All language subtitles for The murder network.en-HI

(dramatic music)

(sinister music)

[Narrator] At the
dawn of the 1940s,

Paris is a city of
glamor, style and culture.

Yet as war breaks
out across Europe,

Nazi forces overpower
the French defenses,

and Parisians soon find their
city overrun by the enemy.

When the Germans invade France

and defeat the French
Army so quickly,

they've got all of
France at their feet.

A lot of people
were very worried

when the Germans arrived,
people were scared.

People didn't know exactly
what was going to happen.

[Narrator] And while the
occupants of Paris struggled

to adapt to this
hostile environment,

a serial killer uses the
chaos to his own advantage.

Posing as an undercover ally,

he preys on those most
desperate to flee persecution

under the Nazi regime.

It was a very cleverly,
cunningly put together plan.

He shamelessly,
ruthlessly took advantage

of the situation
for his own gain.

People disappeared

and their relatives never
heard from them again.

And they wouldn't
go to the police

because going to the police
was going to the Germans.

This was a splendid opportunity
to murder these people.

Nobody would look for them.

[Narrator] This film
uncovers the shocking crimes

of Dr. Marcel Petiot,

the psychopath who believes

he has devised
the perfect murder

and the race against time
to bring him to justice.

(dramatic music)

(dramatic suspenseful music)

France, 1940.

Only 20 years since it had
been the central battleground

of the First World War,

the nation is under
threat once again.

Following Germany's
invasion of Poland,

Hitler's Nazi
forces have stormed

through Denmark,
Norway, and Belgium,

and now begin their offensive
against France itself.

And although the nation
has bolstered its military

and strengthened its defenses
since the last conflict,

the ferocity of
the Nazis assault

on the country's northern
border is relentless.

It came as a huge surprise.

Within five weeks,

the French Army was
completely obliterated.

France was in a state
of panic and chaos.

You had 10 million
people fleeing

from the north to the south.

This was the largest number

of people moving in
go since the Bible.

There was no communication.

You couldn't phone anybody.
You couldn't send letters.

So France was really,
really on its knees.

[Narrator] With whole towns

and villages devastated
by the onslaught,

the nation's government
quickly falls apart.

And this chaos
provides an opportunity

for an aging icon
of France's past,

Marshall Phillipe Petain.

The prime minister resigned

and was replaced
by Marshall Petain,

who is this huge war leader
from the First World War,

a total hero of France.

And Petain and the
people around him

were all in favor of an
armistice with Germany.

They wanted the fighting to end.

The military elites, the
leading generals in 1940,

they're very much supporters
of French right wing politics.

For people like Marshall Petain,

the great hero of World War I,

who is going to step
up as the new premier,

and then cut this
deal with the Germans,

they see this as being
possibly a positive development

that the Germans are importing

this very disciplined
Nazi system

and France will adopt its own
version of the Nazi system,

and join its place in
what Hitler's calling

and then France will be
rebuilt under German tutelage.

And Petain sees this
as a positive thing.

[Narrator] And although this
feeling is not widely shared

among the French
people themselves,

on June 22nd, Petain and
France's military leaders meet

with Hitler and
formally surrender.

As the Nazi occupation begins,

the nation is immediately
divided in two,

with the German military
controlling the north

of the country and a
free zone established

in the south known
as Vichy France,

left under the command
of Marshall Petain.

Here he instantly falls into
step with Hitler's master plan

and establishes
the French State,

an authoritarian
regime operating

out of the small
spa town of Vichy.

The country's capital
Paris, however,

is under the Nazi's command.

And within days of the invasion,

its landscape is
radically transformed.

The Tricolore, the
French national flag,

was banned and replaced
by the swastika.

Paris was moved
onto German time.

You had Germans everywhere,
German soldiers,

but also auxiliary staff,

particularly in the center

and particularly
around tourist sites,

you had black and
white signposts

to help the Germans find
their way around Paris.

The Germans were everywhere.

It was utter humiliation
to the French.

The French were
very proud people

and to suddenly have
your country taken over

and be powerless
in your own land

and have despots reveling
in the joys of your city

was absolutely, you know,
horrifying to the French people.

[Narrator] And
Parisians are quickly cast

into an uncertain,
paranoid world,

no longer able to distinguish
between allies and enemies.

French society is
just utterly divided.

There's no freedom of the press.

There's no freedom of speech.

Everything's very
heavily censored.

People have to be very
careful what they say,

because remember not only are
the Germans there in control,

but they enlist this huge
apparatus of collaborationists,

as distinct from collaborators.

Collaborators were
just people that said,

"I'm gonna go along
to get along".

The collaborationists
were people who said,

"I'm going to make my
future with the Germans.

I'm gonna hitch my wagon
to the Nazi wagon".

So you're not only
just dodging Germans.

You're dodging a lot
of French bureaucrats

and policemen employed
by the Germans

who are as keen as the
Germans to get you.

[Narrator] But
some remain defiant.

Despite the risks, French
patriots form the Resistance,

an underground army that
fights from the shadows

to subvert German rule and
aid the Allied war effort.

Resistance is small at
first, and people are uncertain

what resistance is going to be.

So lots of early Resistors don't
necessarily regard violence

as part of what
they're going to do.

There is a resistance in Paris

and there are lots of
different kinds of resistance.

So you have a resistance
revolving around intelligence,

a resistance revolving
around escape networks,

a resistance revolving
around provision

of information and publication.

Resistance was something

few people gravitated
towards early on.

But of course, as the
occupation went on,

as people were able to
see the kind of conditions

that were affecting
everyday life,

more and more people
decided to take a stand.

[Narrator] As the
Resistance expands,

the Nazis and the French
state tighten their grip

on the nation, imprisoning
or executing anyone

with links to this
underground army.

And while this further
intensifies the climate

of fear and distrust,

in Paris the hostile environment

creates the perfect
hunting ground

for a ruthless serial killer.

And his presence goes undetected

by the authorities until 1944,

when a shocking
discovery is made

at the home of
Dr. Marcel Petiot.

In early March, 1944,

dirty foul smelling greasy
smoke was coming out

of the chimney of a house

on the Rue Le Sueur in the
16th arrondissement in Paris.

And it continued for
a couple of days.

And on March 11th, the
weather conditions were such

that the smoke was
bottled into the street

and was really annoying
all of the neighbors.

After five days,

this one couple couldn't
take the stink anymore.

She was vomiting, they were ill.

So he called the police.

(dramatic music)

They found a note
on the house's door

about forwarding
mail to Auxerre,

giving the address in Auxerre.

They asked next door
and another neighbor said,

"Oh, the property was
owned by Dr. Marcel Petiot,

who lived two miles
away in Paris."

They called Petiot's number.

He answered and he said,
"Have you gone in yet?"

They said, "No."

And he said, "Well,
wait right there,

I'll be there in 15 minutes."

They waited about
a half an hour.

And when nobody had arrived,

they climbed up to a second
floor window, broke in

and traced the source of
the smoke to the basement.

