Chapters
Shownotes Transcript
Love this podcast? Support this show through the Acast supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. Hey, I'm Ryan Reynolds. At Mint Mobile, we like to do the opposite of what Big Wireless does. They charge you a lot, we charge you a little. So naturally, when they announced they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our prices due to not hating you.
That's right. We're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30 a month to just $15 a month. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes. See details.
Millions of people have lost weight with personalized plans from Noom. Like Evan, who can't stand salads and still lost 50 pounds. Salads generally for most people are the easy button, right? For me, that wasn't an option. I never really was a salad guy. That's just not who I am. But Noom worked for me. Get your personalized plan today at Noom.com. Real Noom user compensated to provide their story. In four weeks, the typical Noom user can expect to lose one to two pounds per week. Individual results may vary.
At BlueNile.com, you can find endless ways to make your moments sparkle, from classic and timeless jewelry gifts to creating the custom engagement ring of her dreams, all at prices you won't find at a traditional jeweler. And right now, you can save up to 40% on fine jewelry and 25% on engagement ring settings during the Blue Nile Anniversary Sale. Going on now. Go to BlueNile.com to shop the Blue Nile Anniversary Sale and save up to 40%.
That's BlueNile.com. Welcome to the Serial Killer Podcast. The podcast dedicated to serial killers. Who they were, what they did, and how. Episode 148. I am your Norwegian host, Thomas Roseland Weyborg Thun.
Last episode ended with Inspector Massoud finally realizing how Dr. Pétillon had managed to murder so many people without being detected. He had donned the mask of a valiant doctor serving the French resistance, supposedly helping Jews and others hunted by the Nazis escape.
In reality, he had, under the nighttime cover of darkness, lured them to his quote-unquote clinic at the Rue Lesseur.
There, the desperate people were subjected to a terrible fate, being shackled in Dr. Pétillon's triangular murder chamber and in various sadistic ways killed, before being eviscerated and burned or thrown in the caustic lime pit. Tonight, we near the end of this wartime serial killer saga.
Dr. Marcel Petillon is finally apprehended, and he faces his ultimate challenge. Enjoy. As always, I want to publicly thank my elite TSK Producers Club. Their names are
Andrea, Cassandra, Christy, Cody, Corbin, Fawn, Gilly, James, Jennifer, Juliet, Kathy, Kylie, Lisa, Lisbeth, Marilyn, Meow, Russell, Sabina, Samira, Skortnia, Shauna, Tony, Trent, Val, and Vaughn.
You are the backbone of the Serial Killer podcast, and without you there would be no show. You have my deepest gratitude. Thank you. I am forever grateful for my elite TSK Producers Club, and I want to show you that your patronage is not given in vain.
As mentioned in the last episode, going forward, all TSK episodes will be available 100% ad-free to my TSK Producers Club on patreon.com slash theserialkillerpodcast. No generic ads, no ad reads, no jingles. I promise. And of course, if you wish to donate $15 a month...
No, nothing at all. I don't regret anything.
Massoud's theory would soon be confirmed.
He was visited by a man named Jean Guaidó, who, together with a Polish Jew named Joachim Gutschinov, owned a fur store at 69 Rue Comartin. In late 1941, Guaidó told Massoud, Gutschinov was frightened by the increasingly harsh German treatment of Jews and toyed with the idea of leaving France.
His physician and neighbor, Dr. Pétillon, had told him this would be possible. For 25,000 French francs, he could obtain a false Argentinian passport and safe passage to South America. Guaido had helped Guccinov pack on the eve of his departure. According to Pétillon's instructions,
All markings were removed from his clothes, and $1,000 in U.S. currency was sewn into the shoulder pads of a suit. Gutschinov also took a quantity of silver, gold, and diamonds worth 500 to 700,000 French francs, another 500,000 French francs in cash, and his five finest sable coats.
Obviously, Gutschinov was a significantly wealthy man. Massoud summoned Gutschinov's wife, Renée, who told the rest of the story. On the 2nd of January, 1942, she and her husband had dined together. Then he gathered his bags and consulted a map of Paris to find the street where he would meet Petillon.
