Latest / When Killers Get Caught with Brittany Ransom / The Serial Killer of Nazi Paris: Dr. Marcel Petiot and the Escape Network Murders

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The Serial Killer of Nazi Paris: Dr. Marcel Petiot and the Escape Network Murders · When Killers Get Caught with Brittany Ransom

0:00
Paris, 1944 March. Smoke pours from the chimney of
0:04
a quiet townhouse on Rue Lasser. At first, neighbors assume
0:08
someone's just burning trash. But the smell is wrong.
0:13
Thick, sweet, sickening. Eventually, someone calls the
0:17
police. Officers arrive, expecting a
0:20
small nuisance complaint. Instead, they discover human
0:23
remains burning inside of the furnace.
0:26
Inside the house, they find suitcases stacked against the
0:28
walls, pools of quick lime meant to dissolve bodies across the
0:32
property, rooms filled with evidence that something
0:36
unimaginable. Rooms filled with evidence that
0:43
something unimaginable has been happening here.
0:47
And the owner of the house? A Doctor Who calmly tells the
0:50
police he's working for the French Revolution.
0:54
His name is Marcel Pichot, and According to him, the bodies
0:59
belong to Nazis and collaborators.
1:03
But the truth is much, much worse.
1:06
I'm Brittany Ransom and This is When Killers Get Caught, a
1:10
podcast where we examine the lives, behaviors, and psychology
1:13
behind the most extreme acts of violence and what happens when
1:16
the truth finally catches up. Day one listeners might
1:20
recognize today's case because the story of Marcel Pichot was
1:23
actually the first podcast episode I ever recorded.
1:27
But this time I wanted to revisit it, expediting the
1:29
story. More historical context, more
1:31
focus on the victims, and a clear timeline of how this man
1:34
managed to operate in Noxy occupied Paris before he was
1:38
finally brought to justice. Because the story of Marcel
1:41
Pichot is one of the strangest crime stories of World War 2A.
1:45
Respected Dr. A fake escape network, dozens of people
1:50
desperate to flee the Nazis, and a house in Paris that would
1:53
eventually be known as one of the most horrifying crime scenes
1:57
in all of French history. Marcel Pichot was born January
2:03
17th, 1897 in Osir, France, and like many serial killers, his
2:08
early life was marked by disturbing behavior that
2:10
appeared long before adulthood. From a young age, Pichot was
2:14
known as a difficult and deeply troubled child.
2:16
Teachers frequently disciplined him for violence, disruptive
2:19
behavior, and sexual misconduct toward other children.
2:22
One of the most alarming incidents happened when he was
2:25
still in primary school. Pichot brought his father's gun
2:29
to class and attempted to sexually proposition an 11 year
2:33
old girl. When she refused him, he fired
2:36
the gun in attempt to scare her. Incidents like this made it very
2:41
clear that his behavior was not just rebellious, it was
2:44
dangerous. And as he moved into his teenage
2:47
years, the problems only escalated.
2:49
Pichot began committing petty crimes, theft, destruction of
2:52
property, but by 17, his behavior had progressed far
2:55
enough that he was arrested for attempting to rob the post
2:59
office. Authorities recommended he
3:02
undergo A psychiatric evaluation, Something that
3:05
you're going to find happened a lot in his life.
3:08
Doctors determined that Pichot was suffering from mental
3:10
illness and instead of prosecuting, the court decided
3:13
to drop the charges. It was 1914, and in many ways,
3:18
this moment really set a pattern that would follow Marcel for
3:22
years. Serious warning signs would
3:24
appear, professionals raised concerns, but the legal system
3:28
ultimately allowed him to move on without any meaningful
3:30
consequences. His education was just as
3:34
chaotic as his behavior. Peacho was actually expelled
3:38
from pretty much every school because of his disciplinary
3:41
problems. Eventually his academic record
3:44
became so unstable that he could no longer remain in a
3:49
traditional school, and in July of 1915 he was sent to a special
3:53
Academy in Paris to complete his education.
3:56
Essentially kind of a last stop, bad kids school by this point.
4:03
The pattern here, it's very clear.
4:05
Violence, manipulation, criminal behavior, repeated psychiatric
4:09
warnings, all are present before he even reaches adulthood.
4:13
And yet, despite this troubled start, or perhaps because people
4:17
underestimated the danger he posed, Marcel Picchu would go on
4:21
to reinvent himself in one of the most unexpected ways
4:23
imaginable. He became a doctor.
