The Unspeakable Crimes of Dr. Petiot (35 page)

And Floriot returned to the beginning.

FLORIOT
They have searched in Petiot's past for everything that can be used against him. But it truly seems that they only looked for the bad and ignored the good. One example: Inspector Poirier told us that the Police Judiciaire had interviewed two thousand of Petiot's clients. All two thousand had good things to say about him. There was not a single unfavorable report.

At Villeneuve-sur-Yonne the police questioned his political adversaries and the two doctors whose clienteles he had taken away. They did not speak with the vast majority of the population, which was very much in his favor. The simple fact that, despite it all, a number of people courageously presented themselves here in court only proves the investigation's bias.

Floriot recited Petiot's career, then, in an “unbiased” way. Infantryman in the First World War, seriously wounded, honorably discharged with 100
percent disability; studied medicine, received good grades, established his practice in Villeneuve-sur-Yonne. Devoted to his patients and the people, Petiot was elected to public office and reelected several times with crushing majorities. His enthusiasm, energy, and dislike of red tape provoked jealousy, and petty political enmities had cost him his position. He moved to Paris, and again there was the litany of devoted patients: Petiot riding his bicycle ten miles to treat a child for free; Petiot saving an infant's life; Petiot who almost went broke because he cared so little about money he forgot to bill his patients. Floriot neatly explained away the narcotics charges and the arrangement of the rue Le Sueur. The war came, and the same noble sentiments pushed Petiot into the Resistance. Perhaps his name did not appear on some official list, but that was not a necessary license for fighting to defend France. The evidence proved he hated the Germans. There was irrefutable evidence that he had furnished false medical certificates to help Frenchmen avoid forced labor, that he had obtained false identity papers for English parachutists, that he had saved a woman on the verge of being arrested by the Germans, that he had warned Jews about to be raided, that he had offered to hide people in flight from the Gestapo. There was the testimony of Lhéritier, Courtot and Barré. The contradictory statements about Cumulo, Brossolette, and Fly-Tox were misunderstandings, easily explained.… Floriot's choice of facts and rhetoric were overwhelming and sowed doubts in the minds of his audience. He came to the victims.

FLORIOT
Petiot is accused of twenty-seven murders. He admits nineteen of them and denies eight. He admits having killed the people sent by Eryane Kahan, the pimps and prostitutes, and Yvan Dreyfus.
*
If the prosecution can prove that he killed even one of the eight people he denies, then he should be condemned. For the others, the prosecution does not have to prove anything. It is up to Petiot to prove that he killed members of the Gestapo or Gestapo informers. If he fails to prove this for even one case, again, he should be condemned. Let us begin with the cases that he denies: Hotin, Van Bever, Khaït, the Knellers, Guschinov, and Braunberger.

Floriot quoted Jean Hotin's testimony: “I was married on June 5, 1941. On June 26 my wife had her period. At the beginning of July she told me she was pregnant.” What nonsense! He showed a photograph of the plaque outside Petiot's office, which did not give the hours Hotin claimed, and he pointed out that Denise's identity card was found at Jean's house eighteen months after her disappearance, although no one would have dreamed of going anywhere during the Occupation without identification papers.

Floriot similarly disposed of the charges involving Van Bever, Guschinov, and the Knellers. In the dossier he found a number of statements from people who thought they had seen Madame Khaït, but no serious search had been made. Why not? Article 687 stated that Robert Martinetti existed and had been imprisoned. Where was he then?
*
The prosecution had not really proved many of the disappearances or disproved Petiot's statements at all.

Floriot's presentation was thorough and logical, and if it contained occasional contradictions, the jury did not notice at the time. Typical of his methods was his lengthy attack on the Braunberger charge, the main evidence for which consisted of a hat and a shirt.

FLORIOT
For me there remains the task of proving that these two objects could not possibly have belonged to Dr. Braunberger. I don't think it will be difficult.

First of all, a small detail you will find significant. You remember, when I interrogated Commissaire Massu, I asked him, “Tell me how you opened the suitcases.” There is something you should know: forty-six [
sic
] of these suitcases were packed by the police at Courson, one at the rue Le Sueur, and one at the rue Caumartin, and they were all packed in the absence of Dr. Petiot. I'm not blaming anyone—Petiot was in flight at the time. But when they opened these suitcases again, particularly since they had been closed in the presence of witnesses who were themselves under indictment at the time [that is, the Neuhausens and Georgette Petiot], Petiot should have been asked to be present.

