The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot (15 page)

French courts at that time, even as now, commonly recommended psychiatric examination of accused lawbreakers, particularly when there were any unusual circumstances, such as, in this case, the youth of the offender. On March 26, 1914, a court-appointed psychiatrist found Marcel to be “an abnormal youth suffering from personal and hereditary problems which limit to a large degree his responsibility for his acts”; another physician concurred on May 6, adding that the only cure for what ailed Marcel would be one mainly oriented toward his “adaptation to discipline and social life.” Following these diagnoses, and abetted, perhaps, by his father's intervention with the postal authorities, charges against Marcel were dropped on August 14 because, according to the court judgment, “the accused appears to be mentally ill.” Félix Petiot was so upset by Marcel's repeated delinquencies and unrepentant nature that he wanted nothing further to do with his son. Petiot was sent to Dijon to complete his schooling; he finished only the first part of his
baccalauréat
examination before unspecified problems forced him to return to Auxerre, where he was once again expelled from school. Finally he received his degree from a special school in Paris on July 10, 1915.

Petiot was inducted into the Eighty-ninth Infantry Regiment in January 1916 and was sent to the front in November. He served with neither distinction nor dishonor until May 20, 1917, when, in bitter fighting in the Aisne, hand-grenade shrapnel ripped open his left foot. He was evacuated to a military clinic in the Orléans insane asylum for treatment of this injury and of a bronchial condition brought on by a poison-gas attack. His wound healed well, but he began to exhibit symptoms of mental disorder and was sent to a series of rest homes and clinics to convalesce. He returned briefly to his regiment, then was almost immediately sent back to a clinic. There he was involved in an obscure incident involving stolen blankets and was placed in the military prison at Orléans. Renewed indications of mental unbalance caused his transfer to the psychiatric unit at Fleury-les-Aubrais, in the same region, where a doctor diagnosed him as suffering from “mental disequilibrium, neurasthenia, mental depression, melancholia, obsessions and phobias,” and concluded that Marcel could not be held legally responsible for his acts.

After a month of treatment and another month's convalescent leave, Petiot was returned to the front in June 1918. He had a nervous breakdown, fired a revolver at his foot, and was transferred to a depot behind the lines. In July he went into convulsions at the Dijon train station; he spent the afternoon unconscious in the railroad infirmary and was granted another three-week leave. In September, he joined the Ninety-first Infantry Regiment at Charleville as a machine gunner, but was unable to accept discipline, complained of incessant headaches, and claimed to be in constant dread of another fit. In March 1919 he spent two weeks at the psychiatric division of the Rennes military hospital, where the medical director found him the victim of neurasthenia, amnesia, mental unbalance, sleepwalking, severe depression, paranoia, and suicidal tendencies. He recommended his discharge from the army.

This recommendation was examined by the Commission de Réforme, which governs discharges and pensions. They approved, and on July 4, 1919, Petiot was released from the army with a 40 percent disability pension. The case was reviewed in September 1920 and his disability rating increased to 100 percent; the examining psychiatrist, concluding that Petiot was suffering from severe depression, suicidal tendencies, hyper-emotivity, and utter inability to perform any physical or intellectual work, recommended that the patient might be best off placed under continuous surveillance in a psychiatric hospital.

Petiot was examined again in March 1922, and immediately afterward he wrote to the Commission de Réforme that he “purely and simply refused to accept any disability pension at all so as to avoid being subjected again to what I find a more than disagreeable bit of exhibitionism.” Nonetheless, he continued to receive a pension for years and underwent the disagreeable examination again in July 1923. Both of these last two reviews upheld the earlier conclusions, with the added notations that Petiot showed complete indifference about his future and had bite scars on his tongue from bimonthly epileptic seizures. Curiously, his pension was now reduced to 50 percent disability.

