Lorne Joe Acquin

In the Early hours of Friday the 22nd of July 1977, crackles of fire and the pungent scent of smoke awoke the residents of Cedar Hill Drive in Prospect Conneticut. Rushing to their windows and out into the front gardens, they quickly spotted the source of the awakening. The Beaudoin home was ablaze, the flames enveloped the building by the time the fire brigade arrived on the scene, and despite their best efforts, the once busy family home was gutted. Hidden in this shell of a home, 9 charred bodies scattered the floor.

Initially it was believed that this was a tragic accident. That the family had become trapped and perished in the flames, however, it would not take long before investigators realised that there was something far more sinister at play.

Mrs Beaudoin was found dead on the kitchen floor, her clothes burnt away from her body. The bodies of three children were found in a bedroom to the right of the hall, two in a bedroom to the left, two in the bathroom and one in the master bedroom upstairs. Mrs Beaudoin, her seven children and her niece who had been visiting her family, all lost their lives on this night. But how?

Mrs Beaudoin and several of her children had their hands bound behind their backs, investigators quickly discovered, and several of the children had feet bindings and visible wounds.

The investigation changed immediately. This was no longer a tragic accident. This was mass murder. The biggest in conneticut history.

Post mortems showed that Mrs Beaudoin had been killed by a combination of head injuries and a brutal stab wound to the chest. 8 year old Paul also died from head injuries.

Her other children, Frederick (12), Sharon Lee (10), Debra Ann (9), Roderick (6), Holly Lyn (5), Mary Lou (4), and her niece Jennifer (6), all died from a combination of head injuries and smoke inhalation, tragically telling investigators that these 7 children were still alive when the house was set ablaze.

Within 24 hours, police interviewed more than 100 potential witnesses, including Mr Beaudoin and his Foster brother, 27 year old Lorne J Acquin, who, investigators soon discovered, had actually been at the home the night before the fire.

Lorne had a record for burglary, and an additional sentence for an attempted jail break, and he matched a witness description of a man who was scene sitting in a car outside the home the day of the murder. Quickly, Lorne became the focus of the investigation, and on the 23rd, the day after the murders, he was detained for questioning.

It did not take long for lorne to break, and within 48 hours of the murders, Lorne was ready and willing to confess.

Lorne admitted that it was he who attacked his sister in law, beating her with a tire iron before stabbing in the chest. He also admitted to attacking each of those 8 children, and that he ‘might’ have molested 10 year old Sharon Lee (tragically the young girls autopsy supported this, as her body did show signs of sexual violence before her death). He then spread petrol around the home and set it alight in an attempt to cover up his heinous crimes. That very same day, Lorne was charged with 9 counts of murder, and one count of arson.

Almost two years later, on Monday the 16th of July 1979, Lorne trial began, and it only took the jurty 3 days after closing arguments to return a verdict. Guilty on all charges.

Lorne was sentenced to 25 years to life for eachurder, and 20 years for arson, for a minimum of 245 years incarcerated. He will never be released, and he is currently 70 years old.

Now living in the basement of the home, Sylvia’s lack of access to a toilet, or even to a bucket, leading her to have to urinate and defecate on the floor of the basement. Gertrude created a ‘bathing regime’ for Sylvia, which consisted of tying the girls hands and feet, dunking her into scalding hot water and then rubbing handfuls of rock salt onto her skin.

It was around this time that Gertrude got herself a ‘personal assistant’ for dealing with Sylvia, this assistance came from Ricky Hobbs, a 14 year old honor student from a middle class family nearby, who had never gotten in trouble with the law prior to this. Reportedly, Ricky’s personality changed almost as soon as he met Gertrude and the family, and it was actually rumoured that Gertrude was molesting the young boy, and using this is a way to ‘seduce’ the boy into taking the ‘job’.

It was also around this time that the neighbourhood kids really began to get involved, with the Baniszewski children overseeing and actually profiting off of their involvement. The kids would charge the kids in the neighbourhood in order to get involved, from simply seeing Sylvia naked, since she was forced to remain naked while in the basement, to pushing the young girl down the basement stairs.

As well as being kept naked, Sylvia was very rarely fed, and when she was, it was in strange almost torturous ways, such as having to eat a bowl of soup with her fingers. In place of actual food, Sylvia was fed disgusting things, she was forced by Gertrude and usually by Gertrude’s 12 year old son John Jr to ‘clean’ the basement, which entailed her collecting and being forced to eat her own feces. She would also be forced to urinate in containers and drink it in place of water.