I can still see the notaries pleasantly saying, every time they opened a suitcase, “The defense can ascertain that the seals are intact.” Of course they were intact. It had been opened fifteen times in my absence and closed again fifteen times in my absence. The seals may have been intact, but since they had been affixed there in the absence of both my client and myself, that did not guarantee much of anything.

Still, let us take the suitcases as they are. Note this fact—one which, I believe, no one has pointed out previously: the shirt was found in a suitcase packed at Courson, and, as you know, the suitcases at Courson had come from the rue Le Sueur. The hat marked
P.B.
was not found in a suitcase from Courson, but in a suitcase packed at the rue Le Sueur. This is what the police report says, at any rate, but unfortunately it is not true. In fact, the bag with the hat was packed at the rue Caumartin. It is a strange suitcase; whoever packed it threw in anything that came to hand, including a hat marked
P.B.
Judge for yourselves—one almost has the impression that a special suitcase was made up just for this hat. Other than the hat, it contains a pipe (Dr. Petiot's pipe), a blotter (his blotter, which was sitting on his desk), a camera (his camera), a flashlight (the sort doctors use to examine a patient's throat), and a notebook (it is his agenda, containing his medical appointments).

This is all rather curious. Thus one must say that Dr. Braunberger was killed at the rue Le Sueur; his shirt was in a suitcase from the rue Le Sueur that was sent to Courson. His shirt alone. None of his other clothing was found; no jacket, no vest, no trousers, nothing. All of them had markings which Madame Braunberger would have recognized just as easily. His shirt was found at the rue Le Sueur and his hat at the rue Caumartin!…

Now, we are told that this shirt bears the initials
P.B.
, but that they have been removed. Ah! gentlemen of the jury, I beg you to examine this shirt carefully during your deliberations. It could have been
B.P.
, it could have been
P.F.
, it could have been
F.R.
—it could have been just about anything you like, but no one can assert that it was
P.B.
, because you can see nothing at all!

We looked at this shirt together, Monsieur le Président and I. I will not ask for your testimony, Monsieur le Président, because I know you would not give it. Still, this is a material fact: you can look at this shirt, and you cannot make out the letters that have been removed from it.

We can put another of Dr. Braunberger's shirts at your disposal. I am sure that Madame Braunberger would willingly do the experiment, but I would rather it be you, gentlemen of the jury, so that you can see it with your own eyes. Try to remove the initials from another of Dr. Braunberger's shirts, and you will find that what remains is very clearly visible.

In the suitcases there are some shirts which have initials and some which do not, but on which the trace of initials is still visible. In his inventory, Monsieur Sannié never erred, and always wrote down what he saw. Remember this detail. Even with his microscopes, Monsieur Sannié could not say that this shirt was marked
P.B.
, and when he described the shirt he wrote simply: “Seal number 44. A man's shirt, blue cloth, made by David, avenue de l'Opéra.” Period. That's it. Why? Because he could not read any initials. When he can read them, he says so. Look at seal number thirty-five. There are two other shirts from which embroidered initials were removed. Monsieur Sannié writes: “The initials which were on the left side, at the level of the belt, have been removed. It is probable that they were
A.E.
” Consequently, when he was certain, he wrote: “The letters are …,” and when he was less certain, he wrote: “It is probable that …” But since nothing can be seen on the Braunberger shirt, he said nothing at all. One can see that some letters have been removed—I don't contest that—but one cannot say that they were
P.B.
any more than one can say they were any other letters.

Then there is the question of the detachable cuffs—not a very clear story. Police Officer Casanova came to the stand and I asked him: “Monsieur, under seal number forty-four we find the shirt said to be that of Dr. Braunberger. You say that you also found a pair of cuffs? Why didn't you keep them?” He replied: “Because they were a keepsake for Madame Braunberger. I did not think I could take them from her.” I asked him: “Were they the same color and made of the same material as the shirt?” and he said, “Yes.” Well, that isn't true. Madame Braunberger came to the stand as well. She had the missing pair of cuffs with her. They were not the same, and she herself admitted it.

