The Butcher of Paris

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When the German army marched into an eerily quiet Paris on June 14th, 1940, the French civilians watching from their apartment windows experienced a mix of emotions.

Fear, humiliation, and a profound sense of loss.

Their day-to-day life would be completely changed by the next morning.

The eerie silence in the streets would continue.

The German occupation meant strict curfews.

Everyday spaces such as cafes and shops were frequently commandeered by Nazi soldiers and collaborators, contributing to a climate of constant tension and frustration.

It was an environment anyone would want to escape, but none more than the Jews, resistance fighters, and other French civilians who were being hunted by the Gestapo.

Fortunately, rumors began to spread that a secret network had been formed in the city, an opportunity to escape the country.

Working out of his home in Paris, a physician named Dr.

Marcel Pettio, was eager to help anyone in need, but nothing was free, of course.

His services would require a large fee, and the people looking for safe passage out of France would first need to visit the doctor at his home to receive the necessary medical treatments for the journey.

Had they known what the doctor intended to do to them in his home, however, well, they might as well have just asked the Nazis for their help.

This is the story of Dr.

Marcel Pettio,

otherwise called Dr.

Satan, the butcher of Paris.

I'm Luke Lamana

and this is Wartime Stories.

By 1944, the Second World War had dramatically turned against the Nazis.

While large swaths of Western and Eastern Europe still lay under the swastika's banner, the Allies had the Germans largely on the defensive.

With the Soviets pushing closer to the Third Reich's eastern borders and the Americans, British, and Canadians inching their way up through Italy, rumors of a massive Allied invasion into Europe began to circulate among French citizens.

For residents of Paris, the warm spring air brought with it a renewed sense of hope that liberation was near.

However, on March 11th of 1944, a sense of hope wasn't the only thing wafting through the streets of the nation's capital.

The neighborhood of Rue des Comartine found itself shrouded in a foul-smelling haze.

The source of the stench was the chimney of 21 Rue Le Sur.

The home was once again belching thick clouds of putrid smoke into the air.

Neighbors had been complaining to the French authorities for the last few days, but it wasn't until March 11th that the local fire brigade was finally summoned to the home.

The firemen quickly forced their way inside, accessing the building from the second floor, and were greeted by a sickeningly thick haze, which they then traced down into the basement.

What they found down there was far more unsettling than they could have anticipated.

A roaring fire inside of a coal stove, and in the fire, and littered around the basement, were human remains.

The owner of the home was absent, but the police quickly determined who it was, a doctor by the name of Marcel Pettio.

The problem now would be finding him.

Over the course of the following seven months, the manhunt for Petio and the French police's investigation into the incident would reveal just how depraved the doctor was.

Born on January 17, 1897, in the northern French town of Ausser-Yonne, Marcel Pettio's early life was largely defined by mischief.

In school, Pettio constantly found himself at odds with his peers due to his tendency to steal others' personal belongings and provoke altercations.

The teacher's repeated efforts to discipline Pettio proved utterly futile.

They initially took his behavior to mean that he was just another hard-headed youth in need of guidance.

But it eventually became evident that the young Petio had some deeply rooted mental ailments, as exhibited by his complete lack of empathy and respect for both his peers and adults around him.

As he grew into his teenage years, Pettio's behavior devolved into more devious sorts of criminal activity.

He once stole his father's pistol, bringing it along with him to school.

He fired the weapon several times on the school grounds and was said to have reveled in the fear he created in his fellow students.

On a separate occasion, he was written up for sexually harassing a female student, resulting in yet another expulsion from an ever-growing list of schools.

In 1914, Petio was at the age of 17 and was prosecuted in his first-ever formal criminal trial.

He'd attempted to steal a postal box.

It was a tough case for his defense attorney.

He knew about Pettio's lengthy record of delinquency.

This was hardly a first offense.

Pettio was now looking at serious jail time for the charges of robbery and damage to public property.

His attorney decided it would be wise to have the young man analyzed by a licensed psychiatrist and hoped that the findings would help their case.