(dramatic music)

They let their noses
lead them to the basement

where they found bodies burning

in the furnace of
a water boiler.

From the furnace, stuck an arm,

a human arm with fingers
still left on the arm.

Inside the boiler they
could see a human head.

[Narrator] On the floor
surrounding the furnace

are assorted rib
cages, jaw bones,

and large chunks of charred
flesh from at least 10 victims.

As the police inspect
the building further,

they discover a pit of quicklime

and within it the remains
of yet more bodies.

Initially, they believe
they have stumbled

upon a secret Gestapo base.

The corpses, murdered
resistance operatives.

Yet as they cordon
off the crime scene,

a mysterious stranger appears.

(mysterious music)

A man on a green bicycle
rode up and identified himself

as the brother of the
owner of the house.

The police escorted him inside,

took him down to the basement.

And he said, "My God, my
head might be at stake."

And they weren't at
all surprised by that.

But he identified himself as
a member of the Resistance.

He said, "I'm sure
that you've notified

The German authorities
of this discovery.

And I have hundreds
of Resistance files

that I have to destroy

before the Germans can
get their hands on it."

There was a Gestapo
office not far away.

And the first thought
that the police had was

that these were dead
Germans and collaborators,

and that this mysterious person

on the green bicycle
was in fact a Resistant.

So they let him go.

For these French police
officers on duty that night,

it probably would've made
a lot of sense for them

given the situation
in Paris at that time

to encourage him to abscond.

Their loyalties lay
with the French,

with the French police.

They didn't want to be
dealing with the Germans.

[Narrator] But as
the police continue

to search the house,
they discover photos

of the building's owner

and realize that the
mysterious stranger was,

in fact, Dr. Marcel
Petiot, himself.

As they prepare a
warrant for his arrest,

Commissaire Georges Massu
arrives at the crime scene

to lead the investigation.

Commissaire Massu
was a 37-year veteran

of the police judiciaire.

He had well over 3,000
arrests to his name.

He was very prominent.

He was one of the models

for George Simenon's
character Inspector Maigret.

He was senior most investigator
and immediately took charge

of the Petiot investigation.

[Narrator] As Massu
investigates the

he is struck by its
state of total disrepair.

Room after room is filled
with discarded furniture

while ornate valuables
and expensive artworks

are left neglected,
strewn about the floor.

As he makes his way down

to study the carnage
in the basement.

An officer arrives with a
simple message from the Gestapo.

"Arrest, Petiot.
Dangerous lunatic".

But Massu considers
this further evidence

that the doctor may well be
a member of the Resistance

and he ignores the
German's order.

There was always a very,
very uneasy relationship

between the French
police and the Gestapo.

When the Germans invaded France,

the French police had the
option of leaving their posts,

but they were
fearful of doing that

because the German military
police would've taken over.

So they wanted to still
administer justice.

And certainly there
were still crimes

that needed to be
punished by the police.

But they were always in
the very awkward position

that they might inadvertently
arrest Resistants,

or they might be accused
of collaboration.

It was a very, very
difficult thing.

The French police did their best

to subvert any of
the investigations

that they thought were involved
in Resistance operations,

but they had to do
so very cautiously.

[Narrator] Although
cautious of colluding

with the Gestapo's operation

that night Massu does issue
an arrest for Marcel Petiot.

But when police arrive at the
doctor's other Paris property,

they find that both
Petiot and his wife

have already packed and fled.

As a manhunt begins
to find the pair,

the human remains from
the basement are taken

to the police
laboratory for analysis.

Upon inspection, however,

they offer very little
in the way of evidence.

With both the fingertips
and faces expertly removed

from the corpses
and with hundreds of

the forensic experts
have their work cut out.

There was a very well known

and flamboyant medical
examiner, Dr. Albert Paul,

who loved the press
and the press loved him

because he made
outrageous statements.

He said that in the quick lime

they had found three garbage
cans full of small bones,

but there was no
way to determine

how any of the people had died.

They were too badly decomposed
or consumed by the lime.

One thing that did concern
him was that the thighs

of some of the legs had
stab wounds in them.

And they were very
similar to some bodies

that had been found floating

in the Seine a
year or so earlier,

which also had stab
wounds in the thighs.

And the thing that
particularly concerned Dr. Paul

about that was "As
a coroner," he said,

"Sometime when you're
doing an autopsy,

when you're picking
up another instrument,

you don't put your scalpel down.

You use the thigh
as a pin cushion."

[Narrator] Dr. Paul's
discovery suggests

that the killer had
medical training

further indicating Dr. Petiot's
involvement in the murders.

And Massu immediately
turns his attention

to the bodies found
in the River Seine

between 1942 and 1943,

suspecting that they may be
victims of the same killer.

He finds that the dissected
limbs of nine torsos

had washed up on the shore,

including those of
an 8-year-old boy.

As a full investigation
begins in earnest,

the papers across Paris
and Auxerre report

the macabre details of
the Rue Le Sueur discovery

and the manhunt for
both Marcel Petiot

and his wife, Georgette.

For the citizens
of occupied France,

this horrific affair proves
an engrossing distraction.

People were intrigued.

It was so gruesome.

The press were able to
sensationalize that.

It raised a lot of questions.

It raised questions
about who did this,

was this really Petiot
or was it somebody else?

Why did he do this?

I think the fact
that he was a doctor

was an important
factor. In that period,

a doctor has a very high status,

a pillar of society,
man you trust.

And the very notion of a doctor

is somebody who looks after us,

who looks after people,
cares for people,

makes them well.

And so this is a
complete negation

of what we traditionally
think of as a doctor.

(sinister music)

And just as Mass's
investigation has

between Petiot and the
River Seine bodies,

a telegram from
the Gestapo arrives

that complicates matters.

It reveals that the
Nazis had arrested

and interrogated
Petiot a year earlier,

suspecting him of being
a prominent member

of the French Resistance.

This again, suggests
that the doctor

is an underground operative.

Yet a witness soon emerges

to paint a far more
disturbing picture

of Petiot's
resistance activities.

A couple of days
after the discovery

of the bodies on
the Rue Le Sueur,

the business partner

of a Jewish furrier named
Joachim Gushinov came

to Commissaire
Massu and told him

about the disappearance
of Gushinov. Back in 1941,

when the Germans were beginning

to crack down more
on Jews in Paris,

Gushinov, who was treated
by Petiot as a physician,

decided that he needed to
escape from the country.

So Petiot told him that he
could help him with that.

He had an escape network,

he was involved in a
Resistance organization.

Petiot told Gushinov that he
would have to be vaccinated.

He would do the vaccination,

and then he would be
taken across France

to the Spanish border, into
Spain, which was neutral.

And then to a port in
Africa to sail to Argentina.

(dramatic music)

So Gushinov took one and
a half million dollars worth

of cash and silver
and gold and diamonds,

and went with Petiot and
was never seen again.

(dramatic music)

So the business partner,

when he had heard about the
discovery at the Rue Le Sueur,

went to Commissaire Massu
and told him this story.