Seeing how severe the abuse was growing by this point, Jenny managed to overcome her fear of Gertrude and actually managed to sneak a letter to the girls older sister Diana, telling her everything that was happening in the home. However, Diana didn’t take the letter seriously, believing Jenny to be exaggerating because she wasn’t happy, and instead wanted to be allowed to live with Diana and her family, and so she was in no rush to go and check on the girls. When she did go to check on the girls however, she was not permitted to enter the home, which naturally made her very suspicious and very concerned, and when Gertrude threatened to call the police, Diana hid just around the corner, hoping that Jenny or Sylvia would leave the home and walk by her. At some point she found Jenny, but the young girl was terrified and shaking and told her older sister that she wasn’t ‘allowed to talk’, before running back to the home. Diana did all she could, contacting social services and expressing her concern about the Baniszewski home. It is not known for sure whether Diana told them or showed them the letter which Jenny had sent her previously. However, when social services paid the family a visit, Gertrude claimed that Sylvia no longer lived in the home. She claimed that Sylvia had been thrown out for being a prostitute, and a bad influence on her own children, and Jenny had already been told that if she told the social worker the truth she would be thrown into the basement to love with Sylvia. Clearly a check of the home either didn’t take place or wasn’t done very thoroughly, since the social worker left the home with no concerns, and wrote a report claiming that no further visits were needed.

This is probably one of the most saddening parts of this case, is the amount of times someone or something could have put an end to this horrific abuse before it was too late.

Besides the Vermillion’s, and this social worker, there were several other people who knew and did nothing. When Judy Duke, who was 12 years old saw the treatment which Sylvia was enduring, she returned home and actually told her mother that “they were beating and kicking Sylvia”. Apparently not concerned, her mother reportedly responded that they were punishing the girl and that it was her own fault for misbehaving.

Another person who spent time in the home and expressed no concern, was Reverend Roy Julian, who visited the home more than once during this time. The first time that he visited, he drank coffee with Gertrude, who complained about Sylvia to him, claiming that she was a prostitute and that she was pregnant despite the fact that it was actually her own daughter, Paula who was pregnant. Gertrude and Reverend Roy Julian reportedly prayed for Sylvia before he left. When he returned to the home a few weeks later, he actually spoke with Paula, who admitted to having hatred in her heart for Sylvia, with Gertrude rushing to try and assure him of the opposite. The unusual behaviour and the state of the home was apparently not enough for him to think anything was wrong, and he said nothing, and reportedly never even spoke to Sylvia.

Police were actually called to the Baniszewski home on the evening of October 20th, but it was not for the crimes against Sylvia, but because a young boy from the neighbourhood, Robert Bruce Hanlon was attempting to break into the home, wanting to take back something that he believed the Baniszewski children had taken from his basement. The police did not check the home, and none of the children said anything about what was happening to Sylvia, likely partially due to how scared they were of Gertrude, especially in Jenny’s case. While the police were parked outside of the home, Phyllis Vermillion came outside and actually spoke to the officers, trying to speak on the young boys behalf, and despite having witnessed some pretty severe abuse against Sylvia and already being in a conversation with the police, she said nothing.

After her time in the basement, Stephanie and John Jr, brought Sylvia upstairs, tying her to one of the beds in the home at Gertrude’s request, The young girl was told that if she made it through the night without wetting the bed, she would once again be allowed to sleep upstairs. However upon waking, Gertrude quickly realised that the mattress was damp, and once again forced the young girl to strip for her sons and neighbourhood boys, forcing her to once again masturbate with a glass bottle, afterwards being allowed to dress once again.

There was reportedly an eerie silence from Gertrude after this, where it seemed as though she was desperately trying to find something else to be angry about. A few moments passed before she began to scream at the young girl, shouting “you have branded my daughters so i will brand you!” 

Sylvia was then stripped, tied down and gagged while one of the Baniszewski children, under Gertrude’s orders used matches to heat up a sewing needle until the metal glowed a bi=right orange. Once it was hot enough, Gertrude used the needle to carve and burn the letter I and part of an m on the young girls stomach as the kids held her down. Gertrude then handed the needle to Ricky Hobbs, telling him to carve “I’m a prostitute and proud of it” into her stomach. The young boy carved 23 and a half letters into the stomach of a screaming and sobbing young girl, while all the kids held her down and watched. Part way through the torture, Ricky had to stop, but not because he felt bad, or because he was disgusted, but because he didn’t know how to spell the word prostitution. Gertrude had to actually write out the spelling on a scrap of paper so he could complete the cruel message. The burns and wounds caused to the young girls stomach were reportedly so severe that even modern day plastic surgery would not have been able to correct it and remove the scars. 

Gertrude then reportedly left the room, but some of the children, Ricky, Paula, and Shirley, who as just 10 years old, weren’t done with her, deciding that they wanted to brand another message into her skin. Ricky drew the lower half of an ‘S’, which was believed to stand for slave, on her chest, before ordering Jenny to do the rest. However, dispute the threats she endured, Jenny refused, and the needle was instead handed to 10 year old Shirley, but she messed it up, and it ended up saying ‘3’ instead.

After this happened, Gertrude returned to the room, reportedly mocking the girl and saying, “What are you going to do now Sylvia? You can’t get married now, you can’t undress in front of anyone…what are you going to do now?”. Now un-gagged, the string young girl reportedly responded “I guess there’s nothing i can do. It’s on there.”

It was at this point that Ricky, apparently not content with burning and carving 24 letters into he young girl, took Sylvia back down to the basement, and practiced his judo on the young injured girl for a while before leaving her wounded, naked and alone in the basement. When Jenny visited her sister in secret, she recalled Sylvia telling her that “I’m going to die, I can tell”.