This was Pettio's first documented psychological analysis.

According to the report, Pettio was described as, quote, an abnormal youth suffering from personal and hereditary problems, which limit to a large degree his responsibility for his actions.

Based on his observations and conversations with Petio, the psychiatrist diagnosed the teenager with a number of conditions, such as depression, melancholia, obsessions, phobias, paranoia, and antisocial personality traits.

The psychiatrist also speculated that Petio had a mental condition known as kleptomania, meaning he had an uncontrollable impulse to steal anything he could get his hands on.

This was what the defense had been aiming for.

With Petio's attorneys then arguing that he was mentally ill and unable to take responsibility for his own actions, the psychiatrist's findings were enough to sway the court.

The judge dropped all charges against Petio.

This was a common practice in cases where the accused was found to be mentally unfit to stand trial.

Still a teenager, Pettio was relegated to a specialized institute to complete his high school education.

But neither the care he received nor his close shave with criminal justice did much to alter the trajectory of his life.

Following his graduation from school, with his country now locked in a fight for survival against the invading German army, Marcel Pettio was drafted into the French army in early 1916.

Though outwardly possessing what some considered a smug facade of arrogance and confidence, it didn't take long for Petio's fragile mental state to completely crumble in the wake of the war's unrelenting brutality.

The incessant shelling, abhorrent conditions, and constant terror sent Pettio reeling, resulting in numerous mental breakdowns and frequent rotations off the front line.

Any of his peers or superiors would have said that the last place Pettio should have been was wearing an army uniform and holding a loaded weapon.

He was a danger to both himself and everyone around him.

But the fight against the Germans was demanding.

Despite his clear signs of psychological instability, the French needed every able-bodied soldier available to fight, and Pettio was kept on the front lines.

When Allied forces launched into the Second Battle of the Ain in 1917, Pettio's unit was one of the many ordered into the attack.

Pressed up against the hardened lines of the German defenses, during the fighting Pettio was wounded by grenade fragments and exposed to weaponized gas.

He was carried off the field and immediately transferred to a military hospital.

During his medical treatment, even while he lay wounded in the hospital, Pettio's kleptomania became a problem.

But it wasn't just a magpie-type impulse.

Pettio's thievery was motivated by personal gain.

He started snatching everything from Army supplies, doctor's instruments, and medications like morphine, which he would then sell to anyone willing to buy it.

Pettio didn't discriminate either between doctors or wounded soldiers.

He stole their wallets, photographs, and personal correspondences.

right from under their noses.

He wasn't completely surreptitious about it either.

He was often caught, and given how precious some of the things he stole were, pictures of girlfriends, letters from wives, and so on, hospital staff had the additional work of breaking up fights.

After stealing some army blankets, Pettio was finally charged and jailed at Orleans, then transferred to a psychiatric ward at Fleury-les-Aubre.

Doctors there diagnosed Pettio as suffering from mental disequilibrium, neurasthenia, mental depression, melancholia, obsessions, and phobias.

Once again, they ruled him not guilty by reason of insanity.

The diagnosis did not keep him out of military service, however.

He was returned to the front in June 1918, but wouldn't stay long.

Pettio promptly suffered a nervous breakdown, shot himself in the foot, and was pulled back behind the lines.

The war ended two months later.

During his final months of recovery, Pettio complained about headaches and was again sent for psychiatric treatment.

This time, the diagnoses added were amnesia, sleepwalking, depression, and tendencies for self-harm.

This was finally enough to get him out of uniform.

He was discharged with a 40% disability pension.

Petio's case was reviewed in September 1920, with his disability rating increased to 100%.

The author of that report suggested that Petio be committed to an asylum.

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Like all veterans returning home from the war, in spite of his disability pension, Pettio still needed to find work.

He took advantage of an accelerated learning program that was being made available to veterans of the French military.

While far from being a formal degree in medicine, the expedited education program helped Pettio become a fully licensed physician in only eight months.