And all of a sudden it
began to seem that, in fact,

the bodies might be
something even more sinister

than they had
originally expected.

And that there might have
been this escape network

that, in fact, did not
go to South America,

but ended at the Rue Le Sueur.

[Narrator] Checking the
facts of this testimony,

Massu discovers that
the secret rendezvous

where Petiot met Gushinov
was on the Rue Pergolese,

a street that intersects
the Rue Le Sueur.

In the coming days,

the investigation uncovers
more and more details

about Petiot's escape network.

And it becomes apparent

that Gushinov was not the
only desperate Parisian

to look to the doctor
for safe passage

out of occupied France.

People came, they phoned,

they said so and so had
left, a friend of mine.

She was going to go to a
doctor to help her escape.

I think it could be Dr. Petiot.

So they had a list of people
who they knew had been

in contact with Petiot
and who had disappeared.

[Narrator] As the
investing identifies

countless potential victims,

Massu realizes
that he is dealing

with a devious
ruthless, serial killer,

and his hunt for Marcel
Petiot now intensifies.

Using the forwarding address,

found at the Rue Le
Sueur house as a guide,

Massu sends his men to Auxerre,

a town 100 miles south of
Paris, where Petiot grew up.

Speaking with the locals,

the officers pieced together
a disturbing picture

of the doctor's early life.

His parents were postal workers

whose busy schedule forced them

to send the young Marcel to
live with his elderly aunt

and her maid periodically
from the age of two.

With his father often
absent from his life,

and with few friends
as he grew up,

Petiot was a lonely
unstable child.

I think we can
certainly see signs

of a trouble mind
from very early on.

He shows signs of
being very clever,

but also signs of
all the origins

that one might expect in someone

who is going to become
a full blown psychopath

in later life.

A psychopath is somebody

who doesn't have the
same emotional responses

to situations that
most of us would.

A psychopath is often described

as lacking remorse,
lacking empathy.

And usually this
fits with something

that we call an instrumental
use of other people.

So a psychopath is willing
to use other people

to get what they want and
not show any guilt, remorse,

or empathy with the
people that they're using.

People, for them, become
a means to an end.

And we know that those kind
of traits usually exhibit

in terms of cruelty to other
people, cruelty to animals,

delinquent behavior,
bullying can be seen in kids

as young as seven
or nine years old.

He impaled birds and insects

on knitting needles.

He stuck pins into the
eyes of the little birds.

He locked them into
boxes, shoe boxes,

and he didn't feed them.

So he could sit watching
them die of hunger.

[Narrator] As he is enrolled
into the school system,

despite being a
brilliant people,

Petiot's behavior becomes

increasingly disruptive
and dangerous.

He behaved very
badly in class.

One day, he went into
the classroom with a gun,

which he had taken
from his father

and he fired bullets
into the ceiling.

His father thought
it was rather funny.

And he told his
father that he did so

because he wanted to
brighten up a dull lesson.

Marcel Petiot is
certainly a psychopath.

He fulfills probably the
majority of the criteria

on the psychopathy checklist.

When we think about why
people become psychopaths,

usually we think of
it as an interaction

between people's
genetic heritage,

the traits and the genotype
that they've grown up with

and also the kind of environment
that they exhibit those in.

So I think in Petiot's case,

he has quite an invalidating
early environment.

His parents palm him off
with two local spinsters

when he's quite young,

he seems to struggle to
engage with his father.

However, I think
because there's evidence

of cruelty to animals
in quite a young age

because of the bullying,
the difficulties in school,

I think it's
probably fair to say

that there's a mix
of both genetic

and environmental
inferences in the mix

that somebody else going
through those same experiences

that Petiot did wouldn't
necessarily have developed

into a psychopath in the
same way and become what is,

I think by most
modern definitions,

quite a sort of a high level
psychopath in Petiot's case.

(sinister music)

[Narrator] But outside
of his disciplinary record,

Petiot is a highly gifted pupil

and he develops a genuine
interest in medicine.

Within a year of his graduation,

the First World War erupts.

With France its
central battleground,

he enlists in the hope
of becoming a medic.

His stay on the front line
is short lived, however,

transferred to a
psychiatric unit,

following a nervous breakdown,

here doctors decide
that he should be kept

under constant observation.

Military psychiatrists
examined him

and they found him insane.

I have absolutely
no confidence that

that wasn't a full blown act
so that he could get back

from the front and be
nannied and nursed.

Psychopaths can be so
very, very convincing

and know exactly
what to say and do

to obtain their objectives.

For somebody like Petiot

with quite psychopathic
tendencies,

this chance to see
other people suffering

and to understand a little
bit about what suffering was,

where it came from
and how to mimic it,

is really critical to
our understanding of,

I think, the rest
of his development.

Because psychopaths don't
necessarily understand

or appreciate or respond to
human emotions in the same way.

So what they do instead

is something that we
call pseudo-mentalizing.

They think that they
understand what emotions are

and how other people
experience them.

And they learn to sort of do
a kind of copycat of that.

He was discharged as
40% mentally disabled,

and he was put on a pension

and he received that disability
pension until the day died.

[Narrator] This diagnosis
doesn't put an end

to Petiot's ambitions.

Still determined to pursue
a career in medicine,

upon leaving the army,

he takes advantage of a
new government initiative

and enrolls at the University
of Paris to become a doctor.

At the end of the
First World War,

there was a program in France

to accelerate the medical
education of former soldiers,

where you could take
eight months of classes

and do two years
of an internship.

And after the First World War

with all the people
who had been killed,

they really needed to replenish
the supply of physicians.

So this accelerated
program tried

to get new doctors helping
patients as quickly as possible.

It was never established
that he really was a doctor,

that he really had
a medical diploma.

He was intelligent.

He had spent many years
in mental asylums.

He learned a lot about
illnesses, about diagnosis,

and that's what it was.

He was not a doctor.

[Narrator] In 1922,
following his rapid graduation,

the newly qualified
doctor, Marcel Petiot,

travels to the small rural
town of Villeneuve-Sur-Yonne

and establishes a
medical practice.

And apparently overcoming
both his troubled childhood

and his mental health issues,

here he seems to turn a
corner and emerges a new man.

He was a charming person.

He was devoted to his patients.

He worked long hours. He
treated poor people for free.

He would stay open nights
and open on Sundays

if people couldn't
come at any other time.

He listened patiently to people.

Some people said that they
discovered after they left,

that they had spent
more time talking

about their lives with
him listening attentively

than they had spent talking
about their complaints.

His patients
absolutely adored him.

Of course, a
psychopath would be drawn

to that sort of profession

simply because it gives
him unique access to power.

He was revered by
many of his patients

as the man who would
go the extra mile,

the man who would open
surgeries on Saturdays

and Sundays and all of that.

Pure superficial
charm to gain access

and to see what he could
manipulate for his own gain.

[Narrator] And his
popularity enables Petiot

to quickly become a prominent
figure in the local community.

