Death in the City of Light: The Serial Killer of Nazi-Occupied Paris (38 page)

Very little new information emerged this day. Petiot at one point said that he had handed over Yvan Dreyfus to his so-called chief, Robert Martinetti, near the Place de la Concorde and watched the two men walk away in the direction of the Naval Ministry. This statement contradicted his previous account, namely that he left Dreyfus with his comrades at rue Le Sueur, but the prosecution again failed to force him to explain the discrepancy.

Petiot was instead allowed to tell the court how he had stood up to his Gestapo interrogators in prison. When they questioned him about Dreyfus, for instance, Petiot boasted of his answer: “
If he’s a Jew, what difference does it make to you that he disappeared? If he’s an informer, you’ll soon find another. I was risking my neck, Monsieur le Président, but I was having a lot of fun.”

When Leser asked about Petiot’s brother’s concern for the fate of Yvan Dreyfus, Petiot admitted that Maurice had been a client and friend
of the Dreyfus family, and he had tried to convince Yvan’s father to intervene on his behalf. This was not followed to any significant conclusion, and the jury never heard
Nézondet’s allegation that Maurice claimed to have seen Dreyfus’s body in June 1943 on top of the pile of cadavers at his brother’s basement.

Before the jury had time to appreciate the tragedy of this disappearance, Floriot declared for the court that a Gestapo file from 1943 confirmed that Dreyfus had served as “
an informer of the Gestapo.” As a result, Floriot said, “there is no need to feel sorry over the fate of Yvan Dreyfus.”

Président Leser, the advocate-general Dupin, and the Dreyfus family attorney, Maître Véron, all objected to this statement. Véron questioned the accuracy of the file, reminding the court of Dreyfus’s patriotic record: how he had returned to France in 1939 to fight the Germans, only to be arrested when he tried to escape to England and join de Gaulle.

“Dreyfus was a traitor four times over: a traitor to his race, a traitor to his religion, a traitor to his country, and a traitor …,” Petiot began, before Leser, Véron, and Dupin all again protested loudly. The correspondent for the
Sydney Morning Herald
described the scene in the courtroom: “
Petiot ranted, roared, stamped his feet and waved his fists to the accompaniment of quarrels among counsel as fights broke out in the public gallery.”

As tensions remained high, Leser turned to the Kneller case, the last discovery before the investigation officially closed in the fall of 1945. Would Petiot really claim that Kneller, a veteran of the French Foreign Legion, was a collaborator? Was his seven-year-old son, René, also a collaborator?

Kurt Kneller was his patient, Petiot said, adopting his usual tactic of pointing out that “professional secrecy” precluded him from revealing the nature of his ailment. This argument was wearing thin, and as for his professional secrecy, that had not stopped him in other instances.

Petiot then boasted of how much he had allegedly helped the Kneller family. He had secured them false identities, one Alsatian, the other
Belgian, and advised them to carry two bottles of cognac to give the guides who would escort them across the border. He had even loaned the family money to buy railway tickets to Orléans for the first part of the journey. Given these services, and the fact that the Knellers still owed him 2,000 francs for previous medical treatment, Petiot had asked the family to leave their furniture with him as collateral.

Asked about the lack of communication from the Kneller family describing their safe arrival and establishment of a new home, Petiot said that they were ungrateful. This answer, however, did not address the question of why the Knellers had not contacted other family members.

Leser asked about the child.

“
Yes,” Petiot said, “he was a delightful boy.”

“ ‘Was’ is the operative word,” Dupin said, noting that his pajamas were found at rue Le Sueur.

Floriot instructed his client not to respond.

“
Those must be the pajamas that the kid slept in the last night,” Petiot answered anyway. Calm as usual, he proceeded to explain that the family did not want to begin their journey with “dirty laundry,” especially when it bore their initials. He always instructed his clients not to carry any identification papers and to remove anything from their personal belongings that might cast doubt on the forged documents. As for the pajamas, Petiot asked, “Why would I have kept them?”

Dupin stood and, as if he were finally about to trap Petiot as many expected, said that Petiot’s defense was “collapsing.” But he offered no major revelation or rebuttal. He only noted that Petiot refused to answer any question about the Kneller family.

