The Perfect Psychopath: Dr. Petiot's Heinous Crimes During WWII; Paris Doctor Killed 63 People
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'The Perfect Psychopath: Dr. Petiot’s Heinous Crimes During World War II.' The doctor claimed to have killed 63 people under the guise of helping them escape Nazi-occupied France. By Thomas Maeder.
Dr. Marcel Petiot was accused of murdering 27 people during the World War II Nazi Occupation of Paris, having cruelly misled them into believing that he could smuggle them to freedom in South America. His motives for the killings remain mysterious, and one wonders whether he was the “perfect psychopath” who had ingeniously designed an almost foolproof method for mass murder and a nearly impeccable defense for his actions.
His bold and surprising defense when he was arrested by the French at the war’s end was that he had killed 63, not 27, people, and that they were all justifiable homicides—executions of collaborators and members of the Gestapo that should have earned him the praise of a grateful nation rather than an ignominious walk to the guillotine. The doctor took great pride in his supposed patriotic heroism. The few moments during his spectacular trial—“the theatrical event of the year,” as newspapers called it—when he lost his poise and bantering wit were not when the prosecution spoke of crimes that seemed vile even in wartime, but when doubts were cast on his claims as a member of the Resistance. He seemed deeply offended that anyone would dare question his imaginary valor.
The Germans, who imprisoned and repeatedly tortured Petiot during the war (before the discovery of his crimes), were firmly convinced that he was a loyal French patriot whose secrets they could never discover, whose spirit they could not break, and whose efficient escape network he used to transport Jews from France was impossible to crack—spies that they sent to discover his methods were never heard from again. Genuine resistants who shared cells with him in prison admired his scornful defiance of his captors at the constant risk of his own life. Petiot thought of himself as courageous, self-sacrificing, and ingenious. According to Petiot, he constructed a network of secret, though admittedly inept, conspirators who helped plan the “escapes” from occupied France of persecuted people fleeing the Germans. Escapes that, unfortunately, seemed to lead no further than the furnace and lime pit in Petiot’s house on the rue Le Sueur. This he denied. South America is a big place, he taunted his prosecutors—go find them!
For many years he was a devoted physician by day, with a large general practice in central Paris. Adoring patients refused, even decades later when no one else doubted his guilt, to believe that he was a criminal, or anything but a saint...Petiot’s motive, however, remains obscure. He did not seem to work for money any more than he seemed to care about money in his medical practice, where he sometimes treated indigent patients for free, or bicycled for hours in the middle of the night to minister to an ailing child. Though he must have accumulated a substantial fortune from his crimes, he lived modestly. People seeking to escape were advised to change all of their wealth into cash, gold, and jewels—packaging themselves as perfect victims—but no trace of these riches was ever found.
Even the victims’ clothing and personal possessions, which would have been valuable during wartime scarcity, simply gathered dust in Petiot’s house until they appeared, as teetering tons of suitcases filled with the assorted items the refugees planned to take in their flight, as a backdrop for his murder trial...
Read More, https://the-line-up.com/the-perfect-psychopath-dr-petiots-heinous-crimes-during-world-war-ii
Marcel Petiot, Wiki, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcel_Petiot
http://murderpedia.org/male.P/p/petiot-marcel.htm
- Marcel Petiot (standing, ctr) on trial in Paris, March, 1946. Suitcases of his victims are stacked behind him.
In June 1927, Petiot met the woman of his dreams. Her name was Georgette Lablais, and she was the 23-year-old daughter of a wealthy landowner and butcher in Seignelay. Georgette was the perfect match for a man like Petiot, who craved wealth and social standing above all else. These two factors, as well as the perfect cover of a wife and son, Gerhardt Petiot, would prove to be valuable aliases for the sinister hobby he was soon to take up…
- Former French Mayor and War Hero Held A Dark Secret For Decades
https://www.lifedaily.com/story/former-french-mayor-and-war-hero-held-a-dark-secret/
= new reply since forum marked as read
- DR. Marcel PETIOT
Classification: Serial killer, Characteristics: Poisoner - Lured Jews into his home with promises of a safe passage from France to South America during World War II. He then murdered them, stole their belongings and burnt their bodies;
Number of victims: 27 +; Date of murders: 1942 - 1944; Date of arrest: October 31, 1944; Date of birth: January 17, 1897; Victims profile: Men and women; Method of murder: Poisoning (injected his victims with cyanide); Location: Paris, France; Status: Executed by guillotine on May 25, 1946.
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Marcel André Henri Félix Petiot (January 17, 1897 – May 25, 1946) was a French doctor who was convicted of multiple murders after the discovery of the remains of twenty six people in his home in Paris after World War II. He is suspected of killing more than sixty victims during his life. Early life: Petiot was born January 17, 1897 at Auxerre, France. Later accounts make various claims of his delinquency and criminal acts during childhood and adolescence, but is unclear whether they were invented afterwards for public consumption. It should be noted, however, that a psychiatrist diagnosed him as mentally ill on March 26, 1914, and he was expelled from school many times. He finished his education in a special academy in Paris in July of 1915.
During World War I, Petiot was drafted into the French infantry in January 1916. In Aisne he was wounded and gassed and exhibited more symptoms of mental breakdown. He was sent to various rest homes, where he was arrested for stealing army blankets and jailed in Orleans. In a psychiatric hospital at Fleury-les-Aubrais he was again diagnosed with various mental ailments and was returned to front June 1918. He was transferred three weeks later after he shot himself in the foot, but was attached to a new regiment in September. A new diagnosis was enough to get him discharged with a disability pension.
Medical training: After the war Petiot entered the accelerated education program intended for war veterans, completed medical school in eight months and went to become an intern in Evreux mental hospital. He received his medical degree in December 1921 and moved to Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, where he received payment for his services both from the patients and from government medical assistance funds. At this point, he was already using addictive narcotics. While working at Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, he gained a reputation for dubious medical practices, such as the supply of narcotics, and the performance of then-illegal abortions.
Petiot's first victim might have been Louise Delaveau, the daughter of an elderly patient, with whom he had an affair in 1926. Delaveau disappeared in May and neighbors later said that they had seen Petiot load a trunk into his car. Police investigated, but eventually dismissed her as a runaway. That same year, Petiot ran for mayor of the town, hired an accomplice to disrupt a political debate with his opponent, and won. In office, he embezzled from the town funds...
- Continued, http://murderpedia.org/male.P/p/petiot-marcel.htm