Ambitious, intelligent,
and committed,

the young doctor is
the talk of the town.

And in 1926, he falls in
love for the first time

with a mysterious woman of
far lower social standing.

Her name was Louise,

but the townspeople
called her Louisette.

One evening, he
went to have dinner.

Louise was the maid.

She was 26.

She didn't have a boyfriend.

Nobody knew where she came from.

Very soon, she was his lover.

She went to live with him,

but a doctor could
not have mistress

who was a domestic.

So they pretended
she was his maid.

All the people knew that
she was not his maid.

(dramatic music)

[Narrator] Yet
this relationship

soon exposes Marcel
Petiot's darkest instincts.

Within months of
moving in with him,

Louisette confesses to her
friends that she is pregnant.

And then, overnight, she
vanishes without a trace.

Petiot complains that his young
lover has walked out on him.

But days later, a discovery
in the Yonne River

suggests a far more
disturbing version of events.

One Sunday, a bad smell
rose from the river.

The townspeople went
to see what it was.

And they found a trunk caught
in bushes beside the river,

and they opened it
and they looked inside

and they found the headless
body of a young woman.

People immediately
said it was Louisette.

It's important to understand
what this act means.

Again, if we understand
that Petiot is a psychopath.

Psychopath's relationships

with other people
are characterized

by what we call multiple
marital-type relationships.

So these are relationships

where the psychopath will
go into a relationship.

They will probably seek to
get what they can out of it.

That could be sex.
It could be money.

It could be some sort
of sense of intimacy.

And I think in Petiot's case,

intimacy has been something
that he's been largely denied.

But then the point will come
where something becomes stuck.

And I think in this case,
Louisette becomes pregnant.

Petiot is unable
to reconcile this

with his visions for himself.

Perhaps he doesn't
want be a father,

perhaps he just panicked,

realizes he needs to get
out of the relationship.

And I think calculates
that the best way

to do that is simply to
kill Louisette Delaveaux.

[Narrator] Despite some
locals raising concerns

over Petiot's role
in the murder,

due to its mutilated state,

the body in the river
cannot be identified

and the case runs cold.

The doctor, meanwhile,
has ambitious designs

on an even more prominent
role within the town.

And only weeks after the
discovery of the corpse

begins a campaign to become
mayor of Villeneuve-Sur-Yonne.

His election was
a little bit funny.

It occurred soon after
the disappearance

of Louisette Delaveaux.

And one dramatic moment was
he dragged himself painfully

up to the stage and said,

"I must confess that I am
guilty of a very serious crime."

And everybody gasped.

And after a dramatic
pause, he said,

"I stand accused of loving
the people too much."

He was elected with
a landslide of 80%.

He promised the people
he would reform the town

because after the Great War,
France was almost destroyed.

He said he will
rebuild the town.

And the people loved that.

That's what people
wanted to hear.

[Narrator] Having now
risen to the very top

of the local community, in 1927,
Petiot meets a new partner.

Georgette, the
daughter of a wealthy

and influential landowner.

And the couple
married soon after.

Yet in his new role as mayor,

Petiot quickly begins
to abuse his power.

And over time his kindly
reputation unravels.

There were still people in
the town who supported him,

who still thought
he was wonderful,

but not from the people
who worked with him.

He was dictatorial
and they suspected

that he was stealing
from the coffers.

They called in an auditor.

The auditor found that
he had signed contracts

with contractors who
nobody had ever heard of.

He paid huge amount of the
town hall's money over to them

for work which had
never been done,

for equipment the town
hall had never received.

[Narrator] In 1930, however,

a far more serious
crime is discovered

on a cold winter evening

when firemen are called
to the local dairy.

Smoke was pouring
from the dairy complex.

They found the dairy
owner's house was on fire.

On the kitchen floor, lay
the dairy owner's wife.

Her head was bashed in.

She had obviously been murdered.

[Narrator] Upon investigation,

the police discovered that
the property has been burgled

and rumors quickly circulate

that the new mayor has
been having an affair

with Henriette Debauve,
the murdered woman.

And Petiot had in
fact been present

on the night of the discovery.

When the firemen were
putting out the fire,

Dr. and Mrs. Petiot
drove by in their car.

They slowed down and looked,

and then continued
on to go to a movie.

A lot of the people
in the town thought

that it was really the place

of not only the
mayor of the town,

but also of a physician to be
at the site of this disaster,

rather than going
to a movie theater.

There was one townsman, a
Monsieur Fiscot, I believe,

who said that he thought
he had seen Petiot

near the dairy at the
time of the crime.

Unfortunately, Mr.
Fiscot had rheumatism

and he went to his
doctor, Dr. Petiot,

who said that he had a
wonderful new treatment

for rheumatism and
gave him an injection.

Three hours later,
Mr. Fiscot was dead.

[Narrator] With
no other witnesses

to tie him to the
murder, Petiot, once

Yet when soon after
he has found guilty

of fraud and embezzlement,
he is thrown out of office.

His reputation in ruins.

His career in
Villeneuve-sur-Yonne

had just come to an end.

He had lost his
position as mayor.

He had been dismissed
as a counselor,

public opinion was
turning against him.

He was a suspect despite
the lack of evidence

in the murder, in two murders.

So it was a good time
to get out of town.

And I think also he just
had larger ambitions

than a small town
in the provinces.

So the obvious thing
was to move to Paris.

(eerie music)

[Narrator] In Paris, joined
by his wife and infant son,

Petiot sets himself up with a
small urban medical practice

and looks to quickly
revive his career

and attract new clients.

In Paris, he had
a leaflet printed,

which he delivered himself and
he left it with pharmacists

in nightclubs, in
bars and in brothels.

He claimed he could
cure gonorrhea.

He claimed he had a method
of painless childbirth

and he claimed he
could cure cancer.

So the patients poured in.

[Narrator] Despite
his outlandish claims,

over the next seven years,

Petiot remains on
his best behavior,

determined to make an
impression in Parisian society.

But in May, 1940,
everything changes.

Hitler's war machine
storms into France

and overwhelms the Allied forces

and the French government
quickly flees Paris.

A mass exodus follows,

the residents of
the city desperate

to avoid the enemy
at their gates.

When Nazi battalions
march down the streets

of Paris in June, they
enter a ghost town,

its inhabitants scattered
across the countryside.

Yet ever defiant, Petiot
himself remains in his apartment

with his wife and
their young son.

The Parisians fled Paris.

Petiot stood at his window

and he was appalled
at their behavior.

And he told his family,
they will not flee.

And he also said they will
not suffer because of the war.

He will provide for them.

[Narrator] As the doctor
begins formulating plans

to prosper in this
new uncertain world,

the German authorities
themselves look

to contain the
chaos in the city.

The German military
had a very clear view

of what they wanted.

They didn't want any trouble.

They worked very hard
to give the impression

that nothing had really changed

and that's to reassure the
Parisians who are there

and to encourage
people to return.

