landru, for it is difficult in such a throng to see him completely, because the crowd in the well of the court is as packed as in the gallery.” Spectators had even grabbed the vacant seats of any journalist who had gone off to the lavatory, refusing to budge when the reporters returned.
Once Gilbert had restored order, Godefroy at last turned to the case of Jeanne Cuchet.
“Mme Cuchet, who lived comfortably, was she going to break with her relatives just like that in order to hand her furniture to Landru?” Godefroy asked. “No. She lost her head, fascinated by Landru.”
Godefroy reminded the jury that Landru had refused to talk about what happened to Jeanne because he had a private arrangement with her, an excuse he repeated for all his other victims.
“You cannot say anything because you’re guilty,” Godefroy accused Landru, who was so immersed in his dossiers that he did not notice a large fly had settled on his forehead.
“How can one explain as well the disappearance of young André Cuchet, an ardent patriot who would never have left la patrie when it was in danger?”
Failing to answer his own question, Godefroy announced that he would next unveil eight certain ‘proofs’ that Landru had murdered Jeanne, André and the other fiancées who had vanished at Vernouillet and Gambais.
The first proof was the “fatal list” of 11 names that Landru had written in his carnet. The second proof was Landru’s purchase of oneway train tickets for his fiancées on their last journeys to Gambais. The third proof was his recording of the time in his carnet on the day of each murder: “It is the hour of the crime, indicated by the executioner. How, one will say, could someone as intelligent, informed and methodical as Landru be so imprudent that he inscribed such important annotations in his carnet?”
Godefroy merely referred the jury back to famous murder cases in the past where the killer had left a trail of evidence.
His fourth proof was Landru’s sale of the womens’ assets after they disappeared. It was the “realisation of the booty”. To establish his fifth proof, Godefroy asked why
Landru had enlisted his wife to fake several fiancées’ signatures in order to get his hands on their savings: “If the genuine title holders were living, he would not have needed recourse to the services of Mme Landru.” This was a strong point and to root it in the jurors’ minds, Godefroy went over in detail all Marie-Catherine’s forgeries on Landru’s behalf.
By mid-afternoon, Godefroy was “starting to show signs of fatigue”, according to Le Journal. A photograph of Godefroy, taken at about this time, caught him resting his elbows on the lectern as he hunched over his prepared text. One juror seems half asleep, while a reporter stares away, apparently at a loss about what to write in his notepad.
Godefroy battled on to his sixth proof. After each murder, Landru had returned a few days later to the Villa Tric for some mysterious task; clearly the job in hand was the disposal of the remains of his victims.
Godefroy’s seventh proof was Landru’s use of cover stories for the missing women: Jeanne Cuchet had supposedly gone to England with André; Anna Collomb was travelling in the south of France; Célestine Buisson was managing a canteen for American soldiers; and so on.
At this point Godefroy stopped. He admitted to Gilbert that he was extremely tired and asked if he could complete his plaidoirie in the morning. Gilbert readily agreed and the hearing was adjourned for the day.
Unintentionally, Godefroy had just sabotaged Moro’s planned plaidoirie. Moro had constructed his closing argument as a seamless speech to be delivered, with intervals, in one session. He would now have to use whatever time Godefroy left him on Tuesday afternoon to begin his address and then resume on Wednesday at a juncture he could not anticipate. It was as bad a stroke of luck for Moro as the flu had been for Godefroy.
***
Twentieth Day: Tuesday, 29 November
Most of the next morning’s newspapers struggled to say anything complimentary about Godefroy’s speech. Le Petit Journal thought that the jury had paid less attention to Godefroy than to the witnesses in the trial. L’Excelsior remarked condescendingly that an “unhappy attack of flu” had deprived Godefroy of some of his powers. By implication, the last part of Godefroy’s plaidoirie would need to be considerably more persuasive or Landru might yet avoid the death penalty.
The weather on Tuesday was the coldest of the trial so far and the clerk ordered the blow heaters to operate at full blast. Once again, a stream of people flowed into the courtroom, long after all the seats had been taken. A scuffle broke out between two women who had both claimed the same place, and they “scratched each other good and proper amid shouts from the crowd”, Le Journal reported disapprovingly.
More cries greeted Landru as he arrived in court, flanked by his guards. He glowered at the gallery and started laying out his pens and dossiers, ready for the day’s business. Gilbert called for order and Godefroy, still sick, resumed his plaidoirie.
***
Godefroy’s eighth and final proof was Landru’s possession of his victims’ goods at his various garages, lock-ups and apartments. “Is this not the best signature of his crimes?” Godefroy asked, conflating Landru’s obvious thefts with his presumed murders. The fact that no one had witnessed the murders was immaterial, Godefroy asserted. Landru’s strangling of the three dogs was a sure indication of his capacity to kill.
Godefroy came finally to the bone debris: “I do not know – and I have already said so – how Landru killed, but what I can establish is that corpses were discovered at the defendant’s property.” He observed that it was “scientifically certain” the bone fragments were human and impossible that anyone could have planted this evidence. What was more, Godefroy believed Dr Paul was wrong to say that all the fragments with saw marks were of animal origin.
“We have the right to say that they are human fragments,” Godefroy argued, because the jury had the “right” to go “beyond scientific certainty”. In one, ill-judged sentence, Godefroy had undermined the credibility of the prosecution’s star expert witness.