4:28
Now, despite all of this turmoil in his early life, he enters the
4:31
French army during World War One.
4:33
He joins the military in January of 1916.
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He's just 18 years old. Like many young Frenchmen
4:39
showing up, they are swept up in this massive mobilization of the
4:43
war. But Peacho's time in the army
4:45
quickly became just as chaotic as the first part of his life.
4:49
During the Second Battle of the Ain in the spring of 19/17, he
4:53
was wounded and exposed to poison gas, something that was
4:57
tragically common in Trench warfare at the time.
5:00
Not long after this, though, his commanding officers began
5:04
noticing serious changes in his behavior.
5:07
He appeared unstable, and he was beginning to show signs of what
5:10
they thought was a mental breakdown.
5:13
He was sent for psychiatric evaluation and even while he's
5:17
under psychological care, he managed to continue getting into
5:21
trouble. During his treatment, he was
5:23
arrested for stealing from other patients.
5:26
The investigators found he had taken blankets, morphine
5:29
wallets, personal photographs and even love letters that
5:34
belong to wounded soldiers who are being traded in the same and
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even love letters that belong to wounded soldiers who were being
5:43
treated in the same facility as him.
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Once again, he goes to trial, the charges get dropped because
5:50
he's mentally ill. Military doctors evaluated him
5:54
and they returned with a huge laundry list of diagnosis mental
5:59
disequilibrium, neurasthenia, depression, melancholia,
6:05
obsessions, and a bunch of different phobias.
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Even by the standard of wartime medicine, this was a really
6:12
extraordinary list of psychological problems.
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Now, at the time, neurasthenia was a common diagnosis among
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soldiers returning from trench warfare.
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It referred to a state of extreme nervous exhaustion,
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chronic fatigue, headaches, irritability, sleep
6:27
disturbances, and overall sense that both the body and the mind
6:31
were completely worn down. Today, many historians and
6:34
physicians believe that a large number of these cases would
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probably fall under trauma related disorders or severe
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anxiety conditions. The doctors also described
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Pichot as suffering from mental disequilibrium, and that term
6:48
used to be used to suggest that a person's mental state was out
6:52
of balance with reality and practical terms.
6:56
It meant his mind was struggling to correctly interpret what it
7:00
was bringing in, essentially the stimulation from the world
7:03
around him. And a lot of times this would
7:05
lead to distorted thinking, instability and delusions.
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Another diagnosis was melancholia, a condition that
7:12
physicians use at the time to describe severe and persistent
7:17
depression. So I guess they looked at
7:19
depression as sort of like something happening chronically
7:22
or not. And so if it was more of a
7:24
chronic condition, like you were consistently always depressed,
7:27
like major depressive disorder, that's what they called
7:31
melancholia at the time. It was associated with a very
7:35
deep despair, loss of pleasure in daily activities, profound
7:40
mental and physical lethargy. So like I said, major depressive
7:43
disorder. Now, with all of these things
7:46
together, the military records paint a troubling picture.
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A young man suffering from serious mental instability
7:54
repeatedly evaluated by now at least six different doctors who
7:59
have recognized that something is very seriously wrong with
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him. And remember, he's only 18 years
8:04
old right now, but they're still trying to make sense of all of
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this using the very limited language and understanding of
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mental health that we had at the time.
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It's only the early 1900s, and despite receiving 6 separate
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psychological diagnosis and spending the remainder of 1917,
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so the entire year that he was 19 years old he spent in a
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psychiatric ward, they still said he was fit enough to return
8:32
to duty, and so in 1918 they sent him back to the front
8:36
lines. This time something suspicious
8:39
happened though. Somehow, Pichot shot himself in
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the foot. That injury forced the army to
8:46
transfer him to a completely different regiment in September
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of that year. Not long after, he was once
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again sent for another psychological evaluation.
8:54
But this time the military said we're done and they discharged
8:58
him on medical disability. In fact, his final military
9:02
report went so far as to recommend that he be committed
9:05
to an asylum after he was released from the French army.
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But instead, something remarkable happened.
9:12
Rather than being institutionalized, Pitchot was
9:15
admitted into an accelerated education program made for
9:18
returning veterans, and through that program, he earned a
9:22
medical degree. Now, after the war, Marshall
9:26
Pitchot reinvented himself. This is what he does now with
9:30
his medical credentials. He became Doctor Marcel Bichot,
9:34
A decorated veteran and physician, a combination that
9:37
earned him instant respect in World War One France.