Madame Guccinov went with her husband as far as the Rue Pergoulez, where he told her that he must continue the journey alone. They kissed and said goodbye, and Madame Guccinov had not seen him since. Massou also consulted a map and saw that the Rue Pergoulez intersects the Rue Lesseur.
Two months after her husband left, René Gouchinot had gone to ask Petillon for news of him. The doctor had shown her a brief note in Gouchinot's handwriting, undated, saying that he had traveled via Dakar and had safely reached Buenos Aires. Subsequent letters, one allegedly on the letterhead of the Alvear Palace Hotel in Buenos Aires,
said that his new business there was doing well and that she should leave France and come at once. When Massoud asked why she hadn't gone, the reasons she gave the Commissaire were obscure and contradictory. Petitot himself would later say she had found a lover she preferred to her husband. Joachim's letters stopped.
And she wandered, but did nothing. She was a Jew, and Jews did not like to make themselves conspicuous in Nazi-occupied France. Even after the Petillon affair had broken, she had been unwillingly dragged into it by Guaido's report. Massoud did not know what to make of her, but her husband's case seemed clear.
They had found items belonging to Guchinov at Petillon's mansion of horrors at the Rue Le Seur. His remains were actually one of the few positively identified later in the case. So, this leaves us, dear listener, with a dark scenario of one of the uses of Petillon's murder room.
After Petillo managed to incapacitate his unsuspecting victims, he would shackle them to the wall in his triangular room. There, he could torture them at will, sometimes perhaps for fun, other times in order to get something he wanted from the victim. In Gutschinov's case, a letter, written to Madame Gutschinov, claiming safe passage and arrival in Argentina.
René-Gustave Nézondé was an amiable, loose-fleshed man just over six foot three. His left eyelid drooped when at rest, and when he spoke, he unconsciously compensated by raising that eyebrow, a habit that gave him an almost comically sinister facial expression. He was forty-eight years old and a native of the Yon,
For over twenty years he had known Dr. Marcel Petillon. Roland Albert Porchon, Nesonday's friend, had already voluntarily gone to the police, a day or two after the discovery at the Rue Lesseur.
An overweight, middle-aged man with an unattractive face, Parchon was currently running a trucking firm and second-hand furniture shop. These were the latest in a long series of semi-legitimate ventures. His path had occasionally crossed that of the police.
and in exchange for favors or oversights, or simply out of generosity towards close acquaintances, he sometimes supplied information to the police, particularly to Inspector René Bouguet of the Criminal Brigade, a friend for several years.
On the 13th of March, he had telephoned both Bouguet and Commissaire de Police Lucien Doulette, saying he had important information to give them about Dr. Petillon. But his main reason for calling, police soon learned, was to cover up his own participation in an abortive attempt to send a couple to Petillon's fake escape network.
In March 1943, a man named René-Marie and his wife Marcel heard through an obscure chain of friends that Pochon knew someone who could help them escape from France. According to Pochon, he had sent them to Petillon via Nesonday.
Petillon told them the escape price was 45,000 French francs per person and that they should sell all their furniture. Porchon offered them 220,000 French francs for their possessions. The couple were worried and uncertain what to do, and when a friend reported unsavory rumors about Petillon's professional life, they resolved not to go.
Immediately after learning of the Rue Lesseur discovery, Porchon came to the Maries and instructed them not to go to the police. He suggested several rationalizations they could give if their names were found at Petillon's apartment.
And if the police should come to make inquiries, Pochon told the couple he had enough problems already, without risking implication in a murder case, and he hoped to keep out of it all at all costs. He also went to Inspector Bouguet and asked him to cover up his involvement.
The police officer initially agreed, believing, he later admitted, that here was a question of an honest escape organization that patriotism demanded he protect. He knew nothing of the Petit Haut affair at the time, but when he confidentially told an associate at headquarters of «Parchand's Visit»
Boyguet learned what was now involved and immediately went to Inspector Massou. When taken before Judge d'Instruction, Berry, on the 17th of March, Pochon claimed that he had known of Petillon's crimes all along. In late June 1942, he confessed...