[Narrator] And over time,

a sense of normality is restored
with returning Parisians

slowly growing accustomed to
life under Nazi occupation.

Yet the joint authoritarian
rule of the Germans in the north

and the Vichy
government in the south

soon makes life unbearable
for one group in particular,

France's Jewish community.

Even before the occupation,

there was a deep
rooted antisemitism

of the nation's population,

fueled by figures on
the French far right.

Now, many of these figures
have assumed power in Vichy

and emboldened by their
alignment with the Nazis,

the persecution begins.

There were a lot of
people on the far right

in 1930s France who
wanted to reduce the role

of Jews and the role that
Jews were playing in France.

And Vichy offered
them an opportunity

to put some of these
antisemitic ideas into practice.

There was a great
deal of antisemitism.

A feeling that
Jews ran the media,

Jews ran the department stores

that put smaller shops and
artisans out of business.

And so they are happy to begin
kind of sidetracking Jews,

kicking them out
of government jobs,

removing them from the police,

removing them from the military.

The Germans ordered
all Jews in Paris

to register at police stations.

Petain, for his part,

issued a directive that
Jews could no longer be

in the higher echelons
of the civil service,

of the army and the
all Jewish teachers,

university and school
teachers had to resign

by the end of the year.

And then as the
occupation progresses,

the measures against
the Jews increase.

[Narrator] Many in Paris'
Jewish community begin

to look for ways
out of the country,

but this is strictly outlawed

by both the German and
French authorities.

And to successfully escape,

those fleeing would
first have to cross over

from the occupied zone
into Vichy France itself.

Their only hope lies
with the Resistance,

the underground network

of patriots operating
in the shadows.

These two zones on the
French territory were split

by what was called
a demarcation line,

a heavily guarded border,

which physically divided
the French territory,

cut it down the middle and was
extremely difficult to cross.

What came about was the creation

of so-called escape networks.

These were originally set up

by people working
with the Allies.

It was very important to
get servicemen or airmen

who might have been shot
down in Nazi occupied France.

These people needed to find
their way back to the UK,

back to London via
a neutral country

and Spain and Switzerland
would've been the

The escape route were part
of the Resistance activities.

From the very start,
there was an escape route,

which ran through Brittany
and across the Channel,

others down to points
on the Pyrenees,

getting people into Spain
and then if necessary

down to Gibraltar or to Lisbon.

And to get across
the demarcation line,

you needed the help of
someone called a "passeur",

who was someone who
helped you pass through,

get over the demarcation line.

And it wasn't always easy and
they weren't always reliable.

[Narrator] And this
increasingly hostile environment

provides Dr. Marcel
Petiot with an opportunity

to exploit those most
in fear for their lives.

Following the invasion,

the Nazis have plundered France

of its resources and manpower.

And with produce scarce,

many Parisians have
fallen on hard times.

Yet since the start
of the occupation,

the doctor has thrived,

enhancing his earnings by
offering illegal abortions

and selling narcotics
to drug addicts.

Enriched by these
criminal activities,

he is soon able to buy
an enormous second home,

at 21 Rue Le Sueur.

And this property
offers him the chance

to devise a more brutal
cold-blooded scheme.

In late 1941, He visits
local barber Raoul Fourrier,

a man with connections in
the Parisian underworld.

Here, Petiot concocts
an elaborate story

and puts his new
plan into action.

Petiot told Fourrier
that he's a Resistant.

He is the head of a
Resistance cell named Fly-Tox

and Fly-Tox had
an escape network.

So if he knew of anybody
who wanted to flee

from France and the Nazis,

especially Jews,
Fly-Tox could help them.

He said, he's undercover
name was Dr. Eugene.

[Narrator] Taken
in by this tall tale,

Fourrier doesn't notice
Petiot's simple methods

in concocting the story.

Fly-Tox is the name of
a popular insecticide

and Eugene a French
brand of hair product.

Both of which sit directly
in the doctor's eye line

on the shelves of the
barber shop itself.

Instead Fourrier is fascinated

by the deal Petiot is offering.

For a minimum of 25,000 francs,

he will provide false
papers and vaccinations

and take the escapees
to a safe house

where they will be met
by a people smuggler.

This individual will then
take them into Spain.

And from here, they will travel
to sanctuary in Argentina.

He also told Fourrier that
their potential escapees

should bring their most
valuable possessions along,

watches, jewellery,
cash, gold bullion.

Petiot offers Fourrier
a share of Fly-Tox's fee

if he can spread the word

and help identify
potential escapees.

Fourrier agrees and enlists
his friend Edmund Pintard,

a stage actor with similarly
shady underworld connections

to aid in the search
for customers.

Within weeks, the
pair provide Petiot

with his first set of exiles,

a gang of French criminals

who have fallen
foul of the Nazis.

These include thief
and pimp Jo Le Boxeur,

his mistress Claudia Chamoux,
prostitute Josephine Grippay

and hardened criminal,
Adrien Le Basque.

Between the end of 1941
and the beginning of 1942,

eight of this criminal
gang are met by Petiot

and taken to his house
on the Rue Le Sueur.

Here they receive
their vaccinations

and afterwards, none of them
are ever seen alive again.

It was possible for him to
really invite his victims,

to package themselves
perfectly as victims.

You had people who were
desperate to escape.

You asked them to take
everything they owned

and convert it into gold,
jewels and liquid cash,

to bring few possessions,

because you're gonna
be traveling light,

not tell anybody
where you're going.

Don't bring any
identification papers,

remove all the marking
from your clothes.

They made themselves

into perfect untraceable
victims for him.

[Narrator] In
an occupied city,

in which the Nazis were
already imprisoning

and executing Jews,
criminals and partisans,

those apparently
departing to Argentina

through Petiot are
never reported missing.

Through his elaborate scheme,

the doctor believes he has
devised the perfect crime,

one that will be
endlessly repeatable.

He's a very successful
charismatic con man.

And he convinces a lot of people

and he tells people
what they want to hear,

which is always what a
good con man will do.

They'll find out what you want
to hear and then tell you.

And they're not just
anybody that he's fooling.

I mean, some of the
people who he's fooling

were tough gangsters. Jo le
Boxeur. Adrien Le Basque.

And if you're fooling
people like that,

that's pretty skillful.

One of the things that people
maybe misunderstand a bit

about psychopaths is how
easily grifting comes to them,

how easily they can find scams

that people will be taken in by.

If you really don't care
in your heart of hearts,

what other people think of you,

if you don't care
about the possibility

of being caught out for lying

or being found out for saying
something that you are not,

then what's the incentive

for you to tell the truth
at any point to anyone.

So psychopaths are
excellent grifters

because their stories can
seem very, very complete,

well fleshed out. The scam
in Petiot's case, you know,

there's clear, there's need
for what he's providing.

He's identified the
victims very carefully.

He's identified a cover.

He's got accomplices

who can help provide
the victims to him.

People who come to a
psychopathic doctor

that only he can provide

and they're desperate and
emotional and grateful,

that probably marks them out
as quite weak in his eyes.