When in 1920 the commission psychiatrist found Petiot incapable of any work and suggested his placement in a mental hospital, Petiot was indeed already at a mental hospital, in the town of Evreux, sixty miles west of Paris in the Eure. He was not there as a patient, however, but as a medical student serving his internship and preparing a thesis on an incurable, progressive nerve degeneration called Landry's paralysis. (Some newspapers later misunderstood their informants and wrote that Petiot had written his thesis on the mass murderer Landru.) Truncated and accelerated medical programs designed for former soldiers enabled him to complete his schooling in eight months and his internship in two years; the police in 1944, unable to piece together a full set of records, suspected Petiot had accelerated his program even further through unscrupulous means. In any event, he received his degree from the Faculté de Médecine de Paris on December 15, 1921.

Petiot was proud of his new position, though his friend Nézondet believed that he wanted it only for the power it conferred: the power of healing, the power over life and death, the prestige, the control over people who gave him their trust and confided their secrets. Félix Petiot was proud, too, and wrote to the son he had banished in disgrace years before. Marcel went to see him. He listened to his father's apologies and praise, he dined with him, and when dinner was over and Félix prepared to sit down to a long talk, Marcel rudely announced that he was expected elsewhere and walked out of the house.

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It is interesting to note that an early psychiatric description of the psychopathic personality listed four childhood symptoms characteristic of that disorder: somnambulism, enuresis, cruelty to animals (particularly decapitation), and arson. Petiot was never accused of arson—at least not as a child—but otherwise his record was perfect.

8

DR. PETIOT AND MR. MAYOR

Armed with his Paris medical degree, Petiot moved to the town of Villeneuve-sur-Yonne, an old historical village on the banks of the Yonne River built in 1165 as a royal residence for King Louis VII. Villeneuve was only twenty-five miles from Petiot's native Auxerre, and with a population of forty-two hundred served only by two aging physicians, it appeared the ideal spot for an ambitious young doctor of twenty-five to set up practice. He rented a small house on the rue Carnot with three rooms and a garden, and spent several weeks distributing tracts he had printed up that announced his arrival: “Dr. Petiot is young, and only a young doctor can keep up to date on the latest methods born of a progress which marches with giant strides. This is why intelligent patients have confidence in him. Dr. Petiot treats, but does not exploit his patients.” At first this boastful flier attracted only those patients already dissatisfied with the other two doctors, as well as hypochondriacs always eager for new treatments and a virgin ear, but Petiot quickly began to lure away even the more devoted patients. He was a gentleman to the ladies, paternal to the children, and a sympathetic listener to the men. While maintaining his exalted position, he nonetheless made the people of the village feel he was just one of them.

Patients without money were treated for a fraction of the cost or for free, and he was known to open his office on Sunday for those whose work prevented them from coming during the week, and to travel great distances late at night to treat sick children. His treatments were successful and his tone reassuring. He seemed able to diagnose an ailment and write the necessary prescription even before the patient had a chance to describe his symptoms: “No, don't tell me. I know all about it. You have this, this, this, and that. Take a bit of this and you will feel better in no time.” More often, Petiot would persuade his patients that there was really nothing wrong with them at all. Many of his patients were flattered by the interest Petiot took in their lives. Something about him drew out their confidence, and he enjoyed hearing about their social lives, their finances, their small worries in life. A patient would sometimes realize, after being ushered to the door with a prescription in his hand, that during the entire consultation he had spoken about nothing but his life and had never mentioned his ailment.

As it turned out, Petiot was not quite so self-sacrificing as it seemed. It was learned later that he enrolled virtually all of his patients in Medical Assistance without their knowledge, so that he was reimbursed by the State for those who did not pay, and was paid twice for some who did. Although patients went to see him in ever increasing numbers, local pharmacists occasionally complained about his prescriptions, which all too frequently contained potent doses of narcotics. Once a pharmacist telephoned Petiot to correct a prescription that called for a near-lethal dose of a dangerous drug. Petiot replied that since the pharmaceutical companies and druggists watered down the products, it was only by prescribing excessive amounts that he could compensate and obtain the required dose. Another pharmacist refused to fill a prescription for a child that would have killed an adult. When he complained to the doctor, Petiot replied: “What difference does it make to you anyway? Isn't it better to do away with this kid who's not doing anything in the world but pestering its mother?” Still, not one of his patients seems to have died, and none complained.