Reportedly realising how severe Sylvia’s new wounds were, Gertrude collected Sylvia, allowing her to sleep in one of the beds upstairs instead of the basement, and she was allowed to sleep util noon of October 23rd, at which point she was woken up by Gertrude and Stephanie, who for the first time in quite a while, gave Sylvia a warm soapy bath, and then dressed the young girl in clean clothes, before they sat the young girl down to write a letter to her parents, which was dictated entirely by Gertrude. The letter read:

Dear Mr and Mrs Likens,

I went with a gang of boys in the middle of the night. And they said that they would pay me if i would give them something so I got in the car and they all got what they wanted…and when they got finished they beat me up and left sores on my face and all over my body. 

And they also put on my stomach, I am a prostitute and proud of it.

I have done just about everything I could do just to make Gertie mad and cause Gertie more money than she’s got. I’ve tore up a new mattress and peed on it. I have also cost Gertie doctor bills that she can’t really pay and made Gertie a nervous wreck and all her kids.

She was told to not sign the letter.

It was after this that Gertrude, within earshot of Sylvia began to plan what to do with her. She planned to have John Jr and Jenny take Sylvia over to the dump, where she would be left to die. Upon hearing this, Sylvia plucked up the courage to make a run for the door, but in her ill and wounded state, she moved so slowly that Gertrude managed to catch Sylvia  as she reached the door, taking her back to the kitchen. For the first time in quite some time, Gertrude made Sylvia some food, cooking her a slice of toast which was laid in front of her. Sadly, Sylvia was unable to swallow by this point, she had grown too weak, leading Gertrude to grab the curtain pole in the kitchen, hitting her right in the mouth with the pole.

Sylvia was then taken back down to the basement and tied up while they essentially waited for her to waste away. While in the basement, Gertrude offered Sylvia a plate of crackers, to which Sylvia reportedly responded “Feed it to the dog. It’s hungrier than I am.” Before she left the basement, Gertrude pinched Sylvia in her wound covered stomach repeatedly before leaving her on her own in the basement.

Apparently tired of waiting for the young girl to simply withering away, and knowing that if Sylvia recovered somehow, that she and her entire families crimes against her would certainly be discovered,  On October 24th Gertrude attempted to bludgeon Sarah to death. She first attempted to hit the young girl with a chair, but she missed and ended up breaking the chair to pieces against the wall.  She then proceeded to attempt to hit her with the wooden paddle which she had beaten the young girl with so many times before, but somehow ended up hitting herself with the paddle instead, giving herself a black eye. Ricky then hit the girl unconscious and they left her in the basement once again. During the night, and into the early hours of the morning, Sylvia used every ounce of strength that she could muster and hit the floor over and over and over again with the metal part of a scoop that had been left in the basement.

Tragically the neighbour’s, who did hear this noise, decided against contacting the police, and once again no one came to rescue the young girl who was so desperate for help.

On October 26th, when Gertrude said she wanted to give the young girl a warm bath, Ricky and Stephanie went to collect her, carrying her upstairs and putting her in the empty bathtub fully clothed, at which point they realised that the young girl wasn’t breathing. The children removed her from the bath and Stephanie actually tried to give her CPR, but it was tragically too late, and Sylvia was already dead. 

The young girls body was taken back to the basement and stripped, at which point Ricky went to a nearby payphone to call the police, as there wasn’t a phone within the home, and upon their arrival. However, during the commotion, a terrified Jenny Likens plucked up the courage to whisper to one of the officers, “Get me out of here, and I’ll tell you everything.”

Gertrude, Paula, Stephanie, John Jr, Ricky and Roy were arrested for murder, while Mike Monroe, Randy Lepper, Judy Duke, and Siscoe were arrested for ‘injury to a person. The charges against Siscoe, Monroe, Duke and Lepper were quickly dismissed, but the Baniszewski’s, Roy and Ricky were held in jail without bail.

After some time, the murder charges against Stephanie were also dropped.

During the investigation, the autopsy into Sylvia’s murder revealed the sheer number and severity of the wounds that she had sustained during her time in the Baiszewski residence. It revealed:

Up to one hundred cigarette burns, various second and third degree burns, severe bruising, muscle and nerve damage, her lips were almost severed from biting through them, her vaginal cavity was almost swollen shut (though her hymen was intact, discrediting the ‘reasons’ that Gertrude had given for her abuse), and the official cause of death was discovered to be brain swelling, internal brain hemorrhaging and shock.

Paula was convicted of second degree murder, but after winning an appeal for a new trial, she plead guilty to involuntary manslaughter, for which she served just 3 years before moving to Iowa under a brand new identity.

John Jr, Roy and Ricky were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, and due to their young age they were sentenced to just 18 months. Upon his release at 17, Ricky, who had been very heavily involved in the case, suffered a nervous breakdown when coming to terms with what he had done, and he started to smoke so heavily that within for years, at just 21, he died of lung cancer.

Gertrude was sentenced to 18 years to life. During her sentence, she became a model prisoner who became a caring figure for her fellow inmates and sickeningly earned herself the nickname ‘Mom’. And she was put up for parole.

