Henri Désiré Landru, French serial killer (d. 1922)
Henri Désiré Landru (12 April 1869 – 25 February 1922) (French pronunciation: [ɑ̃ʁi deziʁe lɑ̃dʁy]) was a French serial killer, nicknamed the Bluebeard of Gambais, who murdered at least seven women in the village of Gambais between December 1915 and January 1919. Landru also killed at least three other women, plus a young man, at a house he rented from December 1914 to August 1915 in the town of Vernouillet, 35 km northwest of Paris. The true number of Landru's victims, whose remains were never found, was almost certainly higher.Landru was arrested on 12 April 1919 at an apartment near Paris's Gare du Nord which he shared with his 24-year-old mistress, Fernande Segret. The police eventually concluded that Landru had met or been in romantic correspondence with 283 women during the First World War, including 72 who were never traced. In December 1919 Landru's wife Marie-Catherine, 51, and his eldest son Maurice, 25, were arrested on suspicion of complicity in his thefts from his victims. Both denied any knowledge of Landru's criminal activities. Marie-Catherine was released without charge for health reasons in July 1920, on the same day that Maurice was released because the authorities could not establish his guilt.Landru continued to protest his complete innocence during an investigation that lasted more than a year. He was finally charged with the murders at Vernouillet and Gambais of ten women and the teenage son of his first victim. Landru's trial in November 1921 at Versailles was attended by leading French celebrities, including the novelist Colette and the actor and singer Maurice Chevalier. On 30 November Landru was found guilty by a majority verdict of all eleven murders and sentenced to death. He was executed by guillotine on 25 February 1922.