Our September serial killer is Henri Désiré Landru. With a name like that, he either had to end up a serial killer or the lead in a rom-com. But he was born in 1869, and rom-coms hadn’t been invented yet, so…
The “Bluebeard of Gambais” had a pretty sweet gig going on. In the years during and after World War I, France was positively overrun by war widows. Young women with no man in their lives…but plenty of money, thanks to military pensions.
Landru figured this situation was made for him. Even though he was married with children, he spammed out letters to 283 women, romancing them remotely to lure them into his web. (Proving that the internet only made things easier, not possible!) He didn’t need them all to succumb to his inky wiles and meet up with him; he just needed enough of them to make it worth his while.
Dude didn’t have access to Excel, but he kept records of the women he corresponded with, ranking them by their wealth potential. Of those 283 woman, 72 were never heard from again…but Landru could only be connected to the deaths of 10 of them (as well as one of their sons). Since he burned the bodies, the only thing connecting him to the dead women was, you guessed it, that proto-Excel spreadsheet!
Important lesson, serial killers: No matter how obsessive you are, don’t keep records!
Landru was prosecuted and convicted of 11 counts of assassination and executed by guillotine.
Ah, France!
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