Jenny Likens actually appeared on TV with her family, begging for her release to be stopped, gaining the support of the Protect The Innocent movement and the League Against Molestation movement, who actually traveled to Indianna to start a sidewalk picket campaign, collecting at least 4500 signatures. However despite all of this, she was granted parole after being deemed not a threat. Her statement upon gaining her parole was “I’m not sure what role I had in it…because i was on drugs.” I never really knew her…I take full responsibility for whatever happened to Sylvia”. She was released on December 4th, 1985 and moved to Iowa under the name, Nadine Van Fossan, where she died of lung cancer in 1990.

Stephanie, who’s charges were dropped, took a new name and actually ended up working as a school teacher, which is completely terrifying to me, though reportedly she hasn’t re-offended since getting away from her mother.

John Jr, changed his name to John Blake, and lived a quiet life, working as a truck driver, before finding work as a real estate agent and lay minister. He never offended again and ended up marrying and having 3 children of his own, living in anonymity until 98, after the ‘Jonesboro Massacre’ when he came forward for the first time to talk about Sylvia. John discussed how he took full responsibility for his heinous actions, expressed deep remorse, and said that he believed a harsher sentence for all those involved, including himself, would have been far more just.

Paula Baniszewski was introduced to 16 year old Sylvia Marie Likens and 15 year old Jenny Likens, who had to use braces when she walked due to surviving polio, by her friend Darlee McGuire in July of 1965. The girls were new in town, and after getting along with Paula, they were welcomed back to the Baniszewski home, 3850 East New York Street so that the girls could drink pop and listen to some records. The girls explained that their mother had left their father and ran away, bringing them with her, and that their mother had actually been arrested for shoplifting and she was being kept in the police station. The girls were invited to spend the night at the Baniszewski home so that they could meet up with their mother the following day, but this is not how this was going to go.

The next day Gertrude was paid a visit by Lester Likens, the girls father, who had been informed by the McGuire’s that his daughters were staying at her home after he traced his wife and children to town. Gertrude, as she was known to do, introduced herself as Mrs Wright, and not as Mrs Baniszewski, and Lester went on to explain the situation, and his an his wife’s new plan. They intended to take the girls and travel the US carnival circuit as Carnies. However, when Gertrude heard this, she saw an opportunity to make some cash, since her house was always so full of kids as it was, it was agreed that she would take in the girls, and allow them to stay with her for $20 a week, though it is not actually known who first suggested this.

Unfortunately, Lester didn’t feel the need to inspect the home, and if he had, he likely would not have agreed. The house had no stove or microwave, the only food kept in the pantry was stale bread and dry crackers, there were only enough plates and utensils for 3 people, not the 10 that would be living there, the home was filthy, and they had only half as many beds as they needed for the family.

Sadly, the girls were moved into the home, while their parents went off to work. The first week reportedly went by without issue, the girls attended school, school functions and church with the family, and were essentially treated just like she treated her own children. This would all change however, when Lester’s payment didn’t arrive on time. The late payment triggered an overwhelming temper tantrum, she screamed at the young girls that, “I took care of you two bitches for nothing,” and forced the girls to lie across their beds on their front with their skirts and underwear around around their ankles, and proceeded to beat the girls with a wooden paddle.

Lester and Betty Likens came to visit their children and give Gertrude the money which they owed her, but due to the fear that Gertrude had already instilled in the girls, they said nothing to their parents.

The following week, the girls decided that they wanted to get some sweets, and so in order to make a bit of cash for them, they went through rubbish and walked the streets to find bottle caps to sell for petty cash, this was quite a common thing to do for poorer families at the time, but that didn’t stop Gertrude from being angry about it and accusing the two young girls of stealing. Sylvia explained the bottle caps, but that seemingly changed nothing for Gertrude, and they were once again beaten by the woman.

After attending a church social with Sylvia and Jenny, the Baniszewski children reportedly returned home to their mother to complain about Sylvia, disgusted by how much food Sylvia had eaten while there. For some reason, this sent Gertrude into a rage, furious that Sylvia would do anything to risk damaging her appearance, and crafted a cruel and unusual punishment for the teenager. Sylvia was forced to eat a hot dog which was piled high with condiments, making the teenager throw up. The punishment would not end there however, as the young girl was then forced to eat her own vomit. By this time, Sylvia’s fear of Gertrude was heavily ingrained, and when her parents returned to visit them once again, Sylvia said nothing about Gertrude’s despicable behaviour towards her.

The violence against Sylvia really began to intensify in August 1965, when she was reportedly heard talking about the fact that she had once allowed a boy to feel her up, infuriating Gertrude. The older woman began to scream at the 16year old, calling her a prostitute and shouting to the entire house that the teen was pregnant. But it would not end there, as she began to repeatedly kick the young girl in the crotch, leaving her unable to stand, and in desperate need to get off of her shaky feet. When the kicking finally stopped, Sylvia moved to sit on a chair, only to be thrown onto the floor by Gertrude’s eldest daughter, who was actually pregnant at the time herself, shouting in her face that she “aint fit to sit in chairs”. This incident triggered a change in the house, and from this point on, Sylvia had to request the right to sit down every single time.