9:41
Post World War One France in 1921, he moved to the small town
9:47
of Vilniev, Surjan and quickly builds A thriving medical
9:50
practice to his patients. He appears charming,
9:53
intelligent, very attentive. He made house calls, spoke
9:56
confidently about his medical knowledge and he cultivated the
9:59
image of a devoted country Dr. But behind that respectable
10:04
facade, he was already knee deep in corruption.
10:07
He starts deliberately prescribing narcotics to his
10:10
patients while he's secretly applying for government medical
10:14
reimbursement on their behalf. So essentially how this worked
10:18
in old school France was if you couldn't pay your bills, you
10:22
could then request medical reimbursement if it was
10:26
something mandatory. So essentially kind of like
10:29
Medicaid now, but essentially it was specific to the situation at
10:34
the time. So Marcel was getting paid by
10:37
his patients who were paying for these drugs, and then he was
10:41
also applying to the government and saying, oh, none of my
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patients in this country town in the middle of nowhere can afford
10:48
to pay for me, so I need you guys to supplement my income
10:52
collecting 2 checks. On top of that, he developed his
10:57
own narcotic addiction. And so I'm pretty positive all
11:01
of this money that he's just making hand over fist, it's
11:03
going right inside of him through his addiction.
11:07
And frankly, the rumors around town begin to circulate.
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His doctor, he's involved in petty theft, black market
11:14
medicine, illegal abortions, which was very, very legal at
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the time in France. Then in 1926, things take a dark
11:22
turn. He begins an affair with a
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teenage girl. Her name was Louise Delevo, and
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she was the daughter of one of Marcel's patients.
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In May of 1926, Louise just disappears.
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Neighbors would report to the police that they saw Marcel
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Pichot loading a very large trunk into the car around the
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time that Louise went missing. Just weeks later, a trunk gets
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pulled from the Yon River and inside were the dismembered
11:54
remains of a woman. But they were.
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So I guess the only term I could say is minced.
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She was chopped into such small pieces, they couldn't put her
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back together to figure out who was in this giant trunk.
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And even though it was identical to the ones that witnesses said
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that they saw Picho loading into his car, police dismissed the
12:18
connection because Louise had already been officially listed
12:22
as a runaway. Now, despite this scandal, he
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does something impressive honestly.
12:29
He runs for mayor of Valmiev Suryad, and during the campaign
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he actually hired people to Heckle and disrupt all of his
12:40
opponents speeches, essentially making them not look like they
12:44
were confident. And it worked.
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He won. In 1928, he marries Georgette La
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Belliere. She was 23 years old and the
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daughter of a wealthy landowner. They had a son pretty short
12:58
after they were married, named Gerhardt, also born in 1928.
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Now Bichot has everything going for him.
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He's a respected Dr. kind of respected, and he's now mayor
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and he has a beautiful wife and a brand new baby boy.
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But it doesn't take very long for him to get pegged as a
13:21
corrupt politician. He gets investigated for
13:24
stealing taxpayer money, he gets accused of siphoning oil from
13:28
the railroad depot, and in that case he actually got convicted
13:32
and sentenced to three months in jail, though the conviction got
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overturned through appeal. Even after he was suspended from
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office for several months, he got re elected and he came back
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in 1931 and somehow, despite the endless allegations of theft,
13:52
corruption, he gets gets elected to the town's general council,
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becoming the youngest person and Vionev Suryan to ever hold the
14:03
position. It doesn't last long though.
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He's charged again, this time for illegally diverting
14:10
electricity from the city's power supply.
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He gets fined, removed from the council and finally his
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political career is over. Shortly after that he leaves
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Vilnav Surgeron and moves to Paris.
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And that's when Marcel Pichot story moves from being just a
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little deadly to very deadly. By 1933, Marcel Pichot had
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settled into his new life in Paris.
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On paper, he still looked like a success.
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He was building this growing medical practice and presenting
14:41
himself as a competent, well respected physician to the
14:44
patients who walked through his doors.
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He appeared professional and intelligent and confident.
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You know, the kind of doctor that people generally trust.
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But a lot of that reputation was built on just straight lies.
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He exaggerated or outright falsified part of his
15:00
professional background to make himself appear more accomplished
15:03
than he actually was. And very shortly after he moved
15:06
to Paris, all of the rumors followed him from the
15:08
countryside and started circulating in Paris too.