Nézondé had told him everything, and had proclaimed that, and I quote, Petillon is the king of criminals. I never would have thought him capable of such a thing. End quote. Prochon had asked him what he was talking about, and Nézondé told him of sixteen corpses stretched out at the Rue Le Sœur that he had seen with his own eyes.
According to Nézondé, they were completely blackened and he believed they had been killed by poison or injection. When asked why Pétillon would do this, Nézondé supposed Pétillon asked them for money to pass them into the free zone and instead of helping them escape, he killed them.
Nézondé had asked Pochon to remain silent about the murders and had assured him that he would go to the police himself as soon as the war was over. Nézondé, for his part, initially denied the charges, then confessed on the 22nd of March.
He claimed that he first learned of the Rue Lesseur slaughter in November or December 1943, when Pétillon was in Gestapo custody. Besides the corpses, he had also seen a by now missing diary, which listed the names of 60 victims.
By April 1944, ten suspects in l'affaire Pétillon were in prison. Their names were Maurice and Georgette Pétillon, Fourier, Pintard, Porchon, Nézondin, Malfette, Monsieur and Madame Albert Neuhausen, and Léon Arnoux.
Charges against them ranged from murder and conspiracy for Maurice and Malfette down to receiving stolen goods. Curiously, while Maurice, Nesonday and Neuhausen were held for over a year, Georgette, Fourier, Pintard and Malfette were released with the others after four or five months.
Ultimately, all charges against the quote-unquote conspirators were dropped. The prosecutor concluded that although Pintard, Fourier and the other procurers had played revolting roles and had accepted money under guise of patriotism, they appeared to have been ignorant of Pétillon's real activities.
He signed the release for Maurice and Georgette with mixed feelings. He consoled himself with the thought that, and I quote, "'Even if justice can do nothing against them, the name that they bear, and whose sad reputation affects them personally, may serve as a constant source of shame.'"
unless Pétillant's amoral numbness has conquered them as well. The decision to release Maurice, who quite obviously knew much more than he cared to admit, was probably partly due to the fact that he was found to have terminal cancer. As a matter of fact, he would die shortly after his brother's trial.
Above all, as the case against Pétillant grew more complex, the prosecutor saw that trying to juggle ten incidental charges of complicity would only turn the trial into a circus and weaken his case against the one central figure. Meanwhile, all this took place, the doctor himself was still on the loose.
As the weeks and months went by, the police gained fairly thorough knowledge of who Pétillon was and just what he had done. But the man himself had vanished without a trace when he hopped on his bicycle and rode away from the Rue Lesseux. The reported sightings, inevitably following any well-publicized crime, began pouring in.
An occultist wrote that Petillon had escaped to Morocco via Marseille. Another insisted that he was alive and living in the newly section of Paris at either number 4 or 20 Boulevard Jukerman or else 2 or 4 Rue Deschartes. Still another occultist said he laid dead on a country road in the Yon. The police checked all of these leads
not because they believed them, but out of fear of looking ridiculous should they prove correct. People reported seeing Petillon all over France. It was simultaneously reported that he had been arrested at the Spanish and the Belgian borders, and that he had been boarding a ship for South America. The most powerful designer drugs are the digital ones we use daily, and we get high off them when touch...
Ryan Reynolds here from Intmobile. With the price of just about everything going up during inflation, we thought we'd bring our prices down.
So to help us, we brought in a reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing. Mint Mobile, unlimited premium wireless. How did it get 30, 30, how did it get 30, how did it get 20, 20, 20, how did it get 20, 20, how did it get 15, 15, 15, 15, just 15 bucks a month? Sold! Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch. $45 upfront payment equivalent to $15 per month. New customers on first three-month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes in detail. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.
as a family man with three kids i know first-hand how extremely difficult it is to make time for self-care but it's good to have some things that are non negotiable for some that could be a night out with the boys chugging beers and having a laugh for others it might be an eating night
For me, one non-negotiable activity is researching psychopathic serial killers and making this podcast. Even when we know what makes us happy, it's often near impossible to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever.
If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Everyone needs someone to talk to, even psychopaths, even your humble host. Never skip therapy day with BetterHelp.