“That’s false,” the defendant replied, claiming that he had answered many questions on the subject and only stopped when “they wanted to make me sign a list of answers to 362 questions that had not been asked.” To dramatic effect, he added, “
I do not know if it is the habit of the justice to use such manners.”

Floriot tried to silence his client by shouting over him. Petiot was correct, he said. The prosecution had never provided him with any list of “what was allegedly found in the suitcases.”

At this point, Dupin interrupted, disputing the claim: “The
juge d’instruction
showed him the inventory several times. Petiot refused to answer.”

“Why do you only say such inexactitudes? Petiot never saw that inventory. Show me the interrogation in the dossier.… If you can provide me with that, I’ll immediately stop practicing law.”

Elissalde whispered something to Dupin, who then said that the
juge d’instruction
, Ferdinand Gollety, had confirmed that morning that Petiot had seen the inventory several times.

“Well, then call him to the stand.”

No one, Petiot repeated, had shown him the list or the suitcases. “You could have put anything in those suitcases.”

Petiot had a point. Strictly speaking, he was correct when he stated that the police did not provide him with a list of contents—they had
offered
, but he had refused on the grounds that the police had never shown him the suitcases themselves, let alone opened them to reveal the contents. The seals on the suitcases, moreover, had been placed on them at a later date and removed several times without his or his attorney’s presence. The contents had been handled by many investigators and even been exhibited to the public. Under the circumstances, Petiot had refused to sign any statement. Leser must have realized this, as he immediately called for a recess to evaluate the situation. The inventory of the suitcases was not discussed again.

T
HE first witnesses of the trial took the stand later that afternoon. The most effective one was Lucien Pinault, Massu’s successor and the commissaire in charge at the time of Petiot’s arrest. A broad-shouldered, heavily perspiring man who had, in the words of Pierre Bénard of
France-Soir
, the “
face of a kindly boxer,” Pinault testified that he had conducted extensive interviews with Resistance fighters, and not a single one had known or recognized Dr. Petiot or his alias Dr. Eugène. The police officers who gave evidence after him, however, added little new information.

Day five opened on a rainy Friday, March 22. Professor Charles Sannié, the director of the Identité Judiciaire, Legal and Police Identification, at the Natural History Museum in Paris, described the physical evidence uncovered at Petiot’s town house. Jury and journalists alike listened intently, at least for the first part of the presentation. Many were restless because later that afternoon, the entire court would pack up, file into a long procession of cars outside the Palais de Justice, and reconvene at 21 rue Le Sueur. The “Circus Petiot” was going on tour.

René Floriot had proposed the temporary change of locale to demonstrate to the jury how much the police had distorted and exaggerated the claims about Petiot’s building, which, the defense maintained, was to be converted after the war into a medical clinic. True, Petiot had also used the property temporarily for his antiques business and for the headquarters of his Resistance organization, but it was hardly an “execution chamber,” as the newspapers during the Occupation reported and then embellished to distract a war-ridden city from its woes.

Before Professor Sannié could finish his testimony, several journalists left the courtroom, hoping to beat competitors to the remarkable photo opportunity of capturing the man accused of being France’s most deadly serial killer arriving at the scene of the crime. Rue Le Sueur was already filling up with spectators. Parisian newspapers had reported the day’s trip, complete with maps of the “chamber of horrors” in the middle of the elegant 16th arrondissement.

Rue Le Sueur had been blocked off from traffic, and Petiot’s building roped off from pedestrians. Two hundred policemen, using
wooden barricades, would try to hold back the curious spectators pushing their way forward to a better view. Other people looked out from balconies or upper-story windows, or took their conversations about the “murder house” with its death pit and triangular chamber to nearby cafés and bistros.

Just before two p.m., as the rain continued to fall, Président Leser, the magistrates, Floriot, Dupin, and all the attorneys, assistants, and members of the jury descended the monumental front steps outside the Palais de Justice and filed into the fifteen cars waiting outside. An escort
of police motorcyclists led the procession
from Place Dauphine over the Pont-Neuf to the Quai du Louvre, the Quai des Tuileries, and then the Place de la Concorde. Avoiding the busy Champs-Élysées, the chauffeurs maneuvered through a number of streets on the Right Bank unil they reached the Étoile, Avenue Foch, and finally rue Le Sueur.