His criminal insanity notwithstanding, he was now a doctor.

In 1921, he moved to the quaint town of Vienneux-Suryon, where nobody knew him.

He went to work to establish his own medical practice, and as could be expected, his methods were underhanded.

On arrival, the 25-year-old physician went around posting flyers comparing himself to the town's two elderly doctors.

The flyers read, Dr.

Pettio 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.

Petio treats, but does not exploit his patients.

To the townspeople, Pettio seemed an outwardly charming young man, and he quickly made a positive name for himself and garnered a pool of clientele.

But whatever Pettio's patients thought of his charisma and caring disposition, It was merely a façade.

Contrary to his advertisements, he was exploiting them.

If If his service in the military left him with anything, it wasn't a desire to start a new and honest life.

Petio was now a well-trained and cunning criminal mind wearing a doctor's uniform.

He began his abuse of the townsfolk by over-prescribing highly addictive narcotics such as morphine, heroin, and opium, to his more vulnerable patients.

Petio sold morphine for cash in the army.

He knew what addiction was and how to exploit it.

By overdosing his patients, he created a steady stream of addicts who were willing to pay whatever he asked to get their next fix.

Without their knowledge, Petio even secretly enrolled his patients for state medical assistance, thereby ensuring that he was paid twice for each treatment, once by the patient and once by the government.

While Petio may have saved face with his patients using false charm, he wasted none of these efforts on anyone who didn't benefit him.

When one one pharmacist complained of the near-fatal dose Pettio prescribed for a child, Petio replied rather coldly, 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?

When not in public, Pettio remained a loner.

He lived modestly, but splurged on a sports car which he drove recklessly through the town.

Evidently, he was the cause of numerous traffic accidents.

Along with his drug extortion practices, he remained a petty thief.

He stole from strangers and relatives alike.

His brother Maurice later said about him that he always insisted on searching Marcel's pockets whenever he visited his home.

Pettio also used his position as a trusted doctor to start offering medical services that were banned in France, namely abortions, which he carried out after hours in his clinic to avoid scrutiny.

In 1926, Pettio's neighbors were surprised to see a local young girl, Louise Delavaux, coming and going from Pettio's home.

It was evident that the doctor was having an affair with the young daughter of one of his elderly patients, Madame Fleury.

According to locals, Louise was a quiet and well-mannered young woman, spending most of her days tending to her sick mother.

The one thing Louise wasn't was impulsive.

She hardly left her mother alone for long periods of time.

That's why her friends, family, and neighbors became quickly concerned when, without a word, Luis suddenly vanished.

The circumstances of Luis's disappearance were undoubtedly suspicious.

Pettio was, of course, suspected, especially after a neighbor of his came forward with a startling testimony.

The man remained anonymous, but told police that around the time of her disappearance, he saw Pettio leaving his home in the late hours of the night, looking disheveled.

He watched as Petio dragged something heavy to the back of his parked car.

It was a storage chest.

By the way he was dragging it and struggling to lift it, the neighbor said it was clearly very heavy.

Unseen by Petio, the neighbor said he watched from his upstairs window as the young doctor heaved the chest into the trunk of his vehicle.

before driving off into the night.

Following up on this lead, police questioned Pettio, but despite their their probing, Pettio offered some explanation for the trunk and maintained his innocence.

He continued to express concern for Luis's safety, like the rest of her friends and family.

The police had a nagging suspicion that he knew more than he was telling, but they couldn't arrest Petio on suspicion.

There was no real evidence against him to suggest any sort of criminal wrongdoing.

Without corroborating eyewitness accounts or a body, There was nothing the police could do.

Of course, Luis's family would continue to insist she wouldn't run off, but young people did things like that.

For all the police knew, Luis was simply acting out, perhaps fed up with the burden of her aging mother and the pressure she was under.

With no other leads to explore, the police closed the case on Luis De Lavaux, dismissing her as a teenage runaway.

But she is widely suspected to be one of Petio's first victims.