In his private life, Petiot was taciturn and distant. The main feature of his personality seemed to be scorn: scorn for people, institutions, sickness, danger, life, and the law. Beneath his seductive charm and professional devotion, there appeared to be nothing but cold amusement and detached interest. A turbulent inner life there was, which made him nervous and tense, and sometimes plunged him into sudden despair and fits of weeping. The cause of these crises was never communicated to those around him. He did not smoke, drink, or frequent cafés, had few friends, and shared none of the simple problems, joys, and casual conversations that draw people together and form the tissue of daily life. When he did speak, his talk did not seem to emerge from amiability, but from a desire to manipulate people. “To succeed in life,” he once told a friend, “one must have a fortune or a powerful position. One must want to dominate those who might cause one problems, and impose one's will on them.”

A conversation with Petiot was a debate in which he always seized the upper hand. René Nézondet described him in his 1950 book about Petiot:

Logic and common sense were his personal enemies and had no place in his mind. Even when faced with firm evidence, he did not know how to give in. On the contrary; he was always prepared with ten answers to prove that you were in the most complete error. I, who had time to study the depths of his mind, I am convinced that his greatest pleasure was to play with men's minds.… He knew how to create doubt, even though you often suspected that he was saying the opposite of what he truly believed. He forced his way of seeing things upon you. When you asked his advice, he was never at a loose end. He invariably replied: “But it's exceedingly simple, you have only to …” Then he launched into endless explanations, definitions and rationalizations. He laid out a veritable encyclopedia of ideas, so simple to comprehend that ninety-nine times out of a hundred, you hadn't understood a single thing, but out of politeness or in order not to seem more ignorant than he, you did not press the matter.

Petiot lived very modestly—too modestly perhaps, villagers thought, for a man in his position. An old woman came to clean house and prepare meals. His clothes were not in the latest style except for his neckties, in which he took some pride. Besides being poorly cut, his suits were often covered with grease stains; he made his own automobile repairs and never troubled to change before burying himself in the engine or sliding under the car. His light-yellow sports car was his only luxury and also the greatest danger to the townspeople. He would drive without headlights, and over several years caused dozens of accidents; and though the car gradually lost bumpers, mudguards, paint, and all respectability, Petiot himself was, miraculously, never injured.

Mostly Petiot kept to himself when not working. He read voraciously—generally police stories and pulp literature, which he would devour at a rate of three hundred pages an hour, reading a page at a time and fixing it so firmly in his memory that he could quote long extracts of unbelievable tripe. He went out little, and then mostly at night. He could see well in the darkness, was able to pick up a pin in near-total obscurity, and often walked the streets for hours long after the lights were out and the village asleep. He seemed born of the night, it was said, and his personality changed when he plunged into his element. He was more alive, his movements supple and feline, his carriage different, his face more relaxed, his smile more frank and open. It hardly seemed that he slept at all. His peculiarities conspired to make people uneasy at the same time that they trusted him. At certain moments he overflowed with a sort of exuberant vitality that scarcely seemed to come from within him. Nézondet likened him to a man possessed.

Though his style of living was far from lavish and he scarcely needed money, Petiot displayed an acquisitive streak—a need to accumulate and possess that would grow with the years. He was a kleptomaniac, and frequently took something besides himself when he left a house after a visit. Maurice Petiot told Nézondet he always searched his brother's pockets at the door before bidding him farewell. The items the doctor stole were never very expensive or important, and the village people excused or overlooked his quirk. In later years, Petiot's wife and son surreptitiously returned stolen objects to their rightful owners and Marcel apparently never missed them. But these small thefts seemed indicative of other, still largely hidden aspects of Petiot's personality. The Mongins, from whom Petiot rented his rue Carnot house, had given him a one-year lease, and it was understood that at the end of that time he would move elsewhere and they would move back into the house. But when the lease expired, Petiot refused to leave; the couple had to evict him with a court order, and when they regained possession they discovered that he had removed a number of ornaments and pieces of their furniture and had replaced an antique stove worth F25,000 with a clever imitation. When the Mongins threatened him with a lawsuit, he pointed out that, being a certified lunatic, no court would find him legally responsible. They were convinced he had robbed them out of sheer perversity, since most of the things he had taken were of no use to him whatsoever.