Smell of burning corpses finally unmasked doctor turned grisly serial killer who murdered 150

It was the dawn of the 1940s. was in the grip of Nazi occupation and the city was shrouded in fear, But the Gestapo’s reign of terror provided perfect camouflage for a prolific who is believed to have killed as many as 150 people - operating in plain sight.

No one would have suspected the eminent physician Dr Marcel Petiot of killing, rather than curing. But while Petiot claimed to be a member of the resistance, helping people to escape the , the people who accepted his help were never seen again.

Their bodies were rotting at the bottom of the river Seine or in the basement of Petiot’s home. His evil was exposed when he tried to destroy evidence by burning the corpses - and neighbours complained to police about the rancid smell.

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Author of Die in Paris about the serial killer, Marilyn Z Tomlins, says: “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 on the arm. Inside the boiler, they could see a human head.”

Assorted rib cages, jaw bones, and large chunks of charred flesh from at least 10 victims littered the floor. A pit of quicklime contained the remains of yet more bodies.

Initially, police believed they uncovered a secret Gestapo base - especially as the murder victims were resistance operatives. But the house belonged to Dr Petiot - and Commissaire Georges Massu issued a warrant for his arrest.

Forensics found that the fingertips and faces had been expertly removed from corpses. Medical examiner Dr Albert Paul concluded that the killer had medical training, while some of the thighs had stab wounds similar to those found on bodies floating in the Seine a year earlier.

The Nazis had arrested and interrogated Petiot around that time, suspecting him of being a member of the French resistance.

But a witness soon painted a hugely disturbing picture of Petiot. Author Thomas Maeder explains: “A couple of days after the discovery of the bodies on the Rue le Sueur, the business partner of a Jewish furrier named Joachim Guschinov, came to Commissaire Massu and told him about the disappearance of Guschinov.”

Petiot had been the man’s doctor in 1941, when he revealed his desire to escape from the Nazis and the physician said he could help.

First he needed to be vaccinated, then he’d be taken to Spain which was then neutral and on to Africa, then Argentina. “So Guschinov took $1.5m worth of cash and silver and gold and diamonds, and went with Petiot and was never seen again,” says Thomas Maeder.

But Guschinov was not the only desperate Parisian to seek safe passage out of occupied France with Petiot’s help.

The police investigation identified countless potential victims. And Massu realised that he was dealing with a devious, ruthless, serial killer. But Marcel Petiot had also disappeared. Massu sent his men to Auxerre where he grew up and locals painted another disturbing picture.

Despite a nervous breakdown during military service, after which he was declared insane, Petiot was still allowed to qualify as a doctor. He quickly became a prominent figure in the local community. And in 1926 he fell in love with a local maid called Louisette, who soon fell pregnant.

Overnight she vanished without trace and Petiot complained that she had left him. But days later, the headless body of a young woman was found in the river. People immediately said it was Louisette, but the body could not be identified and the case went cold.

Petiot was soon elected mayor of the town and married Georgette, the daughter of a wealthy and influential landowner. But his reputation unravelled, as he was dictatorial and people suspected that he was stealing from the coffers.

Two other murders linked to doctor Petiot - a woman with whom he had been having an affair and a local farmer who was a patient.

With no witnesses to tie him to the murders, Petiot again avoided arrest. But he was found guilty of fraud and embezzlement and thrown out of office, his reputation in ruins.

So, he fled to Paris where he quickly revived his career. Marilyn Z. Tomlins explains: “He had a leaflet printed, which he delivered himself and he left it with pharmacists, in nightclubs, in bars and 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.”

But in May 1940, everything changed. Hitler’s war machine stormed into France and the French government quickly fled Paris. Many in the Jewish community began looking for ways to leave - their only hope lying with the resistance.

Meanwhile, this increasingly hostile environment gave Dr. Marcel Petio an opportunity to exploit people fearing for their lives.

In late 1941 he visited local barber, Raoul Fourrier, a man with connections in the Parisian underworld. Petiot concocted an elaborate story saying he was the head of a resistance cell named Fly-Tox, with an escape network.

For a minimum of 25,000 Francs, he would provide false papers and vaccinations and take the escapees to a safe house, where they would be met by a people smuggler ,who would take them into Spain - and on to sanctuary in Argentina.

He also told Fourrier that potential escapees should bring their most valuable possessions along. Watches, jewellery, cash, gold bullion.

He offered Fourrier a share of Fly-Tox’s fee if he could spread the word and help identify potential customers. Agreeing, Fourrier enlisted his friend Edmond Pintard, a stage actor with similarly shady underworld connections

Within weeks, the pair provided Petiot with his first set of exiles - a gang of French criminals who had fallen foul of the Nazis. They were taken to Petiot’s house, received their vaccinations and were never seen alive again.

In an occupied city in which the Nazis were already imprisoning and executing Jews, criminals and partisans, those apparently departing to Argentina through Petiot were never reported missing.

Marilyn Z. Tomlins says: “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. But, a few weeks later, parts of bodies were found floating in the Seine - including a man’s head, parts of a woman’s body and the vertically-sectioned body of an eight-year-old boy.

The Knellers’ bodies were the first of nine dissected cadavers the police discovered in the River Seine over the coming months.

Throughout 1942 more and more desperate Jews sought the doctor’s help - all meeting a similar end. But in April 1943, just as Petiot was lining up more victims, the escape network was discovered by, of all people, the Gestapo.

Thomas Maeder explains: “An informant told the Germans that there was an escape organisation out of a barbershop, and there was a mysterious they hadn’t been able to identify, who was really responsible for it. So the Gestapo went to the barbershop, where they arrested Fourrier and Pintard.”

The pair were tortured and quickly gave up Petiot’s name and address. He was dragged into Fresne prison and subjected to a brutal interrogation by Gestapo commissaire Robert Jodkum.

Yet, rather than explain his criminal scheme - murdering the same people the Nazis themselves were hunting - the doctor stuck to his cover story.

Thomas Maeder says: “The Nazis 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 resistant and fearless.”

Despite his refusal to cooperate, in January 1944, the Gestapo released Petiot, planning to monitor him on the outside.

Fearful that his crimes would actually be discovered, with decomposing bodies littering the floor of his Rue le Sueur basement, Petiot returned to burn the bodies.

On March 11, 1944, the police were called to 21 Rue le Sueur and finally exposed Petiot’s house of horror.

Within weeks, he was arrested at a Paris Metro station and pulled in for interrogation.

On his person were several false documents, including the altered ration card of eight-year-old Rene Kneller.

Protesting his innocence and claiming the murders were legitimate resistance executions, he was immediately jailed pending trial.

Thomas Maeder says: “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 Guschinov, he said, ‘I got him out of France. He’s in South America. South America’s a big place. Go find him.’”

Petiot was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, still maintaining that he was acting only on orders as a genuine member of the resistance.

On May 25, 1946, he was brought into the courtyard of Sante prison for his execution.

Standing beside the guillotine, he told the witnesses: “Look away, this won’t be pretty.”

A court official later looked at his severed head and later reported that Petiot was smiling. Dr. Julian Boone says: “It is totally grotesque what he did. He shamelessly, ruthlessly took advantage of the situation for his own gain and it is marvellous that, finally, justice came to him.”

Marilyn Z. Tomlins adds: “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.”

• A Serial Killer in Nazi Paris can be seen on May 4 at 9pm on Sky History