And therefore makes it easier

for him to justify
disposing of them

in such a callous
and horrific way.

[Narrator] And just as
Petiot's murder network

is set in motion,

the Nazi's own war crimes
intensify on a far larger scale.

At the Wannsee Conference
in January, 1942,

The Final Solution is
formally announced.

A program to
systematically exterminate

Europe's Jewish population.

As the Germans begin
the construction

of death camps in the east,

they look to the
Vichy government

for help in deporting
Jews out of France.

On the condition
that their power

in the southern zone
remains absolute,

Petain's government
agrees to arrest

and detain foreign Jews,

transfer them to a Paris
concentration camp, Drancy,

and then send them to
their deaths in Auschwitz.

The first major roundup
takes place in Paris

on June 16th, 1942,

in which thousands
of Jews are detained

at the winter Velodrome.

These men, women and
children are captured

not by Nazi soldiers,
but by the French police.

The Vichyites are enlisted
in removing the Jews of France.

And to this day, it's a
source of great controversy.

The relative ease

with which the Vichyites
surrender the Jews

of France to the gas chambers.

Times had changed for Jews
in France, for foreign Jews.

People who had fled from their
old countries, from Germany,

from Poland, from wherever,
thinking that France,

the land of the Enlightenment
would protect them.

And suddenly they're seeing

that it wasn't
gonna protect them.

13,152 Jewish people

were taken in one fell swoop.

So it didn't take
long, therefore,

given how many thousands
of policemen were in Paris

on the 16th of July
knocking on doors.

The fact that there
was so much chaos,

the fact that busloads

of Jewish families
were being transported

to the Vel d'Hiv stadium.

Parisians knew
what was going on.

They saw, they heard
the concierges knew

to the families
in their building.

Any Jew who hadn't been taken
at that point was terrified

that they would be next.

[Narrator] And
this leads many Jews

with the necessary contacts
and financial means

to frantically attempt
to evacuate Paris.

And one family who
do have the money

to flee are the Knellers, a
German couple with a young son.

Kurt and Margaret
Kneller were German Jews

who had left Germany in 1933

when Hitler came to power.

On the first day of the roundup
at the Velodrome d'Hiver,

the Gestapo came to the
Kneller's apartment.

Fortunately, they weren't
at home at the time.

Unfortunately, they
decided to escape

using Dr. Petiot's
escape network.

The Knellers were German Jews,

Kurt, Greta and little Rene.

On that day of the roundup,

they went to a friend
who was not Jewish.

They went to hide with her.

They then told her that
a very kind doctor,

a saint of a man is
going to help them

to escape France.

They were never seen again.

However, a couple
of weeks later,

parts of bodies were found
floating in the Seine,

which included a man's head,
parts of a woman's body

and the vertically sectioned
body of an eight-year-old boy.

The Knellers'
bodies are the first

of nine dissected cadavers
the police discover

in the River Seine
over the coming months.

Throughout 1942, more and
more desperate Jews come

to the doctor for help through
his unwitting accomplices,

the barber Raoul Fourrier
and the actor Edmund Pintard,

and they all meet a similar end.

These include Lena Wolff,
her husband, Maurice,

and sister-in-law Rachel,
Dr. Paul Braunberger

and Gilbert Basch, and five
members of his extended family.

As Petiot murders, dissects

and dispatches
victim after victim,

the press will later claim

that this killing
spree is motivated

by a vicious blood lust.

For the doctor, however,

these horrific murders are
simply a means to an end.

There is a common
misconception

that psychopaths are
necessarily sadists as well,

but it's not the case at all.

However, there does,
I think with anyone

who commits violent acts,

that there always has to
be something driving that.

It could be survival.

It could be sadism, it could
be a paraphilia, for example.

And I think it's actually
quite hard for us

to conceive of somebody
who simply kills

because it's efficient, an
efficient way of getting money,

or because it's carrying
out the end of a scam.

And I think Petiot then becomes

a slightly odd character

because the killings are
very, very efficient.

They're painless.

He uses cyanide, which
I think is probably one

of the more expensive
and potent ways

of killing people at that point.

He knows how he's going
to dispose of the bodies.

It's almost, it's funny,

it has sort of echoes
of Nazi Germany

and the way in which

this sort of very
psychopathic organization

simply destroys human life

in order to advance
a particular ideal.

Petiot has maybe a sort of
slightly earthier human drive

that he seems to want money,

although it's not clear
what he ever does with that.

So I don't think
there's any evidence

that Petiot is a sadist at all.

In fact, the clinical nature

of his killing is
quite striking.

And maybe one of the
more disturbing aspects

of the case actually.

[Narrator] But in April, 1943,

just as Petiot is
lining up more victims

to invite to his slaughterhouse,

convinced that his
scheme is undetectable,

the escape network is
discovered by the authorities.

Yet not by the French
police officers

investigating the body parts,

washing up on the
banks of the Seine,

but by the Gestapo and the Nazis
are not hunting a murderer,

but instead take Petiot's
cover story at face value.

An informant told the Germans

that there was an
escape organization

and there was a
mysterious doctor

who they hadn't been
able to identify

who was really
responsible for it.

So the Gestapo went
to the barbershop,

they arrested
Fourrier and Pintard.

They tortured these two.

They very quickly gave Dr.
Eugene's real name, his address,

and even his telephone number.

[Narrator] And like that the
murder network is shut down.

Petiot is dragged
into Fresne Prison

and subjected to a
brutal interrogation

by Gestapo Commisaire
Robert Jodkum.

Yet rather than come clean and
explain his criminal scheme

in which he had been murdering

the same people the Nazis
themselves were hunting,

the doctor sticks
to his cover story

and suffers for months at
the hands of his captors.

They tortured him
for eight months.

They beat him, they
filed his teeth.

They compressed his
head in iron bands,

trying to find out more
about the escape network,

genuine Resistants, who
were in prison with him,

said that he was the bravest
person they had ever seen,

that he taunted the Germans.

He ridiculed them.
He laughed at them.

They were in awe of his
courage and dedication,

and they believed

that he was genuinely a
Resistant and fearless.

It's interesting why when
he's captured by the Gestapo

that Petiot holds to the line

that he's a Resistance fighter

and that he has a network
that he's pursuing,

even when doing so would
likely have saved him

from torture by the Gestapo.

You know, he's risking
quite a severe end

if the Gestapo think that he
is really a Resistance fighter.

But I think that Gestapo
take the wrong angle here.

Not that they would
necessarily have known that

by torturing him

because you can't really
punish a psychopath

for their behavior.

It doesn't really
work like that.

So torturing isn't going
to encourage Petiot

to do anything different

because psychopaths don't
respond to punishment.

It's not something that they
really have the capacity

to do in their brains.

[Narrator] Despite his
refusal to cooperate,

in January, 1944,

the Gestapo surprisingly
releases Marcel Petiot,

planning to monitor the
doctor further on the outside.