The remainder of Petio's time in the small town of Vienneuf-Suryon was colorful, if anything.

The same year Luis Delabaux disappeared, he ran for mayor, hired an accomplice to disrupt the political debate, and won the election.

Once in office, he used the position to his advantage.

He embezzled city funds and married Georgette Leblay, the daughter of a wealthy landowner the following year.

He fathered a son with her, whom they named Gerhardt.

The local prefect eventually received numerous complaints about Petio's theft and shady financial deals.

Pettio was eventually suspended as mayor in August 1931 and resigned.

But Pettio still had supporters.

The village council, for one, also resigned in sympathy.

Five weeks later, on October 18th, he was elected as a councilor for the Yon district.

In 1932, he was accused of stealing electric power from the village of Vienneuve-Suryon and was again removed from his seat in local government.

Around this time, he relocated his family to Paris.

In Paris, Pettio attracted new patients with his imaginary credentials and built an impressive reputation for his practice.

However, there were once again rumors of illegal abortions and overt prescriptions of heavy narcotics.

By the end of the decade, Pettio was well established.

As a man traumatized by the war 20 years earlier, he could not have been looking forward to to another one.

But soon enough, as Hitler's forces advanced into Poland, the nation of France, alongside Britain, once again found itself at war with Germany.

Storming across Western Europe in the summer of 1940, the Third Reich swiftly conquered the French Republic in little over a month of pitched fighting, bringing the nation under Nazi control.

Their occupation of Paris would bring ruin and devastation to many French families.

But Pettio remained a cunning opportunist.

In stark contrast to his fellow citizens, Marcel Pettio looked out over an occupied Paris and saw nothing but limitless opportunity.

After the outbreak of World War II and the fall of France, Pettio started providing false medical certificates to French citizens who were drafted to forced labor in Germany.

He treated sick workers that had returned.

He was also convicted in July 1942 of over-prescribing narcotics, despite the fact that two addicts who would have testified against him had mysteriously disappeared.

He was fined 2,400 francs for the offense.

According to his own delusions of grandeur, Pettio told others that he had developed secret weapons that supposedly killed Germans without leaving forensic evidence.

He spun stories about having high-level meetings with Allied commanders, planted booby traps all over Paris alongside resistance fighters, and worked with a non-existent group of anti-fascist Spaniards.

During the German occupation, Pettio's most lucrative activity was offering an escape route out of the city.

The streets of Paris were teeming with fugitives looking to escape Nazi persecution.

Common criminals, former military leaders, resistance fighters, and most predominantly, Jewish refugees were all desperate for safe passage to freedom in Great Britain or faraway South America.

Pettio adopted the code name Dr.

Eugene, recruited three subordinates to help him, and set up the operations out of his newly purchased home on 21 Rue La Sur.

While not his primary residence, it would serve as his doctor's office, or so he said.

He called his operation Flytox.

At the time, flytox was a common brand of household pesticide, which was sprayed to kill flies and mosquitoes.

Perhaps Pettio used the name fly tox as a way of disguising the real nature of his underground escape route, so that the Nazis listening would merely think people were discussing pesticides.

But whether Pettio meant to or not, the name he chose for the operation foreshadowed his real intentions for anyone trying to use his services.

He didn't plan to help them at all.

They would be exterminated.

in his home.

Always the gentleman, Pettio set the price for safe passage out of France at 25,000 francs and sent his accomplices Raoul Fourier, Edmond Pintat, and René Gustave Nazonde out into the city to find clients.

These men then guided the desperate people they found back to Pettiot's home, believing that Pettiot really did have connections within the French resistance and would get these people out of the country.

After arriving to his home, The men, women, couples, and other fugitives were warmly welcomed inside by the charming doctor.

After the finances were settled, Pettio would appear with a case full of medical syringes.

Undoubtedly, his clients were somewhat wary, but he smiled and assured them they would need a series of inoculations before traveling abroad.