Visit BetterHelp.com slash Serial Killer today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash Serial Killer.
Among the rouleurs' mail forwarded to Massue were a coded letter which could have been a message from one of Pétillon's resistance comrades, or a ruse by Pétillon to make one believe that it was. By the end of April 1944, Pétillon was no longer front-page news.
Every few days, the newspapers published the results of Judge Berry's latest interrogation or an updated list of victims. But there was not much else to report. On June 6, the Allies landed in Normandy, and from then on the Nazi-controlled press spoke of little but a shattering Allied defeat.
The Germans were victorious everywhere, they said, yet each day the Allies paradoxically moved closer and closer to Paris. On the 19th of August, with General Jacques Leclerc's French 2nd Armored Division still miles from the city, the Paris police went on strike.
and held the prefecture against German tank attacks. The resistance set up barricades and engaged in bloody street fighting against the better equipped but disorganized German troops.
The City of Lights, which had for years been plunged into the darkness of Nazi occupation, was surrendered to the French army on the 25th of August 1944. Massoud's resources were almost obliterated following D-Day, and the effort to catch Pétillant came to a crashing halt for several months. However,
As the war moved east and Paris gradually came back to life, Massoud once again took up the hunt for Pétillon. Having studied Pétillon for such a long period of time, Massoud reasoned he knew enough to try to entrap him. He did this by having a more or less fictional story published in a major newspaper named Résistance. The title of the piece, I quote,
Pétillant, soldier of the Reich. The story detailed how Pétillant had joined the Parti Populaire Française, a French collaboronist political and military group known to work with the Germans to fight against members of the Résistance.
It went on to state that Pétillon, dressed in a German uniform, had left on the 7th of March for Pont Saint-Esprit, near Avignon, to engage in anti-resistance activities. The ruse, if such it was, succeeded. Several days later, a letter was given to the paper Résistance via Pétillon's lawyer, René Florian.
which the newspaper published on the 18th of October. The letter explained in detail Pétillon's resistance activity, claiming the story about Pétillon being a Nazi existed only in some policeman's sick imagination and ended with these noble words, and I quote...
The author of these lines, far from having committed dishonorable acts, far from having forgiven his torturers and even farther from having aided them, adopted a new pseudonym immediately after his release by the Germans in January 1944 and asked for a more active role in the Résistance so that he could avenge
the hundreds and thousands of Frenchmen killed and tortured by the Nazis. He remained in contact with his friends and fought for the liberation to the best of his abilities, despite the constant fear of arrest. He is still doing all he can for the cause and begs your pardon if he cannot take the time to get involved in polemics on this matter.
Having lost everything but his life, he is selflessly risking even that under an assumed name, scarcely hoping that pens and tongues, finally freed from their shackles, will now tell a truth so easy to guess, and forget the filthy kraut lies that it takes about two grains of good French common sense to see through. Signed, Petillon."
the police were elated certain oblique references and the rapidity of his reply made them suspect that he was still in paris and probably serving in the french forces of the interior
On the 31st of October, 1944, a Captain Simonin and three other military officers went to the metro station San Mandé-Tourelle, just outside the eastern city limits, at 7 a.m., and loitered there inconspicuously for more than three hours. At 10.15, Dr. Pétillant,
alias Henri Valéry, entered the station and walked toward the platform. One of Captain Simonin's men asked him the time. As Petillon raised his arm to look at the watch he was wearing, a watch belonging to one of his victims named Joseph Réaucreux, handcuffs were slapped on his wrist. A violent kick sent him to the ground,
and the four men pounced on him and bound his feet, then carried him out to a waiting car. On Pétillant's person they found a pistol, 31,700 French francs in cash, and 50 documents in six different names.
Simonin conducted the first interrogation before turning him over to military security, which in turn sent him to police judiciaire headquarters. Petillon's defense was a plea of complete innocence. He admitted killing certain enemies of France as a resistance member, but denied any murders for profit.
According to Petillon, he first became aware of corpses stashed at the 21 Rue Lesseur in February 1944, after his release from Nazi custody. He assumed the dead collaborators had been killed and dumped by members of the resistance network he belonged to. This network just happened to be long since scattered and unable to verify his story.
