Henri Landru
Henri Landru first discovered the joys of crime as a fraud specialist, concentrating on elderly widows as the targets of petty swindles, for which he served time in prison on several occasions. In 1914, while working as a dealer of used furniture, Henri began running advertisements in Paris newspapers, seeking lonely hearts among the growing number of war widows in the French capital.
By the end of the First World War four years later Landru had met, seduced, swindled, and murdered ten victims found through his ads. Landru was careful to use different aliases and background stories with each widow and to frequent different areas of Paris as we wooed each victim.
In 1919 the sister of one of Landru’s victims began pursuing him, eventually gaining the support of the at first doubtful police. Although no bodies were ever found, fragmentary records of Landru’s activities slowly emerged. Eventually, he was charged with the murder of eleven victims, for which he was tried, convicted and guillotined in 1922.
His head is on display at the Museum of Death in Hollywood, in which he is identified as the “Bluebeard of Paris.” In 1947 Landru was the inspiration for the character Monsieur Verdoux in the movie of the same name, portrayed by Charles Chaplin.