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Patients and colleagues whispered that Pichot is
15:14
intentionally prescribing addictive medicine to keep
15:17
patients dependent on him. Others accused him of performing
15:21
illegal abortions, again something strictly forbidden
15:24
under French law. While proof was difficult to
15:27
obtain, the pattern was fairly familiar.
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Wherever Marcel Pichot practice medicine, controversy, suspicion
15:34
and crime generally seemed to follow.
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Despite this though, in 1936 he manages to secure an official
15:41
position with the government, the Medicine Detasseville, a
15:45
civil medical officer. This role gives him the legal
15:49
authority to examine bodies and issue death certificates, an
15:54
absolutely incredible responsibility that places him
15:58
at the intersection of medicine in the legal system and
16:01
something he absolutely never should have been even remotely
16:03
close to. For someone like Marcel, this
16:07
was a dangerous amount of authority, but even with his
16:12
growing status, he still couldn't control all of these
16:16
criminal impulses inside of him. The kleptomania, it went up
16:21
increased. He just started stealing from
16:23
everywhere. And in 1936, he got arrested not
16:27
just for theft, but also for assaulting a police officer
16:30
during the arrest. When he was evaluated by doctors
16:34
after that arrest, the conclusion was once again the
16:37
same. He was mentally unstable.
16:40
Rather than sending him to prison, the courts declare him
16:42
legally insane in order that he gets committed to a psychiatric
16:45
institution, and he spends roughly one year there.
16:49
Now, while he was eventually released in 1937, even the
16:52
doctors who treated him expressly said we doubt that he
16:57
is mentally stable enough to safely return to society.
17:00
But the reality is that French psychiatry at the time didn't
17:04
work the way that it works today.
17:06
Since the mid 1800s, France had been working under a law that
17:10
allowed people to be committed to asylums.
17:12
But doctors didn't actually have the final say on whether someone
17:16
stayed committed. That decision would ultimately
17:19
belong to the government officials and the courts.
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The law mainly focused on if someone was an immediate threat
17:25
to public order. A person could be considered
17:28
unstable, depressed or psychologically disturbed.
17:31
But if authorities believed they weren't acting relatively
17:33
dangerous, like actively going through psychosis, they could
17:37
still be released. And the system was already
17:40
strained. World War One had left France
17:42
with hundreds of thousands of soldiers who were all suffering
17:46
from psychological trauma. By the 90s, psychiatric
17:49
hospitals were overcrowded, underfunded, forced to
17:52
prioritize patients who were violent, psychotic or completely
17:55
unable to care for themselves. Someone like Marcel Pichot, who
17:58
was educated, articulate and he looked outwardly like he could
18:03
hold a profession. He just didn't fit into that
18:06
category. So even though Pichot had
18:09
accumulated this long list of diagnosis and repeated warnings
18:14
from doctors, the system wasn't built to keep someone like him
18:18
confined indefinitely. And once again, Marcel Pichot
18:22
walks back into the world. And do you think this time
18:25
behind bars made him a changed man?
18:28
Nope. Shortly after his release, he
18:31
begins again to get in trouble with the law, this time for tax
18:34
fraud, and they fine him, charge him for falsifying his financial
18:38
records. By the time Germany invaded
18:41
France in 1939, Marcel Picciot had this absolutely gigantic
18:47
list of criminal activity behind him.
18:48
Theft, fraud, assault. Repeated psychiatric diagnosis
18:52
warning that he is unstable and he's going to do something bad.
18:55
And yet somehow he's still practicing medicine.
18:59
He still has patients. With Germany occupying France,
19:05
Marcel began to create a new persona again.
19:09
The Nazis had tightened their control over the country, so
19:12
Marcel began presenting himself as a member of the French
19:15
Resistance in the early years of the occupation.
19:18
Some of what he did actually appeared to be helpful.
19:20
He used his position as a doctor to provide false medical records
19:24
and disability certificates. Those were for French citizens
19:27
who were being forced into German labor camps.
19:30
He also treated workers who are returning from those camps and
19:32
they were sick or injured. But even though he was doing
19:37
something good, he just couldn't go long without doing something
19:41
terrible, and his patients started complaining that he was
19:44
again over prescribing narcotics, fueling addiction
19:47
while profiting from their dependents.
