Number of Killings: 60 plus
Captured: February, 1944.
Background
Marcel Andre Henri Felix Petiot is a former doctor and French Serial Killer. In 1944, he was convicted of numerous murders after the remains of twenty-six people were unearthed in his home in Paris. He is suspected, however, of killing about sixty people during his life, although the actual number remains unknown.
At seventeen, a psychiatrist diagnosed Petiot as mentally ill. As a boy, he was expelled from school many times. He did, however, finish his education in a special conservatory in Paris in July of 1915.
During World War I, Petiot volunteered for the French army and entered service in January of 1916. In the Second Battle of the Aisne, he was injured, gassed, and exhibited further symptoms of mental collapse. He was sent to various rest homes where he was arrested for stealing army blankets and eventually thrown into jail in Orleans, France. In a Psychiatric Hospital at Fleury-les-Aubrais, he was again diagnosed with assorted mental ailments, but was returned to the front in June of 1918, just before the war ended. He was transferred again only three weeks later after he shot himself in the foot, but attached to a new regiment in September. A new opinion of his mental condition was enough to get him discharged with a disability pension.
After the war ended, Petiot entered the accelerated education program proposed for war veterans. He completed medical school in eight months and became an intern at the Mental Hospital in Evreux. He received his Medical degree in December of 1921 and relocated to Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, where he received payment for his services from both his patients and government medical assistance funds. At this point, he was constantly abusing addictive narcotics, and acquired a reputation for questionable medical practices such as supplying narcotics, and performing illegal abortions.
Petiot's first victim is thought to have been Louise Delaveau, the daughter of an elderly patient, with whom he’d had an affair in 1926. Delaveau disappeared in May and neighbors later recalled that they had seen Petiot load a trunk into his car. Police investigated, but ultimately dismissed Delaveau as a runaway. That same year, Petiot ran for Mayor of the town, and hired an assistant to disrupt a political debate with his opponent. He won the election, and embezzled town funds while in office. In 1927, he married Georgette Lablais and together they had a son named Gerhardt.
The Prefect of Yonne Departement received many complaints about Petiot's thefts and shady financial deals. Petiot was eventually suspended as Mayor in August of 1931 and subsequently resigned. He still had many supporters, however, and the village council resigned in commiseration. Five weeks later, on October 18, he was elected as a councilor of Yonne Departement. In 1932, he was accused of stealing electric power from the village and he lost his council seat.
Meanwhile, Petiot had already moved back to Paris. There, he attracted patients with made-up credentials, and built an impressive status for his practice. There were rumors, however, of unlawful abortions and unnecessary prescriptions for addictive remedies. In 1936, he was appointed medecin d'etat-civil, with authority to write death certificates. That same year, he was briefly institutionalized for kleptomania, but released the following year.
When Germany defeated France in 1940, French citizens were drafted for forced labor in Germany. Petiot presented fake medical disability certificates to people who were drafted. He also treated the diseases of workers that had returned. In July of 1942, he was convicted of overprescribing narcotics, even though two addicts who would have testified against him had disappeared. He was fined 2400 French Francs for his crimes.
Petiot later claimed that throughout the period of German occupation he was engaged in confrontational activities. Allegedly, he developed covert 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 fictional group of Spanish anti-fascists. However, there was no evidence to sustain any of these tall tales.
In 1980, however, he was cited by former United States Spymaster, Colonel John F. Grombach as a World War II resource. Grombach had been the founder and head of a small sovereign espionage agency, later known as The Pond, which operated from 1942 to 1955. Grombach declared that Petiot had reported the Katyn Forest massacre, German missile development at Peenemunde, and the names of Abwehr agents sent to the U.S. These claims were not maintained by any records of other intelligence services.
Fraudulent Escape, Murder
Petiot's most productive activity during the Occupation was his false escape method. Under the codename of Dr. Eugene, Petiot pretended to have a means of getting people wanted by the Germans, or the Vichy government, to safety outside France. He claimed that he could arrange a passageway to Argentina or elsewhere in South America through Portugal, for a price of 25,000 Francs per person. He had three accomplices to help with his scheme, Raoul Fourrier, Edmond Pintard, and Rene-Gustave Nezondet. They directed victims to Dr. Eugene, including Jews, Resistance fighters, and common criminals. Once the escapees were in his power, Petiot told them that Argentine officials required all entrants to the country to be vaccinated against diseases, and used this justification to inject them with cyanide. He then took all their valuables and disposed of their bodies.
At first, Petiot dumped the bodies in the Seine, but he later destroyed them by submerging them in quicklime or by incinerating them. In 1941, Petiot bought a house at 21 Rue le Sueur. What Petiot failed to do, however, was keep a low profile. The Gestapo eventually found out about him and, by April 1943, had heard all about this 'route' for the escape of wanted people, 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 Nezondet. Under torture, they confessed that 'Dr Eugene' was Marcel Petiot. Nezondet was later released but three others spent eight months in prison, suspected of helping Jews to escape. Even under suffering, they did not identify any other members of the Resistance. In reality, they knew of none.
The Gestapo released the three men in January of 1944. Two months later, Petiot's neighbors complained to police of a foul stink in the area, and about large amounts of smoke billowing from a chimney of a house in the neighborhood. Fearing a chimney fire, the police summoned firefighters who entered the house and discovered a roaring fire in a coal stove in the basement. In the fire, and scattered in the basement, were human remains. Petiot, however, was not there.
Over the next seven months, Petiot hid with friends, claiming the Gestapo wanted him for killing Germans and informers. He ultimately moved in with a patient, Georges Redoute, let his beard grow, and adopted various aliases.
During the deliverance of Paris in 1944, Petiot adopted the name 'Henri Valeri' and connected with the French Forces of the Interior (FFI) in the uprising. He became a Captain in charge of counter-espionage and prisoner interrogations. When the newspaper, Resistance, published an article about Petiot, his defense attorney from the 1942 narcotics case received a letter in which his renegade client claimed the published allegations were lies. This gave police a hint that Petiot was still in Paris. The search began once more with 'Henri Valeri' among those who were drafted to find him. Finally, on October 31, 1944, Petiot was recognized at a Paris Metro station, and arrested. Among his possessions were a pistol, 31,700 Francs, and fifty sets of identity documents.