It was here that the abuse against Sylvia became more and more frequent and more and more aggressive, with Sylvia now reportedly being used as a ‘plaything’ for the older children, she would be beaten and often pushed down the stairs. The young girl was constantly being accused of being a prostitute, mostly by Gertrude, who had begun delivering ‘sermons’ to the family claiming that prostitutes, and in the end that women in general, were filthy.

The day after the beating where she was first accused of being a prostitute, jenny would later claim, her and Sylvia decided to come up with a plan to get vengeance against Paula, deciding to tell their classmates that they had seen Paula and the second oldest Baniszewski child Stephanie, sleeping with boys in the school for money. However, this would soon turn out to be a mistake when 15 year old Roy Hubbard, who was dating Stephanie showed up to the home and proceeded to beat Sylvia up quite badly. From this point on, with Gertrude’s encouragement, Roy Hubbard would come to the home quite often, and he would actually practice his judo moves on the youngster.

In a petty retaliation against Sylvia’s rumours abut her daughters, Gertrude somehow managed to convince Sylvia’s best friend Anna that Sylvia had also been telling people at school that er mother was a whore also, culminating in another violent attack against Sylvia, orchestrated entirely by Gertrude. She did the same to Paula’s friend Judy Duke, also orchestrating her beating of Sylvia. She even forced Jenny to beat her own sister, beating the younger, sickly girl until she agreed.

Also during August of 1965, the house neighbouring the Baniszewskis was purchased by a middle aged couple, Phyllis and Raymond Vermillion and their two children, and when they moved in, they saw the large number of kids next door and thought that it would be a good idea to get to know the family, in the hopes that Gertrude could babysit their two children for them. The Vermillions arranged a barbecue with their neighbours, and the family weren’t exactly on their best behaviour, nor where they really were trying to hide the abuse. Sylvia was walking around the party with a strong black eye, and when questioned by Phyllis about the cause, Paula admitted to, and actually bragged about causing the wound. Not long after this conversation, under Gertrude’s observation, Paula actually walked over to Sylvia, throwing a glass of steaming water into the girl’s face. Phyllis and Raymond Vermillion never reported this to the police, and as far as is known, never told anyone about the concerning behaviour that they had witnessed.

Phyllis also didn’t report some even more concerning behaviour that she would witness two months later, when visiting the Baniszewskis in order to borrow something from Gertrude. Sylvia reportedly walked into the room where Phyllis was waiting, dazed and confused with swollen and cut up lips and a black eye that had swollen shut. Paula, like she had done previously, bragged about how she had been the one to cause the wounds, and even proceeded to remove her belt and begin beating the young girl with it, right in front of their neighbour, and she said and did nothing to stop it.

Not too long after this,Sylvia came home from school and told Gertrude that she had been told to buy a new sweat suit for gym class, and was told that that the family couldn’t afford it. Not wanting to get into trouble with the school, and not knowing what else to do, Sylvia decided to steal a sweat suit from the school. When Gertrude found out however, she was furious, and once again twisted the situation to be about prostitution, and proceeded to kick Sylvia in the crotch over and over just like she had before. But this time, the punishment went even further, with Gertrude taking a lit cigarette and burning each of her fingertips in order to ‘cure’ her ‘sticky fingers’, and beating the 16 year old with a belt. From this point on, smokers in the house started to put out their fags on Sylvia as a reminder of her misbehaviour.

Sometime later, Sylvia went out to try and find more bottle caps to sell so that she wouldn’t have to steal again and get hurt so badly, but of course in Gertrude’s mind, Sylvia had been out working as a prostitute. On her arrival home, Sylvia was told by Gertrude that Jenny her younger, more sickly sister, would be beaten if she failed to do as she was told. What she was told to do was the most twisted and severe punishment that Sylvia had been given since moving into the abusive home. She was forced to strip naked in front of Gertrude’s sons, and some of the neighbourhood boys,and was forced to masturbate with a glass coca cola bottle in front of them. Despite being humiliating and traumatising, the damage this caused led to Sylvia becoming pretty much completely incontinent, which is what caused Gertrude to first lock the young girl in the basement of the home, where the abuse would begin to worsen at an alarming rate.

• Les Bonnes, a play by Jean Genet.
  

• The Maids, a film based on Les Bonnes, by Christopher Miles.
  

• My Sister In This House, a play by Wendy Kesselman.
  

• Sister My Sister a film based on My Sister In This House, by Nancy Meckler.
  

• Les Abysses, a film by Nikos Papatakis.
  

• Les Soeurs Pain, a book by R. Le Texier.
  

• Blood Sisters, stage and screenplay by Neil Paton.
  

• L'Affaire Papin, a book by Paulette Houdyer.
  

• La Solution Du Passage a L'acte a book by Francis Dure.
  

• Paris Was Yesterday a book by Janet Flanner.
  

• La Ligature, a short film by Gilles Cousin.
  

• Les Muertres Par Procuration, a book by Jean-Claude Asfour.
  

• Lady Killers, a book by Joyce Robins.
  

• Minotaure #3 1933, a magazine.
  

• The Maids, an opera by Peter Bengston.
  

• Les Blessures Assassines, a film by Jean-Pierre Denis.
  

