TO 20 minutes, we like to tell you scary stories by the fireside. Especially as Halloween approaches. Follow us in the footsteps of Luigi Richetto, one of Lyon’s most bloodthirsty serial killers, even if the term didn’t exist at the time. And for that, let’s go back to the very end of the 19th century.
Lyon, December 31, 1899. The little servant walks with a hurry through the streets of the Saint-Just district. A smell attracts him as he walks past the gates of the Noack property, at 116 rue de Francheville. A painful smell that she does not manage to characterize, however. On the other hand, she spots a bag floating on the surface of a boutasse, a pond located in the park. For her, no doubt, the nauseating scents come from there.
The young woman hastens to alert the owners who, digging in the water, discover a second bag. The butcher, called upon for his olfactory skills, is categorical: the smell is that of rotten veal. On the spot, the authorities, accompanied by Doctor Alexandre Lacassagne, empty the pond. The surprise is considerable: seventeen small parcels carefully packed with “different pieces of string”, lie in the mud.
The head of a victim exposed to the floating mortuary
“We are going to discover a trunk, a basin as well as two heads wrapped in fabrics and newspaper pages”, says Caroline Bertrand Thoulon, former lawyer and founder of Justice Told. The criminologist Lacassagne then proceeds meticulously to reconstruct the bodies and comes to the following conclusion: “They were cut up in the same way”. It remains to be seen who the victims are so meticulously butchered.
“We will then exhibit the best preserved head at the floating mortuary in Lyon. It was a boat moored near the Hôtel-Dieu which contained a glazed exhibition hall. The public was invited to go there to identify the victims, ”continues Caroline Bertrand. The announcement attracts the curious, who parade en masse. The neighbors eventually discover the identity of the victim. Her daughter confirms. This is the widow Catinot, who died a fortnight earlier.
A “professional” body cutout
“The police are going to look for a butcher, a knacker because the cutting of the bodies was done in a professional way”, underlines the former lawyer. The widow Catinot’s daughter attests to knowing only one man living in the neighborhood where her mother was found: Luigi Richetto. But he is not a butcher. An Italian emigrant, aged 46, he worked as a janitor with the Camillian fathers, a religious order serving the sick.
The man is literate, intelligent, as evidenced by his writings written later in prison. His thought is structured, the vocabulary pushed. “We are far from the boorish. He is a well-groomed man, tall… But visibly devoid of affect ”. A man of confidence too, according to those around him. “The two victims came to consult him so that he can take care of their property and their little treasures,” says Caroline Bertrand. One of them had known him for several years. The concierge, who arrived in Lyon about fifteen years earlier, has however already had some trouble with the law. The son of a repeat thief, he served five years behind bars for theft in his native country.
The gendarmes decide to search his lodge, located precisely “200 paces” from the place where the bodies were thrown. And there … Everything overwhelms him. “They will find piles of newspapers, but a number of issues are missing; the numbers used to wrap the body parts. There is also a hammer, a knife with a very long blade which could have been used to cut the victims, quantities of lime as well as personal objects which belonged to the two widows ”, lists Caroline Bertrand. Not to mention the traces or splashes of blood found on the door on the ground floor. And this huge crate, discovered in the attic, in which the rotten bodies would have been stored before being thrown into the pond of the neighboring property.
Luigi Richetto denies outright. The charges weigh on him, the suspicions accumulate. It is linked to three other equally bloodthirsty murders. That of Madame Bernaz, found dead on April 24, 1893, and where the janitor regularly did odd jobs. Régis Planial, furniture dealer, beheaded and dismembered on December 7, 1894. The different parts of the body will be recovered from the Rhône, one by one, over the months. A young woman, then. But Richetto “will ultimately never be worried for these crimes”, for lack of tangible evidence.
The passionate crowd
Meanwhile, the “impact of the case is enormous”, the crowd becomes passionate about this mysterious killer. His trial, which opened in May 1901, kept the whole city in suspense. Failing to be able to take place in the courtroom, the curious crowd on the steps of the courthouse of the 24 columns while Richetto is brought to explain himself on the murders of the widows Delorme and Catinot. But then again, the accused will never give up. Not even during the damning testimony of Dr. Lacassagne. On the contrary, he never ceases to proclaim his innocence.
“We will not finally know what his motivations were since he never confessed. We can assume that there was the lure of profit. He made significant expenses after these murders when he did not receive a large income, explains the founder of La Justice Racontée. But we cannot be 100% sure that this is the one and only mobile. The way he got rid of the corpses takes on a pathological dimension. We will never know, either, how he went about skinning his victims like a professional. “
Despite the hundred prosecution witnesses heard during the trial and “an exemplary investigation”, the doubt remains. The jury will sentence Luigi Richetto to hard labor for life, allowing him to escape the guillotine. “The question of whether the accused had extenuating circumstances was crucial during the trial. The jury felt he had some. We do not know for what reasons since the deliberations were secret ”, continues Caroline Bertrand. And to conclude: “This story, from every point of view, will retain its share of mystery. This is what makes it a big deal today… ”
This article was written in partnership with the site with RetroNews, the press site of the BnF.