19:49
In 1942, he was convicted again for illegally prescribing and
19:54
other drug related offenses. Rather than slowing down,
19:58
though, the conviction seemed to push him further into the deep
20:01
end, and at this point, Pichotis.
20:05
He adopts a new identity and he starts calling himself Doctor
20:08
Eugene. Under the identity of Doctor
20:11
Eugene, he created what appeared to be an underground escape
20:14
network designed to help people flee Nazi occupied France.
20:19
The network was called Fly Talks, and he claimed that he
20:23
had connections with Argentine authorities who could transport
20:26
refugees from France to South America.
20:30
And to understand why Marcel was able to kill so many people
20:33
without any suspicion, you kind of have to understand the world
20:36
that these victims were living in.
20:38
By the early 1940s, France was under Nazi occupation.
20:41
Jewish families were being rounded up to put into
20:43
concentration camps. Members of the resistance were
20:45
haunted by the Gestapo. Informants were absolutely
20:49
everywhere. An arrest meant torture,
20:51
deportation or just straight execution.
20:54
People were desperate, and real escape networks did exist in
21:00
Paris and all throughout Europe. There were smugglers, diplomats,
21:04
priests and other resistance groups quietly moving refugees
21:08
across borders into Spain, Switzerland.
21:10
Then once they could get more money, they got them on ships to
21:14
other countries across the ocean.
21:17
These underground routes did save thousands upon thousands of
21:22
people. So when someone heard that there
21:24
was a doctor in Paris who could get people out of France and
21:27
onto ships headed to South America, it didn't sound
21:31
impossible. It sounded like hope.
21:34
But hope came with a price. Marcel charged 25,000 francs per
21:39
person, which was about $28,000 today.
21:43
And, well, adjusting for inflation, that would be about
21:47
$447,000 for people who believed that they were buying a chance
21:52
to live, they were willing to pay.
21:56
That meant most of the victims arrived carrying only the things
21:59
that they owned, the last of their items.
22:02
Families sold their homes, their businesses, their jewelry, their
22:05
family heirlooms, all to get this 25,000 franc fee.
22:09
And I mean, don't have a big family because now all of a
22:12
sudden you got to find 150,000 francs.
22:16
And then they arrived with this money to Pucheau's house.
22:20
They bring their suitcases packed with clothing, passports,
22:23
photographs, wedding rings, sometimes generations of family
22:27
treasures. Things that weren't worth a lot
22:29
of money, but they were important to these families.
22:32
Investigators would find most of those belongings still in
22:36
Marcel's house. Suitcases were stacked against
22:39
almost every wall in the home, clothing neatly folded, personal
22:43
documents all left behind. It looked like a group of
22:46
travelers had simply vanished in the middle of their trip.
22:49
And they kind of did. Many of his victims were Jewish
22:53
refugees trying to escape deportation.
22:56
Others were resistance couriers or political dissidents who
22:59
feared that they were going to be arrested and probably
23:02
executed. Some were criminals hoping to
23:04
disappear before the Gestapo just caught them.
23:07
But what they all had in common was that they were desperate.
23:09
They believe they were buying a chance to survive World War 2,
23:13
and instead they walked into a doctor's office and they never
23:16
came out. When investigators would later
23:19
examine the remains they found in Pecho's house, they could
23:22
confirm 26 victims. But some historians believe that
23:26
he may have killed upwards of 60 or more people, based on just
23:30
the sheer number of suitcases, personal belongings and bags
23:34
that investigators found in the home.
23:37
But the true number, we'll probably never know.
23:41
When police examine the remains, many of the bodies have been
23:43
burned. I'm going to use the term
23:47
dissolved in quick lime, even though that's not exactly what
23:51
it worked. But they had been dumped in
23:52
quick lime, or he had dismembered the body parts so
23:56
severely that identification was almost impossible, essentially
24:01
the same thing that he did with Louise.
24:04
In normal circumstances, investigators might have relied
24:08
on families to come forward, report missing relatives, or
24:11
recognize the personal items. But these weren't normal
24:14
circumstances. It was still the middle of World
24:17
War 2. Paris was a city where people
24:19
were disappearing every day and Jewish families were living and
24:23
hiding, using false identities or trying to avoid the attention
24:27
of the authorities. For many of them, publicly
24:29
claiming a missing relative would mean that they were going
24:32
to expose themselves to the very danger they were trying to
24:36
escape in the 1st place. There's just no one who was
24:39
going to walk into a police station in Nazi occupied France
24:41
and go, well, that suitcase belongs to my Jewish brother and
24:44
his whole family. At this time, silence was
24:48
survival, and that silence made identification virtually
24:52
impossible. Those suitcases, jewelry,
24:54
documents, and clothing that got recovered from Marcel's house?