At the town house, a handcuffed Marcel Petiot stepped out of the black limousine, the fifth one in the procession, wearing his tweed overcoat with collar turned upward in the slight drizzle and smiling to the photographers. Two plainclothes police officers, with the brims of their felt hats turned down, were at his side, escorting him to the building. Taunts and jeers were heard from the crowd.

Président Leser, raising his hand, called the reassembled court to Petiot’s office. Judge, jury, prosecution, defense, civil parties, and the many relatives and spectators followed Professor Sannié into the room. No one, however, had thought to reconnect the electricity, and so the court met in the house of horrors by candlelight. “Truly
enlightened justice,” Petiot quipped.

With the defendant appearing perfectly at ease, Sannié walked the members of the court through rooms of the mansion filled with what a
Time
correspondent described as “
a strange conglomeration of expensive Louis XVI furniture, human bones, and 600 volumes of murder mysteries.” Pierre Scize of
Le Figaro
described the dilapidated building with knocked-over furniture and ripped-open divans as having “
the leprous walls, the décor of a shady office, and the mezzanine of an abortionist drug trafficker.” Debris threatened to soil clothes. One person slipped on rat excrement. Many people thought that they could still smell human rot.

The court essentially retraced an alleged victim’s path. The triangular room was too small for everyone to fit in at once, and so they broke up into groups. When Leser, Dupin, Floriot, Sannié, Petiot, and a couple of jurors entered, the candle went out, and no one had a match to relight it. After an uncomfortable moment in the dark, a policeman finally arrived with a flashlight. One thing, however, was missing: the Lumvisor viewer that Petiot allegedly used to spy on his victims.

“
Where is the viewer?” Floriot asked.

“I don’t know,” Sannié said.

“This is unbelievable,” Floriot said, criticizing the prosecution for its handling of evidence under official seal.

“I would have preferred that the viewer had been here,” Petiot said, because he wanted to explain its function. Turning to a specific juror, who seemed frightened at being addressed, Petiot offered to describe the lens. It was not a periscope, he said, but “a sort of telescope” that allowed him to see a certain part of the room from the outside: “Precisely where Monsieur le Président is now standing.” The device would help him monitor his radiotherapy equipment, which he had planned to install in the room.

One of the jurors asked, if Petiot intended to use this viewer for medical purposes, why he covered the lens with wallpaper? Petiot explained that he had wanted to wallpaper the room but one of the workers had covered the lens by mistake. Another juror wondered if this small room could be used as a cell.

Petiot denied that with sarcasm, saying that it was impossible to detain anyone in here, let alone kill them in “this little hole.” He turned to Président Leser: “Would you tell me how you would go about killing someone here?”

A member of the jury pointed out that a murder can take place in smaller places, like the truck Petiot claimed that his Fly-Tox organization used.

“Oh, obviously you can kill anywhere,” Petiot said, losing his temper. He had admitted executing people, so what difference did it make where he killed them? “Stories like this are going to make us look like idiots to the rest of the world.”

Yet the walls were thick enough to drown out any cries for help, it had been noted. Petiot explained the thick, soundproof walls as a protection against the radiation of his X-ray machines—he could not use lead, of course, as it was a very difficult substance to obtain during the war. No one asked why he did not wait for better materials, as he claimed he was not going to use the clinic anyway until after the war.

At times, during the visit, Petiot looked pale. Once or twice, losing his balance, he was forced to grab on to a nearby rail or on to Floriot’s arm. After exiting into the courtyard and into the garage, Petiot again nearly stumbled. This time, he was standing at the edge of the lime pit. Several journalists witnessing the scene reported that Petiot had finally come to grips with the sheer magnitude of his crimes. Another one believed that he was mocking the tragedy.

It is more likely, however, that Petiot was suffering giddiness from a poor diet. As the Swiss journalist Edmond Dubois discovered, the defendant had barely eaten all day, or indeed the last five days, since the trial began. He had been picked up at prison before breakfast and returned to his cell after dinner. He had been subsisting on little more than a small bowl of soup and a slice of bread.