Petillot admitted to having asked brother Maurice for quicklime to dissolve the bodies and camouflage their order. Petillot was housed on death row at Saint-Etienne prison while authorities investigated his claims. Strangely, for a patriotic hero, he had no defenders in the leadership of recognized resistance groups.
Some knew him as a small-time hanger-on, a fraud, or not at all. Other groups, described in detail by Pétillant, proved to be non-existent. No record survived of his alleged bombing forays, assassination of Nazis, or tests of his various so-called secret weapons.
Prosecutors finally dismissed Pétillant's story and charged him with murdering 27 victims for plunder, an estimated 200 million French francs in cash, gold, and jewels that was never recovered. Pétillant's trial began on the 18th of March 1946 at the Palais de Justice before a panel of three judges and a seven-man jury.
René Florian defended Pétillan. Prosecutors were helped by 12 civil lawyers who were hired by the relatives of Pétillan's victims. The doctor took an active role in his own defense, bantering with judges and prosecutors, grilling witnesses, exchanging jibes with the private attorneys.
Petiot claimed to have invented secret weapons, but refused to describe them because he thought the information could only be used against France. When confronted with the names of his victims, many of them Jews, he degraded them, calling them traitors and degenerates.
Many fugitives had survived Pétion's escape route, Pétion testified, but none were identifiable because the fugitives changed names frequently. Rebuked by the chief judge, Michel Lassère, for doodling in court, Pétion retorted, and I quote, I am listening, but it doesn't really interest me very much, end quote.
On the trial's fifth day, judges and jurors visited 21 Rue Lesseur. As he passed through a phalanx of police and jeering neighbors, Pétillon quipped, and I quote, Peculiar homecoming, don't you think? End quote. Dr. Pétillon maintained his hero's posture to the end, admitting that he had killed 19 of the 27 victims found on Rue Lesseur.
According to him, they were all Germans and collaborators. Of course, ranked among the 63 enemies of France whom Pétion admitted killing between 1940 and 1945.
The other 44 were not identified, with Petillon telling the court, and again I quote, I don't have to justify myself for murders I am not accused of committing, end quote. In fact, he had already said more than enough.
His lawyer, René Florian, summation, hailing Pagillon as a hero of the resistance, won a standing ovation from the courtroom audience. But the judges and jurors held a very different view. After deliberating for three hours, a mere 90 seconds for each of the 135 criminal charges,
The court convicted Pétion on all but nine counts. He was acquitted of killing Nelly Denise Hortin, but found guilty of 26 other premeditated murders. Pétion's death sentence was a foregone conclusion, although it did not seem to faze him in the slightest. Attorney Florian appealed the conviction.
and sentence citing two complaints. First, he maintained that a mistrial should have been granted after Judge Laissez and two later dismissed jurors early in the trial had publicly declared their belief in Pétion's guilt. Furthermore, Floriot charged, witness Marguerite Braunberger and her maid were perjurers.
They lied in maintaining that Dr. Brownberger was dead instead of hiding out in South America. All three points were rejected, and Petillon's death sentence was affirmed. The day before judgment was rendered, guards found an ampoule concealed in Petillon's prison uniform.
They suspected it was cyanide, but the contents proved to be a sedative, smuggled into prison when Petillon arrived the previous October. The prisoner seemed calm, smiling as he asked his guards, and I quote, when are they going to assassinate me? End quote. He refused to see a priest, preferring, as he said, to take his baggage with him.
Pétion had been scheduled to die on the day his appeal was rejected, but the guillotine malfunctioned that morning and his execution was postponed. At two on the morning of the 25th of May, hundreds of policemen barricaded the streets within a radius of 250 meters around the Santé prison.
At 3.30, Monsieur de Paris, the official title of the executioner, arrived at the prison gates with his three blue-clad valets and a horse cart carrying the guillotine. The mechanism was so precisely constructed that not a single hammer blow was required during its assembly.