• En Quote Des Soeurs Papin a documentary by Claude Ventura.
  

• Gros Proces Des L'histoire, a book by M. Mamouni.
  

• L'Affaire Papin, a book by Genevieve Fortin.
  

• The Papin Sisters, a book by Rachel Edwards and Keith Reader.
  

• The Maids, an artwork by Paula Rego.
  

• Anna Le Bonne, a spoken song written by Jean Cocteau performed by Marianne Oswald.
  

The case of The Papin Sisters is one of the most analysed cases in French history, with intellectuals and playwrights researching and using this case as an inspiration ever since the murders took place in 1933.

Christine and Lea were the two younger of three children born to the troubled Papin family south of Le Mans. Christine was born on the 8th of March 1905 and Lea was born on the 15th of September 1911, and despite the large age gap, they grew extremely close during their childhood, a bond which would continue throughout their entire lives. All three of the girls had extremely difficult childhoods according to the research done on the case, with all three girls being subject to severe neglect and abuse. 

Emilia, the oldest of the three girls, was reportedly sexually assaulted by her cruel father, an experience which led to her moving away and becoming a nun, leaving her younger siblings to deal with their parents together. According to reports, their mother cared very little for the children, doing absolutely nothing to protect them, or show them any kind of love or affection.

After Emilia left to become a nun, their parents would divorce, but not because of their fathers crime, or his abuse of all three of his children, but because their mother was apparently jealous of Emilia and her fathers ‘relationship’ believing that he didn’t rape her, but that they actually had had a consensual affair. The difficulties in their childhood is what would lead to Christine and Lea becoming so unusually close, according to researchers, Lea always being protected by her older sister, from abuse and molestation, essentially led Lea to become an extension of her older and smarter sister, causing her t lack any real individual personality whatsoever.

After their parents divorced, the girls reportedly spent a portion of their childhood in a mental institution due to the fact that there was no one around to take the girls in. They had grown very quiet during their youth, so quiet in fact that those who were in the institution with them, and even some of the staff, believed the girls to be telepathic. Some people had never heard them speak at all, but they were always together.
Upon their release they began to work as maids, together when they could, in multiple homes south of Le Mans, managing to both find a live in position with the Lancelin family in 1926. The girls working conditions were harsh, they worked 14 hour days 6 days a week for a pedantic mistress who would reportedly use 'mild violence in order to punish the girls, things like pinching them with her nails when they were slacking or that they weren’t doing their jobs well enough.

The attack took place on the night of February 2nd 1933 after they had worked in the home for around 7 years, after a argument reportedly started over Christine plugging in a faulty iron and causing a power outage in the home.

The Lancelin family were due to go to dinner at a friends home, but when Mr Lancelin arrived at their friends home and his wife and daughter failed to show u, he felt as though something was wrong, and decided to return to his home to make sure that his wife and child were okay. When he arrived all of the doors and windows were locked, and the only light in the home was the flicker of a candle in Christine and Leas bedroom. Knowing something was wrong he went and got the police.

Tragically when they entered the home, police found Mrs Lancelin and her daughter Genevieve dead, and beaten to a point that they were almost completelyunrecognizable. Investigators described the scene as looking like a 'blood orgy’, it a an incredibly violent attack which is believed to have lasted around half an hour. Both of the women had had their eyes gouged from their sockets, one of Genevieve’s eyes was found a little way away from her on the floor, and Mrs Lancelin’s eyes were found caught in the folds of the scarf which she was wearing around her neck. The two women also had numerous slash wounds on their legs, so many that they couldn’t be accurately counted and they had been hit around the head with a hammer, and with a pewter pot which had been at the top of the stairs.

The sisters denied nothing when they found wrapped in each others arms as they slept, with the blood Mrs Lancelin ad Genevieve rubbed all over their bodies, confessing to everything that hapenned almost immediately.

For the first time in their lives the girls wereseparated while they awaited trial, and after being found guilty and being sentenced to different prisons, Christine for life, and Lea for just 7 years since they believed that she was manipulated by her smarter, older, ad more dominant sister, Christine couldn’t cope. She suffered an extremely severe mental breakdown leading to her attempting to gouge out her own eyes, just like she had done to her victims, and she died after just 4 years of her sentence because she refused to eat, or to look after herself in any way.

Lea was released in 1941, and according to reports she started a new life under a fake name, found a job and never offended again, which wasn’t surprising to investigators who believed that Lea alone did not prove a threat to society, and that it was with Christine’s influence alone that Lea had committed these awful crimes. 

There’s a lot of questions around the demise of Lea Papin, most sources state that the died in 91, however, a documentary filmed by Claude Ventura claims that she actually died in 2001. In Claude’s documentary, he claims to have found Lea in a hospital, post stroke, and unable to talk, however it is not known for sure whether this really was Lea orwhether he was simply trying to make his documentary more exciting, though this 'Lea’ was actually featured in his film. 

ANDREI ROMANOV CHIKATILO

The Butcher Of Rostov

Andrei Romanovich Chikatilo, or The Butcher Of Rostov, as he would come to be known, was a Soviet serial killer who murdered at least 50 people between 1978 and 1990. I’ve chosen to discuss this case mostly due to the political side of the case, as the countries communist views actively got in the way of the case. In the Soviet Union at this time their ideology asserted that serial murder was impossible in a communist society, making it even harder for the police to protect the people of Rostov.