24:59
Most of them were never officially connected to anyone's
25:02
remains or to any families. In the end, the chaos of war
25:06
didn't just help him hide his crimes while they were
25:09
happening, it helped erase the identities of the majority of
25:12
his victims. Now, Marcel didn't work alone.
25:17
He had three accomplices, Raul Frier, Edmund Pintard and Renee
25:22
Gustav Nezen debt, and their job was to find victims, help
25:26
recruit people, find desperate people, send them to Doctor
25:30
Eugene. Once the victims arrived, Pichot
25:33
told them that before they were going to leave France, they
25:36
would need a special set of vaccinations that would help
25:39
protect them during travel. Just didn't seem too crazy to
25:42
people who were listening to him, but instead what they got
25:45
injected with was straight cyanide after they died,
25:49
painfully at that. He stole all of their valuables,
25:52
which he brought with them. Anything that was worth any real
25:55
money he sold, like jewelry, really nice luggage, and he
25:59
would dispose of the bodies. Hold on to the cash.
26:02
At first he dumped them into the Sand River, but bodies appearing
26:06
in the water risked attracting attention, so he began
26:09
experimenting with other methods.
26:10
Now I didn't want to call it dissolving with quick lime
26:13
before because I'm going to explain quick lime and how it
26:16
works right now. So in Marcel's basement, he
26:19
created what was called a quick lime pit, believing that it was
26:23
going to dissolve the bodies. This was something that during
26:26
the time period, early nights, a lot of different criminals
26:29
believed, but it actually doesn't.
26:32
It doesn't do what people think it does.
26:34
So quick. Lyme is calcium oxide and it
26:37
doesn't destroy human remains at all.
26:40
Instead of dissolving the tissue, it dries the tissue out,
26:44
which ultimately slows down decomposition and in some case
26:48
completely preserves different parts of the body.
26:53
So in reality, that Pit and Picho's basement was reducing
26:57
the smell of decay, discouraging animals or insects from
27:01
disturbing what had become a weird, strange mass grave
27:05
underneath his house. Eventually, he turned to another
27:09
method, incineration. But that has its own problems
27:12
too. See, human bodies are about 60%
27:15
water, and before tissue can burn, that water has to
27:18
evaporate. Modern crematoriums operate
27:21
anywhere between 1400 and 1800°F, depending on the size of
27:26
the body that needs to be cremated.
27:28
And even at those temperatures, it can take upwards of three
27:32
hours to reduce a single body down to bone fragments.
27:36
And that's another thing too. I don't know if you've had
27:39
anyone in your family get cremated or you've looked at the
27:42
remains, but I have because I was a morbid child.
27:45
And it's not all ash. A lot of it is bone chunks, and
27:51
in fact, I follow a creator online named Caitlin Doty, and
27:56
she said that there's actually a device called Acremulator that
28:00
helps grind the bones so that they are smaller and not
28:04
alarming to families who received this bag of remains.
28:08
That's not going to happen in a furnace in people's homes.
28:13
It's designed to heat a house, not cremate anyone.
28:16
It simply just cannot reach those kind of temperatures.
28:20
And instead of making the bodies disappear, the chimney began
28:24
announcing these bodies to the neighborhood.
28:27
And all of this is going on in a townhouse that he purchased in
28:32
1941 a few blocks from the Arc de Triomphe, one of the most
28:38
busy and recognizable landmarks in all of Paris outside of the
28:42
Eiffel Tower. So many people are coming
28:45
through this area, and what they are noticing is thick, billowy
28:51
smoke just coming out of this chimney 24 hours a day.
28:58
For someone running a mass murder operation, he was
29:01
remarkably bad at keeping a low profile.
29:05
Now, eventually, the Descopo begin hearing rumors about an
29:09
underground escape route that's moving people out of France.
29:12
And so they think they've discovered the resistance
29:15
smuggling network. So they decide to launch a sting
29:18
operation and they send a prisoner and are named Ivan
29:21
Dreyfus through the system to test it.
29:24
And they're like, if Ivan gets out, then we'll know where
29:27
they're taking them. We'll know everything about this
29:29
and we can come find these people.