Yet fearful that his actual
crimes will be discovered

by the Germans and
with decomposing bodies

still littering the floor of
his Rue Le Sueur basement,

Petiot returns to
dispose of the evidence.

He calls his brother
Maurice in Auxerre

and has him deliver 400
kilos of quick lime,

then fires up his furnace

and begins incinerating
the remains.

And yet rather than
oversee the entire process,

he leaves the property,

the flesh still burning
in the basement.

He let the furnace burn.

Why? Why did he do that?

He seemed to have planned
everything else so well,

why was he so stupid doing that?

It really feels like,

and this is actually quite
typical of a psychopath,

he sort of lost interest
in that part of it.

He's left with these corpses.

What does he do with them?

So he creates this sort
of quasi-industrial place

where he can burn them and
then dissolve the bodies

in quick lime as
quickly as possible.

But it sounds like it's messier

and less straightforward
than he bargained for.

And I think this is
sort of the roots

of his eventual capture,

because he can't stop the
filthy smoke coming out.

He can't stop the
smells of decomposition.

So eventually the suspicions
are raised and he's found out.

[Narrator] On
March the 11th, 1944,

the police are called
to 21 Rue Le Sueur

and the fateful
discovery is made.

With Petiot and his wife
nowhere to be found,

Commissaire Georges Massu's
manhunt gets underway.

The note left on the
door of the property

leads them directly to the house

of the doctor's brother,
Maurice, in Auxerre.

And within three days they
track him down and arrest him.

They also discover
Petiot's wife, Georgette,

at the Auxerre train station

and she too is brought
in for questioning.

But the doctor himself
proves more elusive

and the police's search
is soon disrupted

as the Second World War
enters a decisive new stage.

On June 6th, D-Day occurs

when the Allies invade
the beaches of Normandy

and France is transformed into
a battleground once again.

And with the tables now turning,

the Resistance suddenly gains
an influx of volunteers,

looking to join their ranks.

There's lots of
reasons why people

after D-Day decided to
join the Resistance.

Some people just felt a sudden
urge to want to do something,

anything to kind of
release themselves.

But at the same time, some
people really thought,

I have not had a very good
record for the last four years.

Some of my actions have
actually been quite shady.

I better join the
Resistance now,

so that there's a good place
for me in the new France.

Once Vichy and the
occupation ends,

my Resistance record
is going to protect me.

[Narrator] And
although the motivations

of these new recruits
may be ambiguous,

as the Allies fight
their way across France,

within rural towns and
in cities countrywide,

this expanded Resistance
joins the campaign.

The D-Day invasion was
the beginning of June, 1944,

and it took about two
months for the Allies

to make their way across
Normandy to Paris.

(dramatic music)

As soon as the Allies landed,

the Resistance everywhere
started blowing up bridges,

blowing up trains, doing
everything they could

to make sure that the Germans
couldn't send reinforcements.

And in Paris, the Resistance
put up barriers in the street

and began attacking the Germans

and creating as much chaos
as they possibly could.

(dramatic music)
(guns firing)

The liberation of
Paris is accomplished

by the Americans, British
and Canadians advancing

from the Normandy beaches.

The French Resistance
though is important

in securing the
city from within.

The existence of large and
growing numbers of Resistors,

who now are emboldened
to become Resistors

by the turning of the tide,

leads to the rapid
pacification of Paris

and its preservation as one
of the jewels of civilization.

(dramatic music)

The Parisians were
out on the streets,

they were kissing the GIs and
giving them flowers and roses.

It was their liberation.

Paris was free.

The occupation was over.

[Narrator] With victory comes
an immediate regime change.

The Vichy government of
collaborationists is toppled

and power passes to
General Charles De Gaulle.

And his central aim
is to unify the people

of this fractured nation.

At the liberation of France,

it was really
important for De Gaulle

and for others at the top

to make sure that France
spoke with a single voice.

And one of the ways it
tried to do this was to say

we were a nation of resistors,

a handful, a minuscule number

of people in France
collaborated,

but the rest of you,
the rest of France,

even if we weren't
acting as resistors,

we believed in the Resistance.

So this myth of the resistance,

I mean, which was created at
the liberation by De Gaulle,

this was very powerful.

[Narrator] While celebrations
break out across the city,

there are some who
are far less jubilant.

For those who aided the Germans,

there are brutal repercussions

as angry Parisians
set up people's courts

and begin serving out
harsh street justice.

To bring order to the city,
the Resistance transforms

into the French Forces
of the Interior, the FFI,

and they help police
the liberated streets.

But again, with motivations
to join often dubious,

this voluntary army becomes
the perfect hiding place

for fugitives looking
to escape their past.

Everybody who
just wanted to help

and be patriotic joined the FFI

and collaborators
joined the FFI to hide.

Petiot joined the FFI

and they made him a captain.

[Narrator]
Remarkably, undeterred

by the extensive
police operation

that has been hunting
him for months,

Marcel Petiot has never
left Paris at all.

Assuming a false identity,
Captain Henri Valleri,

the doctor has
remained one step ahead

of the investigators
pursuing him

and proving a master of
disguise even played a role

in the liberation
of Paris itself.

Yet Commissaire Massu,
the detective in charge

of the manhunt
sees an opportunity

in newly liberated France.

With the press free once again,

he leaks a phony
newstory to a reporter,

one that falsely exposes
Petiot as a Nazi collaborator.

Massu clearly knew that
with somebody like Petiot

and he knew enough
about him by then

that this was going to
make him very angry,

which indeed it did.

Within a few days,

a letter from Marcel Petiot
reached the newspaper

boasting of how he
had been a Resistor

and how he had never
collaborated and so on.

The police looked at the
handwriting on the letter

and they knew from some of
the internal information,

that one, it suggested that
Petiot was still in Paris

and two, that he
was probably serving

in the French Forces
of the Interior.

So they sent samples of the
handwriting around to officers

in the French Forces
of the Interior

and asked them to compare them

to the handwriting of
all of the officers

in the FFI stationed in Paris.

[Narrator] The trap works

and within weeks
Petiot is arrested

at a Paris metro station and
pulled in for interrogation.

Heavily bearded and
significantly more gaunt,

on his person are
several false documents,

including the
altered ration card

of eight-year-old Rene Kneller.

Protesting his innocence
and claiming the murders

of which he was accused

were legitimate
Resistance executions,

he is immediately
jailed pending a trial.

Here he waits for
more than a year,

the story disappearing
from the headlines

amidst the more
substantial cases

of high level collaborators
and Vichyites.

Yet when he finally
does go before a judge,

the doctor comes to the
forefront, once again,

pushing even the Nuremberg
Trials from the front pages.

Exuding intelligence,
passion and charisma,

he maintains his innocence
like a master showman.

It was a sensational case

and people had been following
this in the newspapers

for two years by then,

and Petiot had been so defiant
and announced ahead of time

that he was going to have fun,

that this was gonna be
an entertaining trial.

So nobody knew what was
going to happen with him.

And it really is,
one person said

was the theatrical
event of the year.

Suddenly he was famous.