There were only faint sounds of wood knocking together in the dark courtyard as the heavy fifteen-foot-high grooved uprights were fastened to the supporting base. There was a faint glimmer of light when the executioner, named Desferneau, removed the seven-kilogram triangular steel couperette from its leather sheet and
and mounted it on the 45-kilogram weight that would scent it plunging down upon Petiton's neck. At 4.10 a.m., the streetlights around the prison were extinguished, and the basket, the size of a small office waste paper can, was placed beneath the guillotine.
Ten minutes later, four cars drew up in front of the prison gates, bringing Florian, his assistant Ayache, Dupin, Goletti, Dr. Paul, and a dozen other police and court officials. Eight minutes later, just after dawn, Dupin, Goletti, Florian, and Ayache entered cell number seven and awakened Petillon, who was sleeping peacefully.
Dupin spoke the traditional words. Petillon, have courage. The time has come. Petillon made an obscene reply. The chains were removed from Petillon's hands and feet, and he changed from the black prison uniform into the suit he had worn during the trial. He asked for paper and ink, and for twenty minutes calmly wrote letters to his wife and son, then gave them to Florian.
As Petillon was led into the corridor, prisoners in the neighboring cells pounded infernally on the doors and bid him farewell. He was offered the traditional cigarette and a glass of rum. He refused the rum and was smoking peacefully when the prison chaplain asked if he had a confession to make or would like to hear mass.
Petillot agreed to hear mass, since his wife had told the chaplains she truly wanted him to, but said to the priest that he was not a religious man and had a clean conscience. He was led past the door that opened on the courtyard. Paper had been taped over its windows to hide the guillotine, only two feet away.
In the clerk's office, he signed the register, his hands were tied behind his back, the nape of his neck was shaved, and his shirt collar was cut off. Two valets led Petillon out the door and down three steps to the courtyard. Dr. Paul, after fifty years and hundreds of executions later, said, and I quote,
For the first time in my life, I saw a man leaving death row, if not dancing, at least showing perfect calm. Most people about to be executed do their best to be courageous, but one senses that it is a stiff and forced courage. Patio moved with ease, as though he were walking into his office for a routine appointment."
Petillon smiled at the Monsieur de Paris, and before the executioner lashed his feet together and strapped him to the tilting table, the prisoner turned to Florian and the assembled witnesses. His last words were, and I quote, Gentlemen, I ask you not to look. This will not be very pretty. The blade fell at 5.05 a.m.
It is rumored that one court official had concealed a camera beneath his robes and took a photograph at the instant Pétillant's head left his shoulders. In the rumored photo, Pétillant was smiling.
1-800-Flowers.com is more than your birthday, anniversary, or just-because gift-giving destination. We put our hearts into everything we do to help you celebrate all life's special occasions with friends and family. From our farmers and bakers, florists and makers,
Everything from 1-800-Flowers is made with love every step of the way because we know that nothing is more important than delivering a smile. To learn more, visit 1-800-Flowers.com slash ACAST. That's 1-800-Flowers.com slash ACAST. Need new glasses or want a fresh new style? Warby Parker has you covered. Glasses start at just 95 bucks, including anti-reflective, scratch-resistant prescription lenses that block 100% of UV rays. And they're also available in a variety of colors.
every frames designed in-house with a huge selection of styles for every face shape and with warby parker's free home try on program you can order five pairs to try at home for free shipping is free both ways too go to warbyparker.com slash covered to try five pairs of frames at home for free warbyparker.com slash covered
At Ashley, you'll find colorful furniture that brings your home to life. Ashley makes it easier than ever to express your personal style with an array of looks in fun trending hues to choose from, from earth tones to vibrant colors to calming blues and greens. Ashley has pieces for every room in the house in the season's most sought after shades. A more colorful life starts at Ashley. Shop in store online today. Ashley, for the love of home.
And with that, we come to the end of this serialized expose of Dr. Marcel Petillon. Next episode, number 149 in number, will feature a brand new serial killer case. So, as they say in the land of radio, stay tuned. Finally, I wish to thank you, dear listener, for listening.
If you like this podcast, you can support it by donating on patreon.com slash theserialkillerpodcast, by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts, facebook.com slash theskpodcast, or by posting on the subreddit theskpodcast. Thank you. Good night and good luck.