29:31
Only problem, Ivan just dies. They never hear from him ever
29:37
again. And so the Gestapo think, OK, it
29:41
probably worked and he just decided to take his freedom and
29:45
not come back to prison. So they keep probing.
29:49
And so they finally capture the three accomplices for yay,
29:53
Pintard and Mezendek. Under torture.
29:56
Those 3 reveal that the mysterious Dr. Eugene is
30:00
actually Marcel Pichot and the Gestapo arrive and they arrest
30:05
him along with a couple other people who didn't actually do
30:08
anything wrong. I distinctly remember that they
30:11
also brought his wife in and I feel bad because she absolutely
30:15
knew nothing about what he was doing and so she just got
30:18
tortured for no reason. Now, ironically, because Picho
30:24
had never actually worked with real resistance members, they
30:27
couldn't actually identify any resistance members during these
30:31
interrogations that they did. And eventually they have to
30:34
release him and everyone that they kidnapped in January of
30:39
1944, they were still suspicious, but they didn't have
30:42
any proof until two months later, March 11th, 1944.
30:50
Marcel's neighbors complained so many times about the horrific
30:56
smell and thick black smoke pouring from his chimney that
31:00
finally police decided they were going to look into it.
31:03
And actually, they brought firefighters because they were
31:05
like, maybe his house is on fire.
31:09
Instead, they find 10 bodies in various stages of decomposition.
31:12
Most of the remains are found just kind of all thrown into the
31:18
furnace at the same time, which doesn't make any logical sense
31:21
if you're actually trying to get rid of remains because even in a
31:26
crematorium, they don't throw 10 people in at the same time.
31:31
But they find another quick line pit in the backyard.
31:34
They find all sorts of dismembered body parts that
31:38
don't match in bags like canvas bags just sitting in the
31:42
basement. They are stunned by the amount
31:45
of suitcases, clothing and personal belongings just all
31:48
over the entire property. The line pit, the furnace that's
31:52
running 24 hours a day. There were hooks and chains and
31:55
circle the the lime pit, the furnace running 24 hours a day.
32:00
There were hooks and chains and surgical tools in the basement.
32:05
The police were nauseated and this discovery exploded into
32:11
international news. It appeared in newspapers across
32:13
Switzerland, Belgium, Scandinavia, and soon everyone
32:17
had a name for Doctor Marcel Pichot.
32:20
They called him Doctor Satan, and after initial police
32:24
interviews, they released him and he disappeared immediately.
32:30
He told his friends that the Gestapo was hunting him because
32:33
he had executed German informants while working for the
32:36
resistance. And while in hiding, he decided
32:39
to grow out his beard. And he started using lots of
32:42
different aliases. And he moved in with one of his
32:44
patients, who's named Georges Rodeau.
32:47
For months, the most infamous killer in Paris was invisible.
32:52
It was still really huge news what had happened in his home.
32:56
And so he decided that the best way to hide from the police was
32:59
to join them. He took the name Henry Valerie.
33:03
He grew out that mustache and the beard, so it was huge.
33:06
And he joined the French forces of the interior, the FFI, which
33:10
was a coalition of resistance groups that formed near the end
33:13
of the war to help liberate France from Nazi occupation.
33:17
Incredibly, he managed to blend in so well that he rose through
33:21
the ranks and was given in the title of Captain Valeri.
33:26
For a brief moment, it seemed like he may have successfully
33:28
disappeared into the chaos of wartime France.
33:31
But it didn't last very long. See, in the fall of 1944, a
33:35
newspaper called Resistance published a story about Marcel
33:38
Bichot, accused him of not only murder, but that he was a German
33:42
collaborator. And the accusations actually
33:45
reunited interest in the case, and the police begin to search
33:48
for him again. This time it was a lot more
33:51
urgent and ironically, one of the officers who was tasked with
33:55
helping to locate the dangerous fugitive Marcel Pichot was
34:00
Captain Henry Valerie. So the police asked him to find
34:04
himself. But that wasn't why he got
34:07
caught. His downfall came from a simple
34:10
mistake. While hiding, he sent a letter
34:14
to his attorney asking that attorney to defend him publicly
34:18
and inform the newspapers that the accusations were all lies.
34:22
His attorney did as he was told and that let investigators know
34:26
a very critical detail. Marcel Pichot is still in Paris,
34:31
so they began to narrow their search and on October 31st, 1944
34:36
he was recognized while he was traveling through the Paris
34:38
metro and was immediately arrested.