But the needles he then plunged into their veins had no immunization drugs in them.

It was cyanide.

His victims then collapsed on the floor, falling into unconsciousness or seizures before their hearts stopped.

Pettiot then went to work, robbing the corpses of their cash, jewelry, and other valuables.

Next was the more difficult task of disposing of the bodies.

Initially, dumping the bodies in the nearby River Seine, about a 10 to 15 minute walk from his home, was Pettiot's first method.

French investigators later noted that a number of bodies, or more accurately, body parts, were pulled from the river between 1942 and 1943 and were never identified.

Dismembering the bodies made them easier to carry, and Pettio was also careful to make sure none of them could be traced back to him.

He removed their faces, scalps, and fingerprints.

But in the process of carrying the bodies from the house to the river in bags or suitcases, there was always the risk of being seen, even under the cover of darkness.

Eventually, it seems the river became impractical for disposal.

Pettio then dug a pit in his garage and resorted to dissolving some of the bodies in quicklime, which solved the problem of camouflaging the odor.

When the pit in the garage was full, he dug one in the house's yard and filled that one.

When the yard was full, he started incinerating the bodies in his basement stove.

When the house was later raided, 33 pounds of charred bones were found in the basement.

Chief Coroner Albert Paul cataloged these bones, along with unburned fragments, 10 human scalps, 11 pounds of human hair, and garbage cans full of pieces too small to identify.

By early 1943, Petio's brazen advertisements for flytox had not gone unnoticed by the German Gestapo.

An informer named Charles Beretta was sent to infiltrate the Flytox network.

feeding names of the conspirators to the German secret police.

A Gestapo agent, Robert Jodkum, also forced a prisoner, Ivan Dreyfus, to approach the operation, but Dreyfus mysteriously disappeared.

By May 1943, the cat was out of the bag.

All three of Pettio's accomplices had been identified.

Fourier, Pintar, and Nezande were arrested.

Under torture, they revealed Dr.

Eugene's alias, Marcel Pettio.

But since the whole flytox operation was a scam, they had no real resistance ties to betray.

Pettio was arrested and joined his accomplices in Friend prison.

Despite enduring months of torture, they never gave the Nazis any usable intelligence, mainly because they had none to give.

They were all released in January 1944, which ironically provided Pettio an alibi for his murders.

Now back on the streets of Paris, Pettio quickly resumed his killing spree.

And two months after his release, on the morning of March 11, 1944, Pettio left the the house on 21 Rue Le Sur, leaving the coal stove burning in the basement.

A putrid cloud of smoke then filled the interior of the home and the skies overhead, drawing the attention of neighbors.

The smell had been wafting over the neighborhood since March 6th.

After several days of complaints being submitted to the authorities with no response, some men went to the door of No.

21 to complain, but when they knocked, no one answered.

Neighbors then notified the police once again, warned them that it might be a chimney fire, and told them that a man named Marcel Pettio owned the house.

Police tried calling Pettio, and he told them to wait for him.

But after another 30 minutes, police were obliged to call the fire department to stop the spreading fire.

When firemen entered the house through the second-story window, it wasn't long before they found the chamber of horrors, bodies burned beyond recognition, and scattered remains throughout the house.

When police arrived and searched the garage, they found the pit filled with quicklime and human remains.

On the staircase inside, they found a canvas sack containing more human remains.

There were body parts everywhere, with enough parts to complete at least 10 bodies.

The basement sinks were notably large enough for draining corpses of blood.

There was also a soundproof octagonal chamber in the basement with wall-mounted shackles and a peephole centered on the chamber's door.

Clearly, some of Pettio's victims had not been killed instantly, but had been kept prisoner in the basement.

When Pettio himself arrived at the house, he quickly provided an explanation for the bodies.

They were German soldiers, traitors, and collaborators.

He told the French crowd that he was a member of the French Resistance.

Because Parisians hated the Germans and their long-standing occupation, they generally approved of resistance activities.

Even the police were reluctant to arrest Pettio, and so they released him.