Godefroy reached his peroration. At repetitive length, he reviewed his eight proofs of murder, committed by Landru solely for financial gain “in order to satiate his desire to live on the margins of society”:
“It is the death penalty that I demand for Landru, the murderer of Vernouillet and Gambais. Death, messieurs les jurés, is the only punishment which is commensurate with such crimes. It is essential to raise the scaffold because the security of society requires it. I beseech you, messieurs, show no pity and strike hard. Landru is guilty, with no excuses, and he knows it.”
***
It was 2.35 pm. Moro asked the jurors whether they would prefer to hear the defence’s argument in one session tomorrow. This would be his preference, Moro said, but he was in the jurors’ hands.
They retired briefly to consider Moro’s request and returned with the answer he had been dreading. If it pleased Maître de Moro Giafferri, they wished him to start his plaidoirie today. A “great brouhaha” erupted around the courtroom at this welcome announcement. Moro smiled wryly and asked Gilbert for a few minutes to prepare.
At exactly 3.00 pm Moro was ready:
He stood up, rather pale, his palms resting flat on the bar… He took a long time, and then with the faintest movement, his eyes seemed to alight on something, and he began – not in the grave tone the audience was expecting, but with a feline politesse.
Moro wished to discuss the law of 8 December 1897 regarding the right of the accused to hear and see all the evidence against him. “The legislative power in 1897 desired at the same time that the presentation of evidence was open and public, and enjoined the judge to remind the accused that he had the right to remain silent,” Moro said, addressing the jurors like a law professor at the Sorbonne.
Moro’s immediate purpose was to tackle Landru’s repeated refusals to explain what he knew about the missing women’s fate. Implicitly, Moro was also putting the jurors on notice that they were here to judge facts, not the accused man’s morality.
Moro turned to Godefroy:
“You have demanded a head, monsieur l’avocat-général, and I protest. You said: ‘I do not fear a miscarriage of justice.’ Terrible words!”
“To arrive at the truth one has to doubt it ceaselessly,” Moro chastised Godefroy, paraphrasing the nineteenth-century writer Ernest Renan. “And so, when you spoke in order to demand death, I felt as if you had death in your soul.”
Moro pointed at Landru, momentarily startled by his barrister’s gesture. “This man has struck 11 times. Where, when, how? The prosecution has no idea!”
Moro asked how Godefroy could accuse a man of 11 murders when the prosecuting attorney admitted having no idea how the crimes were committed.
“You cannot escape the obligation to prove your case,” Moro told Godefroy, and yet the prosecution’s “proofs” were not proofs at all. They were mere hypotheses, bundled together at random.
Moro offered the jurors one example among many to illustrate what he meant. The times of day that Landru had written in his carnet on certain dates demonstrated nothing more than a habit of noting the hour. Godefroy’s claim that these notes represented “the hour of execution” was empty speculation, not evidence.
Moro turned again to Godefroy, who was listening intently:
“‘Landru,’ you say, ‘one has seen 11 people pass through your hands, they have entered into relations with you and then they have disappeared. Tell us where they are or you will die.’ The law forbids you, monsieur l’avocat-général, from talking in such fashion to this man, under threat of being charged with felony.”
Moro threw in a “confession” of his own for the jurors to consider. He, too, was irritated by Landru’s “lying answers, his mediocre facetiousness”. Yet the issue before the jurors was not whether they despised this man. It was whether they respected his legal right to remain silent.
“Ten women and one young man have disappeared,” said Moro. “Landru, you knew them. One asks you what became of them and you say noth
ing. One does not have the right to reproach your silence.”
All Moro’s rhetoric could not disguise the weakness of his argument. For the past three weeks, Gilbert and Godefroy had used every opportunity to make Landru repeat his disastrous trope about the “wall” of his private life, which supposedly prevented him from revealing what had happened to the women. Yet Landru had insisted on having his say about a host of other details, from the times of trains between Houdan and Paris to the chemical composition of the bone debris.
Moro raised another point of law. In a civil court the 11 missing individuals on the charge sheet would not be regarded as dead unless their bodies had been found and identified. Indeed, the beneficiaries of a missing person’s estate could not “definitively” inherit his or her assets until 30 years had elapsed:
“The law tells you: ‘Up to 30 years, the fact of a disappearance does not indicate death.’ You would be breaking your oath if you pronounced to the contrary. The prosecution demands a head and you will reply, Non!”
On that ingenious note, Moro called time on the first part of his plaidoirie, to applause and cheers from the gallery. Landru “emerged as if from a dream. It was with the air of a connoisseur that he shook the hand of his avocat.”
Chapter 21
Do You Feel Nothing in Your Hearts?
Day Twenty-One: Wednesday, 30 November
Prince Murat, proud descendant of the Emperor Napoleon’s brother-in-law, had got his hands on one of Gilbert’s VIP passes for the final day of the trial. Landru would hear the jury’s verdict today, even if Gilbert had to prolong the session into the evening.
Maurice Chevalier was in the audience, along with Mistinguett, who had long since dropped her pretence that she was reporting for an English newspaper. Above the VIP enclosure, women had once again climbed up to the window ledges, dangling their legs over the side. An icy draft filtered through the windows behind them, while the court’s fan heaters stank of oil, one reporter grumbled.