Men Of Flesh And Blood (4 page)

According to Thierry
Bissonnier's autopsy report, the first bullet had entered the
eyeball and stopped just short of the brain. The following rounds
crushed against the skull, except one, which slightly penetrated
the brain. The final shot entered through Bissonnier's back and
pierced his heart, causing almost immediate death. Only two
questions remained for investigators: who and why?

Nico Claux might have
gotten away with Thierry Bissonnier's murder had he not made a very
crucial mistake. In mid-October, Claux attempted to forge one of
Bissonnier's bank checks to buy a VCR. When asked for
identification, Claux presented the shop clerk with Bissonnier's
drivers’ license, which he had attempted to forge by inserting his
own picture. However, the fraud was quickly noticed when the clerk
compared the signatures. Nico Claux took off before the police
arrived. Thus, the search began.

Claux: "On Nov. 15, 1994,
I was arrested in front of the Moulin Rouge cabaret following an
altercation with a woman. The police had recognized me from the
photograph on Bissonnier's forged driving license and while under
custody I confessed to the murder when I was shown the ballistic
evidence. Further investigation showed I had been robbing the
graves of several Parisian gothic graveyards, stealing the bones,
and mutilating the mummified remains. When asked the reason why I
was storing stolen blood bags inside my refrigerator, I simply
answered that I drank it on a regular basis. I also confessed to
being on a very special diet and went on to describe my mortuary
job and the cannibalism.

"The murder investigation
itself was centered on the motive, and whether or not there was
premeditation. Why did I begin to kill? At first, I claimed that
the motive was robbery. However, the coldly calculated modus
operandi I used, as well as the unnecessary overkill, and the
careful removal of fingerprints, proved that something far more
sinister was involved, thus indicating a clearly senseless, yet
premeditated, murder. With the victim being homosexual,
investigators at first wondered if there was a sexual component to
the case. Nevertheless, there was none. It simply turned out that I
was just looking for death. I was soon sent to Fleury-Merogis, a
jail south of Paris. Fleury is a remand center, a place where
convicts are locked up before their trial. The problem is that you
can wait up to three or four years in France before going to court.
Then you have to wait one more year until they find you a room in a
prison."

For the next two years,
Claux says a court-ordered team of specialized psychiatrists and
psychologists examined him. Dozens of tests were made, which in the
end, he says, revealed a borderline psychotic personality disorder.
In addition, Claux says that the experts also diagnosed him as
suffering from necrophilia and sexual sadism. However, they did not
detect any psychic or neuropsychic disorders, which could have
interfered with his discernment or control of his
actions.

Claux: "At one point,
Thiel asked for a reconstruction of the murder. I was led to the
victim's apartment, where I showed my version of the events. I said
that I accidentally fired the first shot, and continued shooting
until the victim died. I stuck to this version until the trial. The
first motive I gave him was robbery, but when I realized that I
could benefit from a diminished responsibility plea, I told him
that I had an argument with a homosexual in a section of Père
Lachaise Cemetery on the morning before the murder, over the fact
that it was my territory, and not theirs. So, according to that
version, I decided to contact a gay on the Minitel to "scare" him
and get my revenge."

Claux claims that
explanation pleased the psychiatrists, and they granted him
diminished responsibility under Rule 242 alinéa B of the penal
code. However, the documents in the case do not confirm this. In
December 1996, Gilbert Thiel closed the preliminary investigation
when he decided that there was enough evidence for a
trial.

It is interesting to note
that in the middle of the preliminary investigation, which lasted
nearly two years, Thiel was promoted to the Anti-Terrorist Squad,
following the 1995 series of attacks in Paris by Islamic
terrorists. While he was no longer required to work on the case,
Thiel chose to stay on, and all remaining interrogations took place
in his office, the Anti-Terrorist Squad headquarters, at 36, Quai
des Orfèvres. Perhaps it was because he believed that Claux was
responsible for other similar murders and did not want to lose the
opportunity to gather additional evidence.

Nico Claux's trial began
on May 9, 1997, at the Cour d'Assises de Paris. The nine-member
jury had already been chosen by presiding Judge W. Waechter.
Claux's defense lawyer, Irène Terrel, entered a plea of not guilty.
The prosecution's opening move was to shock the jury with grisly
photographs of the crime scene and of Claux's apartment.

Claux: "The purpose of the
photos was to make a parallel between the murder, and the
environment where I lived -- the old 'Does fiction influence
reality' debate?

The prosecution charged
that Nico had voluntarily killed Bissonnier, and they felt that he
had acknowledged that it was premeditated. Following this, they
presented the jury with a list of crimes Claux had committed during
the act, theft of a checkbook, credit card, wallet, driving
license, alarm clock, and an answering machine. Prosecutors implied
that the items were stolen prior to the murder. The prosecution
then pointed out the use of the forged license, and the forged
check, which included the falsifying of Bissonnier's signature.
While all of the above was damning in its own right, the case took
a sudden turn when the prosecution attempted to establish that
Bissonnier's murder was in fact one in a series, which had taken
place in Paris during 1994.