The prominent Paris Police Commissaire Georges Victor Massou took charge of the investigation.

His first problem was to establish if Pettio was killing for the resistance or for the Gestapo.

The latter possibility was eliminated when he received a telegram where Germans had ordered that Pettiot be arrested as a dangerous lunatic.

In spite of Pettiot's claims, French police continued to investigate the nature of his murders.

Eventually, they found a man who had intended to escape using fly talks, but changed his mind.

He said that Pettio had offered him passage to South America for 25,000 francs.

Pettio's story about killing Germans began to unravel.

German commissaire Robert Jodkem confirmed the man's story when he informed French police that the Gestapo had previously arrested Pettio on suspicion of smuggling Jews.

When French police then went to his apartment at 66 Rue Comartine to bring him in for questioning, they found it now abandoned.

except for large amounts of chloroform, digitalis, and various other poisons in addition to large amounts of medicines.

Pettio had known his arrest was coming and was now on the run.

During the police investigation, a review of Pettio's past identified two victims from 21 Rule La Sur, Jean-Marc Van Bever, a drug addict who procured narcotics from Pettio, and Marta Kate.

mother of another addict.

Van Bever disappeared before his trial for buying fraudulent prescriptions from Pettio.

Kate vanished after Pettio suggested she lie under oath to weaken the prosecution's case.

Her husband received letters indicating she left the country.

Inspector Roger Guineau suspected Pettio of having something to do with the disappearances of Van Bever and Kate, but lacked proof until the rule of Sur discovery.

It was the first time French police had proof of their suspicions.

that the witnesses had been murdered.

Pettio's brother Maurice also confessed that he delivered quicklime to Pettio's house on his brother's orders.

He was charged with conspiracy to commit murder and jailed.

Georgette Pettiot was also arrested on suspicion of having aided her husband, as were Pettio's accomplices, who confessed that they had helped to remove suitcases from the Pettio's house at 21 Rue Le Sur.

Nazande claimed Pettio was the king of criminals and admitted to helping hide the bodies.

Others arrested included a barber, referring clients, and the Neuhausens.

Most suspects were ultimately released in April 1944, while Marcel Pettio remained at large.

The investigation then stalled on June 6, 1944, due to the invasion at Normandy.

Over the seven months following his disappearance, Marcel Pettio found refuge with resistance fighters.

He told them that the Gestapo was after him for eliminating German soldiers and informants.

He continued to offer services as a doctor and later took up residence with a patient named Georges Radu.

To disguise his appearance, Pettiot grew a beard and started using a variety of false names.

While living with Radu, Pettiot ventured out only at night, sometimes returning with weapons he claimed to have captured from Nazi patrols.

Allied forces were now pushing the Germans out of France.

Parisian police went on strike in August August 1944, besieged at the prefecture by German tanks and troops.

That month, Pettiot assumed a new identity, that of Henry Valerie, and enlisted in the French forces of the interior.

He was promptly commissioned to the rank of captain, in charge of counter-espionage and interrogation of prisoners in the Rui district of Paris.

The French capital was liberated the next month, and the focus of the police and military forces was purging the collaborators of the German army.

Pettio slash Valeri was in the thick of the action.

His cover began to unravel in September when two FFI soldiers from Pettio's unit robbed the elderly mayor of Tessencor, stealing 12.5 million francs in cash and collectible stamps from the man's home before killing their victim in front of witnesses.

Three youths reported the crime to Pettio, who promptly tossed the soldiers in jail.

An FFI lieutenant tried to investigate, but was ordered off the case by Captain Valerie.

The bandits were briefly detained, and then for some reason, Valeri slash Petio let them go.

The thieves disappeared, as well as the money.

Three days after this robbery murder, the newspaper Résistance published a scathing article on fugitive Pettio.

The story called him a soldier of the Reich who had allegedly donned a German uniform to hunt down French patriots around Avignon in March 1943.