And then, gentlemen, there is another question. Couldn't they have made a verification? When I think of Estébétéguy, whom Petiot admits having killed … They went to the shirtmaker Sulka four times with Estébétéguy's shirts, asking: “Are you sure? Are they really Estébétéguy's?” Well, they never went to show this shirt to David.

And the hat! Ah! the hat, gentlemen, is something truly unbelievable. Madame Braunberger was questioned before the hat was discovered. She said, “My husband had a hat from Gélot.” They look at the hat. Not a chance: it is marked “Berteil, rue du 4-Septembre.” Then Madame Braunberger says—you must pay close attention to follow the meanderings of her thought—“It's a Berteil hat? That proves nothing. My husband bought it from Gélot, but since Gélot was closed in 1942, he took it to Berteil for repairs. That is why the label on the inside says ‘Berteil, 4-Septembre.'”

So it is a Gélot hat, but it is marked “Berteil, 4-Septembre” because it had been repaired there. This is a completely unsatisfactory explanation for all sorts of reasons. The first of them is that Gélot hats have the name marked in the crown. Consequently, simply changing the sweatband would not remove the name Gélot from the hat. Secondly, the Maison Gélot is the only hatter in Paris that makes nothing but custom hats. When a customer goes to Gélot, they take the form of his head, just as a bootmaker makes a mold of the foot and keeps the mold for future reference.

Since I happened to know this detail, I asked Monsieur Gélot if he could not manage to find the form he had made of Dr. Braunberger's head. Madame Braunberger had said, after all, that her husband was one of Gélot's customers. Monsieur Gélot sent me this mold by return post. It represents the exact dimensions of the head, with marks showing the location of the forehead and the back of the head, and bears the written inscription: “Doctor Braunberger, 207 Faubourg Saint-Denis, March 18, 1937.”

So I performed a little experiment. I invite you to repeat it while deliberating in your chambers. I compared the shape of the hat marked
P.B.
with this mold. A disaster! It is much too wide and much too short; that is to say, this hat is the hat of a gentleman with, as Dr. Piédelièvre would say, a wide and short head, while, on the contrary, Dr. Braunberger's head would be elongated. I wanted to be sure, so I took a ruler and measured. There was exactly two-and-a-half centimeters difference. For a man who wore nothing but custom-made clothes, two-and-a-half centimeters is really quite a lot. Try taking a hat which is two-and-a-half centimeters too big or two-and-a-half centimeters too small. In the former case, it would sit on your ears, and in the latter it would perch on the top of your head. You would look ridiculous either way!

But I went even further, because I wanted to have a clear conscience. I asked Monsieur Gélot, “Were you closed in 1942?” and he replied: “Not at all. We have never been closed since September 1940.” Thus, when you are told that in 1942 Dr. Braunberger did not go to Gélot to have his hat repaired because Gélot was closed, it is not true. Gélot was open. I have his letter right here: “I state, as per request, that from October 21, 1940, the Maison Gélot has always been open.”

Next, I tried to find out whether one could have had a hat repaired at Berteil, Quatre-Septembre, in 1942. There was only one problem: Berteil, Quatre-Septembre, closed its doors in 1939. I went to the main offices of the Maison Berteil, and the junior Monsieur Berteil told me it was not possible that anyone had had a hat repaired at the rue du Quatre-Septembre branch in 1942, because that branch had been closed in 1939, eight days after the declaration of war. It had not opened since, and will never reopen, since the site is presently occupied by a rubber manufacturer.

Thus you will remember that, earlier in the trial, I said to Madame Braunberger: “Gélot was open. Berteil, rue du Quatre-Septembre was closed. Thus you went to the store that was closed, and you did not go to the store that was open. You say that you bought a hat at Gélot, and you say that this is the hat. But it isn't, because the shape is completely wrong. And when you want to have it repaired, you do not take it to Gélot, who sold it to you and would fix it for nothing, because, you say, Gélot was closed, though in fact it was open, and instead you went to Berteil, rue du Quatre-Septembre, because it was open, though we know that it was closed.” Madame Braunberger replied: “I can explain. I went to Berteil, place Saint-Augustin.”