Infamous, yes, but to him,

he was famous and
he wasn't guilty.

Oh no.

I think there was
probably a very real danger

that Petiot could have
walked free from that trial.

I think it was, I'm not gonna
say it was poorly conducted,

because I just, I don't think

that the justice system
had ever seen anybody

quite like Petiot at that time.

And certainly not in the
context of, you know,

a country just coming
out of occupation.

Most psychopaths usually have
IQs probably in the region

of around about 90.

So significantly below the norm.

It is quite rare to see somebody
who's quite so articulate,

quite so, you know,
professionally

And to have somebody like that,

who's also got the
psychopathic features

of being very
charming, very glib,

up to a point it
ceases to become about

whether he's found
guilty or not.

He wants to be the
Marcel Petiot show

and he wants to make sure
that his voice is heard

and his identity as
a patriot is affirmed

by the people in the courtroom.

The prosecution has
substantial material evidence

to link the doctor to
his alleged victims.

At Petiot's Rue Le Sueur home,

the police have recovered a
wealth of personal clothing,

dresses, hats,
shoes, and fur coats,

belonging to Josephine
Grippay, Jo Le Boxeur,

Kurt and Margaret
Kneller and many others.

Interrogation of the doctor's
brother, Maurice Petiot,

has also led to the
discovery of 49 suitcases

in a large attic in Auxerre,

all of which are sat piled
high in the courtroom

as evidence of this
murder network.

But Petiot himself does
not dispute this evidence

and instead incorporates
it into his own defense.

Outside of the courtroom,

although Petiot is back
on the front pages,

the French public is no longer
so certain of his guilt.

The backstory
puts him on the map.

People have now gone, oh,
let's have a look at him.

What does he look like?

People are looking for an
answer and they get an answer,

but it's an answer that's
full of ambiguities.

It isn't like Petiot's on trial

and then they decide he's insane
and not fit to stand trial.

No, we have a man
who's standing up

and putting forward a
very elaborate story

to defend himself.

Petiot was accused
of 27 murders.

He claimed that he
had killed 63 people,

but he said his were all
justifiable homicides.

For people like Gushinov he
said, "I got him out of France.

He's in South America,
South America's a big place.

Go find him."

For Jo Le Boxeur and the
pimps and collaborators,

he said, "Yes, I killed him.

And I'm very proud of it.

I should get a medal rather
than being prosecuted.

Why are you persecuting
me this way?"

The ambiguity of
Petiot's defense,

there is an echo with the
ambiguity of the moment,

if you like.

There are going to be
people in any situation

where there's a
change of regime,

particularly where the
regime is being replaced

is one that's involved
collaboration with

There's going to be a
moment when people will say,

actually, I'm going to
pretend I was something else.

I'm gonna pretend I
did things I didn't do.

And I'm gonna deny I did things

that other people say I did do.

Now you have gonna have
that on a mass scale.

People are gonna tell
themselves stories

about what they
did or didn't do.

You have people who say
they were in the Resistance.

Where's the evidence?

In order to try and
adapt to the new society,

and Petiot is living
that out publicly

in a very extreme form, I think.

[Narrator] And Petiot
latches on these ambiguities

to his own advantage,
knowing that his claims

of being a persecuted
Resistance hero will play well

to his audience.

A psychopath is
particularly well poised

to exploit those kind of things

because of a trait that we
call pathological lying.

A pathological liar,

doesn't have really
a sort of grand truth

to what they're saying.

There isn't really, I think,
in Petiot's mind a grand truth

about whether or not he
is a Resistance fighter,

whether or not

he has been gassing the
Gestapo collaborators,

whether he or not
he is doing this

for financial gain.

It's all very murky.

And because of that,

he can simply
emphasize the parts

of which he wants to
believe at any given time

to any given responder.

Which means that you
can't really catch

a pathological liar out of a lie

because they can always
find another way around it.

It's simply left to the beholder
to try and find a point,

which I think in Petiot's trial,

they do find where
simply the lie

just isn't convincing anymore

because the weight of
evidence goes against it.

[Narrator] No matter how
engrossing his performance

nor how inconclusive
the case against him,

as the trial draws to a close,

the jury swiftly delivers
a verdict of guilty.

While his wife, brother

and unwitting accomplices

Fourrier and Pintard
are exonerated,

Petiot is sentenced to death,

still maintaining
that he was acting

only on orders as a genuine
member of the Resistance.

On May 25th, 1946, he is
brought into the courtyard

of Sante Prison and
awaits his execution.

As he stands beside
the guillotine,

he addresses the
witnesses and tells them,

"Look away, this
won't be pretty."

After the blade comes down,

a court official looks
at his severe head

and later reports that
Petiot was smiling.

You only have to
see right at the last,

when he's facing the guillotine

and good riddance
too, I might add,

even that's a smiling affair.

"Turn away. This
won't be pretty."

It's psychopathic.

(dramatic music)

[Narrator] With
the war now over

and with the
treacherous masterminds

of the Vichy regime
brought to justice,

the years of occupation
become an era

many survivors choose to forget.

And the unbelievable case

of Dr. Marcel Petiot
is also confined

to that same dark chapter
in France's history.

One of the nation's
most prolific

and cold-hearted serial killers

who may never have
become so infamous

were it not for the war itself.

(dramatic music)

In a time of sort
of tragedy and death,

this was almost a footnote
of tragedy and death,

which is the funny thing.

I think Petiot will probably
remain a unique case

because it just required such
a precise set of circumstances

for somebody who was
quite psychopathic, yes,

but also quite prone to violence

and had this very
callous attitude

to his fellow men and women,

that they were simply
chaff under the wheels

for him to advance his career
and his financial standings.

And I don't think that if
that was to happen today,

there would be
anything like the space

for him to get away
with that for so long.

It is totally
grotesque, what he did.

He shamelessly,
ruthlessly took advantage

of the situation
for his own gain.

And it is marvelous that
finally justice came to him.

Would he have
become a serial killer

if the war had never happened?

I don't think so.

The war gave him a fantastic
opportunity to enrich himself

and to enrich himself
he had to kill.

He enjoyed showing that he
was better than everyone else,

and he could make other
people believe anything.

He could make people love him
and adore him and respect him.

He could take their things.
He could take their lives.

Everybody else was
at his disposal.

He was the one who was in
supreme control of everything.

My question is why
wasn't he a Resistant?

I mean, he was brave.
He was intelligent.

He was absolutely courageous
and defiant of the Germans

when they had him in a prison.

If he had wanted money,

Germans and collaborators
probably had more

of the poor refugees
that he in fact killed.

If he just liked killing people,

there were plenty of Germans
and collaborators to kill.

He would've genuinely
been admired by people.

So why did he not do that?

And the only explanation
that I can come up with

is that he only would've
been fooling half people.

Whereas this way he
was fooling everybody.

(dramatic sinister music)

(dramatic suspenseful music)

(dramatic suspenseful music)

(dramatic suspenseful music)

(dramatic suspenseful music)