Chikatilo was born on the 16th of October 1936 is Yablochnoye, Ukraine. Growing up in Ukraine at this time was extremely difficult, since the country was still dealing with the aftermath of an extreme famine which led to millions of deaths, and people resorting to cannibalism in order to survive. In fact, during his childhood Chikatilo would be told frequently by his mother that he had actually had an older brother, but he had been kidnapped and actually eaten by the townsfolk during the worst of the famine. While this story could never be officially verified it is believed that this story is actually what motivated Chikatilo to cannibalise some of his victims. He was an avid reader, and his favourite books to read would become heavily inspired by his own life. During the second World War, Chikatilos father was conscripted to fight in the war against Germany, at which time he was actually kept prisoner. His father was vilified when he eventually returned home, which would in turn affect Chikatilo. He was brutally bullied by his schoolmates because of his father’s perceived cowardice. After his father’s return Chikatilo began to develop an interest in stories about how German soldiers had been tortured by their Soviet captors during WWII.

However his surroundings would not be Chikatilos only issue. It is believed that Chikatilo was born with hydrocephalus (water on the brain) at birth, which would cause several issues for Chikatilo. One of the most noticeable problems caused was his genital - urinary issues, which would cause bedwetting quite late into his life. It is believed that Chikatilo wet the bed until at least his late adolescence if not his wary adulthood. These genital - urinary issues would also cause Chikatilo to be unable to sustain an eretion later in life.

At 15 years old, Chikatilo experienced what would be his only sexual experience during his adolescence. Chikatilo attempted to overpower a young girl, and he acyally ejaculated almost immediately during the short struggle. Instead of taking this seriously, getting him help or telling anyone what had happened, his schoolmates instead just began to bully him even more aggressively than before. It is believed by psychologists that this event is what triggered Chikatilo to conflate violence and sex, a trait which would stick with him forever.

After failing his entrance exam to the Moscow State University, and completing a brief spell of military service, Chikatilo moved to a town near Rostiv-na-Donu with his younger sister where he got a job as a telephone engineer and married a local girl called Fayima whom his sister had actually introduced him to. Finally, in 1971 he managed to get himself a degree from Rostov Liberal Arts University and managed to get himself a pretty good job as a teacher. However Chikatilo was forced to move from school to school doolowed by complaint after complaint of sexual assault from his young students and their parents. However nothing official was done about this and he ended up settling at a mining school in Rostov.

Chikatilos first documented murder victim was 9 year old Lena Zakotnova. Lena was lured into a shed by Chikatilo, where he then attempted to rape the young girl, during the attack Chikatilo slashed at the young girl with his knife, ejaculating as he did so, confirming his psychological connection between violence and sex, which would go on to become a component in all of his attacks.

There’s was actually a witness during this investigation, who claimed to have seen Chikatilo with Lena not long before she disappeared, however despite police taking this seriously and investigating it, they would get nowhere. Fayima provided him with a strong alibi which enabled the killer to avoid any further suspicion in regards to this crime. Desperate to make an arrest in this case, the police arrested a 25 year old man who had a previous rape conviction, Alexsandr Kravchenko. After a brutal and extended interrogation by desperate police, Alexsandr actually confessed under duress for this crime that he didn’t commit. He was tries for the murder and in 1984, he was actually executed, and Chikatilo got away with his heinous first murder.

However the close brush with the law clearly got to Chikatilo, and as far as we know today, Chikatilo didn’t kill anyone else for 3 years. Tragically though, he hadn’t stopped committing crimes. Accusations of sexual assault and abuse kept popping up and finally in 1981 he lost his job at the mining school he had been working at and was unable to find another teaching positions because of this long list of previous accusations. Instead, Chikatilo began working as a clerk for a raw materials factory in Rostov. This should have been a good thing right? Since his access to children had been taken away? Tragically this was not the case. Chikatilos new job involved huge amounts of travel which would give him pretty much unlimited access to a multitude of young victims over the next 9 years.

Larisa Tkachenko, 17, would be Chikatilos next victim. On the 3rd of September 1981 Chikatilo gagged the young girl with dirt and leaves to prevent her from screaming before strangling and stabbing the young girl. The brutal force used is what gave Chikatilo the satisfaction he longed for and the murderer had started to form his own twisted MO.

Chikatilo would find young runaways, usually at train stations or bus stops, before luring the girls and boys into forests and woodlands nearby before beginning his attack. Chikatilo would attempt to rape his victims but due to his inability to sustain an eretion, he began to instead use a substitution, a knife. In a nber of cases, Chikatilo would actually eat the sexual organs of his victims, or remove other body parts like the tip of the tongue or the nose. However, in his earlier cases somothing which was almost always present, was the fact that Chikatilo would target his victims eyes. Slashing and even removing the eyeballs of his victims. Chikatilo would later claim that he did this because he believed the eyes of his victims held an imprint of his face, even on death.