Claux: "The prosecution
called me a 'death addict' and a 'real-life vampire'. Their theory
was that I was a copycat of serial killer Rémy R. ('Le tueur du
Minitel Rose'). The main testimony in their 'serial murders' theory
came from two of the leading investigators on my case. One of them,
Inspector Garcin, testified that even though there was no solid
evidence against me, I fitted the psychological profile of a serial
murderer. His other claim was that witnesses in bars where other
murder victims hung out had previously spotted me
there."

Regardless of the
prosecution's "serial killer theory," there was simply not enough
physical evidence to back it up. Thereafter, the arguments revolved
around the murder of Thierry Bissonnier. Claux says that several of
the experts who had interviewed him over the years took the stand
and a long debate began as a variety of diagnoses was
presented.

Claux: "Psychosis was
established, mostly because of acts of cannibalism that I was
accused of having practiced in the morgue where I worked, and acts
of mutilation of dead bodies that I had done during grave
robberies. Those acts alone were, according to psychiatrists, proof
of a total loss of reality. This was completed by the results of
the Rorschach tests, which showed an 'inner void' typical of
schizophrenia. For them, I could benefit from Rule 242, concerning
diminished responsibility, because my medical condition reduced my
capacity to control my impulses."

Jurors deliberated for
just three hours. Nicolas Claux was found guilty of premeditated
murder, armed robbery, fraudulent use of a bank check,
falsification of his driver’s license photo, and an attempt to
defraud the retailer of the video camera. He was then sentenced to
12 years in prison. Contrary to Claux's version of events, he was
never convicted of grave robbery or the theft of bags containing
blood.

Nico Claux's early prison
years were spent in Fleury-Merogis, just south of Paris, where he
remained for four years and two months until February 1999, when he
was transferred to Maison Centrale Poissy, about 15 miles northwest
of Paris. In all, there are six "Maison Centrales" in France, each
holding at least 200 inmates. Considered maximum security, Poissy
has a reputation among inmates as being the place where they lock
up serial killers and terrorists. During his stay there, Claux says
that he shared his block with at least six serial
killers.

Claux: "For two years I
studied computer programming at the state's expense, but in
reality, I spent more time in the gym, paint room and recreation
yard than I did in the class rooms. I had started painting in 1997,
and soon learned that I had a natural talent. I was also part of
the prison's video team, where I learned filming and editing with
DV camcorders. We would film concerts, football games, and boxing
fights."

After serving just seven
years and four months of a 12-year sentence, Nicolas Claux was
released from prison on March 22, 2002. Shortly after release from
prison, Claux used his prison training in computer programming to
create a web site to promote his drawings and painting of famous
killers. His stories of grave robbing, cannibalism, etc. got him
booked on talk shows, which further boosted his macabre celebrity
status.

On his website, he
says:

"This website is my only
official website. The other unofficial sites you might find online
focus on a past that I am now a long way away. I have worked hard
to improve myself through the development of artistic abilities. I
cannot erase the past, but my goal
is to
channel the negativity that I have caused into pure creativity. I
do not endorse any other sites than this one. I do not profit from
my past, and I do not encourage other people into doing the things
that I have done. The spiritual and social prices to pay are far
too high."

He says that he will not
practice cannibalism again, which is certainly a plus. For a
period, Nico lived in Sweden and England, but he returned to Paris
in September 2004 and lives with his girlfriend in an apartment
there.

He has decorated his body
extensively with tattoos and attends fetish, Goth, and tattoo
conventions. His celebrity status as the "Vampire of Paris," while
it has its downsides as a resume item for conventional positions
provides him opportunities for television and magazine interviews,
which allows him to travel around Europe and sell his
artwork.

CHAPTER 4: ANDREI
CHIKATILO

(October 16, 1936 –
February 14, 1994)

Andrei Romanovich
Chikatilo, also known as, the Butcher of Rostov, The Red Ripper or
The Rostov Ripper, Ukrainian-born Soviet serial killer, who
murdered a minimum of 52 women and children between 1978 and 1990.
He was convicted of 52 murders in October 1992 and was executed in
February 1994.

Andrei Chikatilo was born
in the village of Yablochnoye (Yabluchne) in modern Sumy Oblast of
the Ukrainian SSR. Ukrainian farmers were forced to hand in their
entire crop for statewide distribution. Mass starvation ran rampant
throughout Ukraine and reports of cannibalism soared. Chikatilo's
mother, Anna, told him that his older brother Stepan had been
kidnapped and cannibalized by starving neighbors, although it has
never been independently established whether this actually
happened.