Des crimes presque parfaits

Danielle Thiéry returns to the Lafarge affair which, in 1840, divided the experts and kept France in suspense. Married to Charles Lafarge, Marie was not happy. However, her husband refused a divorce and forced her to live in her rat-infested home. To fight against rodents, Marie obtained large doses of arsenic. In December 1839, she sent a cake to Charles on a trip to Paris. Charles fell seriously ill and died a few days later, in January 1840. No traces of poison were found on Charles' body, but Marie was nevertheless charged with murder. Even today, no one knows if Marie had poisoned her husband.

In September 1869, in Pantin, near Paris, the atrociously mutilated bodies of Madame Kinck and her six children were discovered. The father remains untraceable. After investigation, the culprit, Jean-Baptiste Troppmann, is identified. The Troppmann affair is one of the most astonishing and sinister in the French criminal annals of the 19th century. It caught the imagination of public opinion like that of some of the greatest writers of the time: Flaubert, Barbey d'Aurevilly, Tourgueniev or Rimbaud.

In 1887, the Henri Pranzini affair hit the headlines. A handsome man, cultivated and intelligent, this oriental seducer with languid charm is an adventurer, coupled with an avid gamer. In 1887, he met Marie Régnault, known as Régine de Montille, a famous courtesan of the time. This meeting will end with a bloodbath.

Pierre-François Larcenaire was born in 1803 in Francheville. This poet and philosopher caused a lot of ink to flow, but also a lot of blood because he was also a crook and a murderer. Arrested in 1835, he entered legend for staging his trial in which he led the proceedings, ridiculed the representatives of the order and demanded the death penalty himself. He had time to publish his memoirs before being guillotined on January 9, 1836 in a final twist: the guillotine stopped, delaying execution by 17 seconds.

Jeanne Weber, nurse and prostitute, was accused of having murdered, between 1905 and 1908, a dozen children, including two of hers. Nicknamed "the ogress of the Golden Drop" because of the name of the street where she lived, she was first acquitted during her trial in 1906. Experts and doctors, divided on the circumstances of the death of her supposed victims, had then concluded to natural deaths. But two years later, caught in the act of murdering a 10-year-old child, she was recognized as an authentic serial killer. She was then declared mad and imprisoned at the asylum in Maréville, where she hanged herself in 1910.

Twenty years before Jack the Ripper rages in Britain, Paris is experiencing a wave of murders of prostitutes particularly violent. From 1861 to 1866, nine girls of joy, as well as the child of one of them, were slaughtered by an individual whom the police could not apprehend. Many witnesses describe him as a disturbing-looking worker, with a somber gaze and a tattoo on his arm, who proclaims "Born under a bad star". This sad character persists on his victims, strikes them with numerous stabs, with such violence that he sometimes fails to decapitate them. He was finally arrested on January 11, 1866, after an attempted murder of a painter. His name is Louis-Joseph Philippe and has all the characteristics of the psychopath.

On March 11, 1944, the nauseating smoke that escaped from the chimney of the mansion at 21 rue Le Sueur, in Paris, led the neighbors to alert the police. The owner, a certain Doctor Petiot, is absent. The firefighters break a window to enter. In the cellar, near the boiler which is running at full speed, they discover human remains. It quickly turns out that Doctor Petiot murdered those he claimed to want to help leave occupied France.

On August 21, 1933, Violette Nozière, 18, poisoned her parents with sleeping pills, before going out to dance. When she returns, she makes sure they are inanimate before opening the gas to make it look like a suicide, then calls for help. Her father did die, but her mother survived. After the survivor's testimony, Violette, already suspicious in the eyes of the investigators, is arrested. The young woman accuses her father of having abused her, but it is the financial motive that justice retains. The case will fascinate public opinion and intellectuals of the time.

On May 16, 1937, in Paris, at the end of the day, Laetitia Toureaux, a beautiful young woman of 29 years old, rides in the metro at Porte de Charenton station, head of line 8. She takes place, alone, aboard the first class wagon. Less than three minutes later, the travelers who go up to the next station discover his stabbed corpse. Passionate crime or political execution?

In 1933, in Le Mans, the particularly appalling murders of Madame Lancelin and her daughter, Geneviève, made the headlines. The two domestic workers, Léa and Christine Papin, soon admit their appalling package. They killed their employers with a knife and hammer and pulled their eyes out. The reason for this massacre seems futile: a banal argument which would have degenerated into rage. After the press, public opinion and justice, psychoanalysts, then writers and finally filmmakers will take over this incredible affair, dominated by the elusive personality of the two sisters.

On May 31, 1908, in a bourgeois house in the 15th arrondissement of Paris, Adolphe Steinheil, a famous painter, and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Japy, were murdered. The wife of the deceased, Marguerite Steinheil, is a woman of haunting beauty and a sulphurous reputation. Isn't it said that President Félix Faure died in his arms? Found tied up and gagged on a bed, she is the only survivor of the drama that took place that night. For the less romantic, his story does not convince the police at all.

In Paris, on January 31, 1907, an 11-year-old child, Marthe Erbelding, was raped and murdered. The atrocious crime falls badly: the law on the abolition of the death penalty is under discussion. The culprit, Albert Soleilland, is a friend of the family. Shocked by the horror of the facts, public opinion claims death for the murderer of the little girl. The Assize Court pronounces capital punishment. Against the advice of the street, President Fallières will commute the sentence to forced labor for life, but the law on abolition will be permanently buried.

On October 26, 1831, fishermen discovered the body of an old man murdered on the bank of the Allier. This is the start of the infamous "red inn" affair. Located between Clermont-Ferrand and Aubenas, in the hamlet of Peyrebeille, the inn of the Martin couple was the theater. The murders - real or supposed - that they committed with their servant, Rochette, ignited the minds of the time and inspired, since then, novelists and filmmakers.

In Rodez, in 1817, the former imperial prosecutor Antoine Bernardin Fualdès was found dead in the waters of Aveyron. The man was slaughtered. At a time when royalists and Bonapartists are tearing each other apart, the trail of political crime should not be overlooked. The affair fascinates the whole of Europe, and makes noise as far as the United States. The ensuing trial will be the first to be so widely publicized.

While at the end of the 19th century, a bloodthirsty killer, described as a "vagabond" in the cities where he rages, crisscrosses France, judge Emile Fourquet examines the unresolved case of the little Victor Portalier. After a long work of profiling, he manages to identify the culprit: a certain Joseph Vacher, who recognizes all the murders. This case marks a turning point in the history of the French police: it was in reaction to the ineffectiveness of his men on this file that Georges Clemenceau created the famous "Tiger Brigades".