34:41
When officers searched him, they found 31,700 francs in cash, a
34:45
pistol and 50 different sets of identity papers, evidence of
34:50
just how many false identities he had been using over just the
34:54
last like 8 months. His trial became one of the most
34:58
sensational in post war France. Throughout the proceedings
35:02
though he insisted. I've just been working for the
35:05
resistance the entire time. He claimed that every single
35:08
person that he killed was an enemy of France, Nazi
35:12
collaborators, informants or traitors.
35:15
And according to his story, he had discovered the bodies in his
35:18
home, just like the police had, and assumed they were victims of
35:21
resistance activity. Investigators quickly dismantled
35:26
that claim. None of the major resistance
35:29
groups recognized Marcel. Some of the organizations that
35:32
he claimed membership in weren't even real.
35:36
During early interrogations, he admitted to killing nineteen
35:40
German collaborators between 1940 and 1945.
35:43
But when police began to analyze the remains found inside the
35:46
home, they were able to identify through evidence 26 different
35:50
sets of remains. But even then, Pacho insisted
35:54
that those deaths were part of a larger campaign against the
35:56
enemies of France. At one point, he told them he
35:59
had eliminated 65 enemies during the war.
36:04
His lawyer tried his best to frame Pacho as a misunderstood
36:07
patriot. Sure, he had done terrible
36:10
things, but it was in the service of France, the defense
36:13
argued, that he had been eliminating traitors and enemies
36:15
during wartime. The court wasn't convinced.
36:19
And it was mainly because of Marcel.
36:22
Marcel's behavior during the trial did not support this
36:26
narrative. Throughout the proceedings, he
36:28
mocked the prosecutors. He interrupted witnesses.
36:32
He treated the courtroom like it was his personal stage.
36:35
He answered questions very sarcastic.
36:38
He openly taunted the prosecution, and he showed very
36:42
little regard for the gravity of the charges against him.
36:46
At several points, he even smiled while describing the
36:50
deaths of Jewish families that he claimed were collaborators.
36:54
For many in the courtroom, it was shocking.
36:57
Instead of appearing remorseful or defensive, he seemed amused
37:02
by the spectacle of the trial. And by the end, the jury was not
37:06
just unconvinced by the defense, they were openly disgusted.
37:11
And they found him guilty of murder for profit, along with
37:14
135 additional criminal charges tied to fraud, theft and
37:19
identity forgery. He was sentenced to death by
37:23
guillotine. On May 25th, 1946, Marcel Pichot
37:28
was executed. His final words to the witnesses
37:31
were calm. Gentlemen, I ask you not to
37:35
look. This will not be very pretty.
37:40
In a city already drowning in fear and disappearance, Marshall
37:43
Pichot discovered something chilling.
37:46
War creates the perfect place for monsters to hide.
37:49
During Nazi occupation, people vanished every day.
37:52
Some were taken by the Gestapo, some were deported to camps,
37:56
others simply disappeared into the chaos of a continent.
37:59
At war, families were left in silence, never knowing if their
38:03
loved ones had escaped or if they were already dead.
38:05
And inside that uncertainty, Picho found his cover.
38:09
His victims were never just evidence in a police report.
38:11
They were people trying to outrun history, Jewish families
38:14
desperate to escape deportation resistance, couriers trying to
38:18
survive long enough to see France liberated.
38:20
People who sold their homes, their heirlooms and everything
38:23
they owned for the fragile promise of a way out.
38:27
Instead of finding safety, they walked into the home of Doctor
38:31
Picho, and for years he hid behind carefully constructed
38:35
identities. Dr. Mayor, resistance fighter,
38:38
captain. Every new title, another mask,
38:41
another way to move unnoticed through a city full of ghosts.
38:45
But even the most careful lies, they've traces.
38:47
Suitcases left behind, valuable, stripped from dead bodies,
38:51
neighbors staring at black smoke rising from a chimney.
38:56
Petro spent his life believing he could erase the evidence of
38:59
everything he'd ever done. But he was wrong.
39:02
Because no matter how long it takes, the truth always finds
39:05
its way back to the surface. I'm Brittany Ransom, and this
39:09
has been another episode of When Killers Get Caught.
39:12
Thank you for listening and until next time, remember the
39:16
truth always leaves a trail.