Attorney René Florio, Pettiot's defense counsel in the 1942 narcotics cases, received a letter from his fugitive client which condemned the Résistance article as a collection of filthy kraut lies.

This letter tipped off the police that Pettio was still in Paris, leading to a renewed search effort for the murderer.

Ironically, Pettio had disguised himself so well, the police assigned him, Henry Valeri, to the group of trusted men they were sending out to search for Marcel Pettio.

Pettio, of course, did everything he could to throw off the search and to maintain his current alias as Henry Valerie.

But eventually, on October 31st, 1944, Pettio's true identity was discovered at a Paris metro station, resulting in his arrest.

At the time of his capture, he was carrying a pistol, 31,700 francs, and 50 different identification documents.

Imprisoned on death row at La Son, Pettio maintained his innocence, insisting he only eliminated enemies of France.

He alleged that he only stumbled on the corpses at 21 Rue Le Sur in February 1944 and presumed his network was responsible for killing collaborators.

Investigators found no connections between Pettio and established resistance groups and could not verify his claimed activities.

He was ultimately charged with 27 counts of murder for financial gain, with prosecutors estimating his illicit profits, including the money, gold, jewels, and other unrecovered valuables he stole, at a staggering 200 million francs.

Pettio's trial commenced on March 19, 1946, encompassing 135 criminal accusations.

René Florio, his attorney, defended Pettio against state prosecutors and lawyers representing the victims' families.

Pettio's lifetime of legal successes gave him an unnatural sense of confidence in the courtroom.

As with his previous charges, he believed that these two would eventually be thrown out.

He was, after all, a documented lunatic.

Pettio was brazen during the trial.

He antagonized the prosecution and the families, asserting his victims were either collaborators or double agents.

He insisted some victims were alive in South America.

He dismissed Jewish victims victims as Germans and alleged another victim suffered from a shameful disease and returned to Germany.

He feigned ignorance about why a victim's clothing was found at his house.

He was even rebuked for doodling in court.

He boldly confessed to killing 19 of the 27 bodies discovered at his residence, identifying them as Germans and collaborators, part of a total of 63 enemies.

he claimed to have killed.

But Florio's attempts to depict Pettio as a resistance hero failed to sway the court.

Behind closed doors, even the jurors were overheard referring to Petio as a demon and an appalling murderer.

Much to Petio's shock, this trial wouldn't end with another psychiatric evaluation and a brief stint in jail.

The court convicted Petio on 26 counts of murder and sentenced him to death.

The execution was briefly delayed due to guillotine malfunctions, but was ultimately carried out on May 25.

Summoned from his cell, Petio refused to take the traditional glass of rum, but accepted a cigarette.

He also agreed to meet with the prison chaplain for his wife's sake, telling the minister, I am not a religious man, and my conscience is clean.

The closing ritual was swiftly completed.

Pettio signed the the register before his hands were bound, his neck shaved, and the collar cut from his shirt.

He approached the guillotine calmly.

Dr.

Albert Paul, among the witnesses, noted that Pettio moved with ease, as though he were walking into his office for a routine appointment.

Before he was strapped to the guillotine sliding table, Pettio was asked if he had anything to say.

He thought for a moment, and with an eerie, somewhat satisfied smile, Marcel Pettio spoke his final words.

Gentlemen, I have one last piece of advice.

Look away.

This won't be pretty.

I want you to keep a good memory of me.

The blade dropped at 5.05 a.m.

According to the witnesses, Pettio was still smiling as his head tumbled into the basket.

Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke Lamana.

Executive produced by Mr.

Bollin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt.

Written by Jake Howard and myself.

Audio editing and sound design by me, Luke Lamana, and Alex Carpenter.

Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stiddam.

Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan.

Mixed and mastered by Brendan Kane.

Production supervision by Jeremy Bone, production coordination by Avery Siegel, additional production support by Brooklyn Gooden, artwork by Jessica Cloxen Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picada.

If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info at wartime stories.com.

Thank you so much for listening to Wartime Stories.