Marcel André Henri Félix Petiot (17 January 1897 – 25 May 1946) was a French medical doctor and serial killer. He was convicted of multiple murders of Jews after the discovery of the remains of 23 people in the basement of his home in Paris during World War II. He is suspected of the murder of about 60 to 200 mostly Jewish victims during his lifetime, although the true number remains unknown. During the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, Petiot set up a fake escape network under the name “Dr. Eugène.” He claimed he could help Jews and others wanted by the Gestapo flee to South America via Portugal, for a large fee. He lured his victims to his home at 21 Rue Le Sueur in Paris, promising them safety. Instead, he murdered them—often by injecting them with poison under the pretense of giving them vaccinations—and then stole their valuables and disposed of their bodies, frequently by burning them.
Despite showing early signs of mental illness and criminal behaviour, Petiot served in the First World War, graduated from an accelerated medical program, and began a dubious medical career that included performing abortions and supplying narcotics. His political career was marked by scandal, theft, and corruption. Captured in 1944, Petiot claimed to be a Resistance hero who killed only the enemies of France. He was convicted of 26 counts of murder and was executed by guillotine in 1946. His life and crimes have been depicted in film and comic books.
Early life
Marcel Petiot was born on 17 January 1897 in Auxerre, Yonne, in north central France. During his teenage years, he robbed a postbox and was charged with damage to public property and theft. Petiot was ordered to undergo a psychiatric evaluation, resulting in charges being dismissed when it was judged that he had a mental illness.
Later accounts make various claims of Petiot's delinquency and criminal acts during his youth, but it is unknown whether they were invented afterwards for public consumption. A psychiatrist reaffirmed Petiot's mental illness on 26 March 1914. After being expelled from school many times, he finished his education in a special academy in Paris in July 1915.
Petiot volunteered for the French Army in World War I, entering service in January 1916.
left|thumb|Wedding photo - Marcel Petiot and Georgette Lablais, 1927
Petiot's first murder victim might have been Louise Delaveau, an elderly patient's daughter with whom Petiot had an affair in 1926. Delaveau disappeared during May of that year, and neighbours later said they had seen Petiot load a trunk into his car. Police investigated but eventually dismissed her case as a runaway. That same year, Petiot campaigned for mayor of Villeneuve-sur-Yonne and hired somebody to disrupt a political debate with his opponent. He won, and while in office embezzled town funds. The next year, Petiot married Georgette Lablais, the 23-year-old daughter of a wealthy landowner and butcher in Seignelay. Their son Gerhardt was born in April 1928. Grombach had been founder and commander of a small independent espionage agency, known later as "The Pond" that operated from 1942 to 1955. Grombach asserted that Petiot had reported the Katyn Forest massacre, German missile development at Peenemünde, and the names of Abwehr agents sent to the U.S. Gisèle Rossmy, Ivan Dreyfus, Claudia Chamoux, François Albertini, Marie Scheuker, Siegfried Bosch, Ludwika Hollaner, Ludwig Krusberg, Chaim Sckouker, Franzeslaw Ehrenreich.
The media reaction was an intense media circus, with news reaching Switzerland, Belgium, and Scandinavia.
Evasion and capture
During the intervening seven months, Petiot hid with friends, claiming that the Gestapo wanted him because he had killed Germans and informers. He eventually began living with a patient, Georges Redouté, let his beard grow, and adopted various aliases.
During the liberation of Paris in 1944, Petiot adopted the name "Henri Valeri" and joined 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 Résistance published an article about Petiot, his defence attorney from the 1942 narcotics case received a letter in which his fugitive client claimed that the published allegations were mere lies. This gave the police a hint that Petiot was still in Paris. The search began anew – with "Henri Valeri" among those who were drafted to find him. Finally, on 31 October, Petiot was recognized at a Paris Métro station, and arrested. Among his possessions were a pistol, 31,700 francs, and 50 sets of identity documents.
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File:Marcel Petiot 1944.jpg|Marcel Petiot bearded under the identity of "Captain Valéry", photographed after his arrest at the end of October 1944.
File:Marcel Petiot - 22 novembre 1944.jpg|Mugshot of docteur Petiot, 22 November 1944.
File:Docteur Petiot procès 1946.jpg|Lawyer René Floriot and his client Marcel Petiot during the trial, 1946.
</gallery>
The investigation brought to light the complicity of his brother Maurice, a shopkeeper on rue du Pont in Auxerre; of his wife Georgette; of his daughter-in-law and mistress Léonie Arnaux; and Albert Neuhausen, a bicycle dealer in Courson-les-Carrières, in whose home suitcases were found. While Dr. Petiot's wife and Albert Neuhausen were accused of receiving stolen goods and his brother Maurice of manslaughter, the investigating judge Ferdinand Gollety, who had completed his investigation, issued a dismissal order in their favor.
Trial and sentence
Petiot was imprisoned in La Santé Prison. He claimed that he was innocent and that he had killed only enemies of France. He said that he had discovered the pile of bodies in 21 Rue le Sueur in February 1944, but had assumed that they were collaborators killed by members of his Resistance "network".
However, the police found that Petiot had no friends in any of the major Resistance groups. Some of the Resistance groups he spoke of had never existed, and there was no proof of any of his claimed exploits. Prosecutors eventually charged him with at least 27 murders for profit. Their estimate of his gains was as much as 200 million francs.
Petiot was tried on 19 March 1946, accused of 135 criminal charges. Celebrity attorney René Floriot acted for the defence, against a team comprising state prosecutors and twelve civil lawyers hired by relatives of Petiot's victims. Petiot taunted the prosecuting lawyers and claimed that various victims had been collaborators or double agents, or that vanished people were alive and well in South America using new names. He admitted to killing 19 of the 27 victims found in his house, and claimed that they were Germans and collaborators – part of a total of 63 "enemies" killed. Floriot attempted to portray Petiot as a Resistance hero, but the judges and jurors were unimpressed. Petiot was convicted of 26 counts of murder, and sentenced to death.
On 25 May 1946, Petiot was beheaded, after a stay of a few days due to a problem with the release mechanism of the guillotine, and buried at Ivry Cemetery.