Serial killers were not a very well known phenomenon in the Soviet Union at this time. This was down to a combination of cultural differences and most noticeably the suppression of information at the time, especially information about murder or child abuse cases, in an attempt to maintain public order.

However the Soviet authorities couldn’t Bury their heads in the sand when it came to Chikatilos crimes. The similarities in all the attacks, especially the eye mutilation during earlier attacks, was to to much to deny or ignore, and the authorities were forced to face the fact that there was a serial killer operation in Rostov, and a particularly brutal one as that. The media coverage was minimal, but that didn’t stop the speculation of the people in Rostov, and rumours of foreign plots and incredibly, werewolves, began to circulate the area, and fears really began to grow.

Major Mikhail Fetisov was transferred to Rostov in 1983 in order to take control of the investigation. Having no doubt in his mind that there was a serial killer on the loose, Mikhail Brought in specialist forensic analyst Victor Burakov to head the investigation in Shakhty. The investigation centered on convicted sex offenders and the ‘mentally ill’ but the interrogation methods used by investigators at this timeed to a large number of confessions that Burakov was hesitant to believe since they were likely made under duress like Alexsandrs had been. At this stage in the investigation, police had no idea how many murders had actually taken place since not all of the bodies had been discovered, but they did know one thing, with each new body came more and more forensic evidence. The police were operating under the believe that the murderer was blood typed AB due to the semen samples thst were discovered at several crime scenes. Chikatilos blood typed was actuallt type A, but he happened to be a part of a minority group called 'non secretors’ which meant that his blood type could not be found out from anything other than a blood sample. The police also had hair samples, since multiple identical grey hairs had been found at several of the crime scenes also.

There were 15 more victims during the course of 1984 and the police efforts intensified drastit, mounting massive surveillance operations canvassing most of the bus stops and train stations in the area. Incredibly this actually did lead to Chikatilos arrest after he was seen behaving very suspiciously at one of the bus stations that were under surveillance. He was imprisoned for just 3 months for a number of minor offenses, but since his blood type didn’t match their suspect, (due to his non secretor status) he evaded suspicion for his crimes once again. If this crime had taken place in present day, this would likely have been it, this would probably have led to Chikatilo being discovered as murderer due to the advances in forensics.

After being released from his 3 month sentence he found work in Novocherkassk as a travelling buyer for a train company, and as far as I could find he didn’t commit another killing, or any crimes for that matter until 1985, when he murdered two women in two separate incidents.

Burakov was growing frustrated with the case, and another specialist was brought in in an attempt to further assist the investigation. This time it was psychiatrist Alexandr Bukhanovskys turn to help investigators by refining the profile of the murderer. Bukhanovskys defined the killer as a 'necro-sadist’ and placed the mans age as between 40-50 years of age, which was a fair bit older than the police had believed him to be previously. Burakov was so desperate to bring this sick killer to justice, and he actually made the decision to visit and interview serial killer Anatoly Slivko shortly before he was executed, in an attempt to get inside of the mind of someone who was capable of committing such heinous crimes.

Around the time of this interview, the attacks seemed to stop. As usually happens when serial killers have breaks in their crimes, the police theorised that one of three things had happened, either he had stopped killing, been arrested for unrelated crimes, or that he had died. However, in 1988, he was back, with a slightly altered MO. This time he was keeping his attacks outside of Rostov and he was no longer finding his victims at bus stops and train stations like he used to. Chikatilo killed a documented 19 people over the next two years, and he seemed to be killing much more irrationally than he used to, and taking bigger risks than he had previously. He was now focusing primarily on young boys. And his crimes would often take place in locations thst were pretty public, and at a higher risk of discovery.

Massive pressure was now being put on the police in the area, and police were patrolling the streets almost constantly which did little more than make people feel a bit safer at first. Burakov then brought in ununiformed officers to patrol likely areas. Chikatilo had actually evaded capture on several occasions, but his luck would soon run out. On the 6th of November, shortly after killing his final victim Sveta Korostik, he was noticed by patrolling police station due t oh his suspicious behaviour. His information was taken and when he was linked to his arrest back in 198r, Chikatilo was put under surveillance.

Chikatilo was finally arrested on the 20th November 1990 due to even more suspicious behavior but he refused to speak. This was when Burakov had an idea, he allowed Bukhanovski to interview Chikatilo, claiming that he wanted Chikatilos help to try and understand the mind of a seru killer from a scientific perspective. This 'flattery’ was all it took for Chikatilo to open up to the psychiatrist. He gave Bukhanovski very detailed descriptions of his crimes, and even led the police to previously undiscovers bodies. He claimed to have taken the lives of 56 victims but only 53 could officially be verified. The police had no clue that there were so many victims, they had only linked 36 murders before this.

Chikatilo was deemed fit to stand trial and on the 14th of April 11992 he was taken to court. The killer was kept in an iron cage for the duration of the trial to keep him away from the families of his victims and to be be honest, to keep him away from everyone in the room. He was referred to as 'The Maniac’ by the media due to his behaviour in court. His behaviour ranged from bored to manic, singing,talking gibberish and pulling his trousers down in the middle of court. The judge residing over the wasn’t exactly impartial, he often overruled Chikatilos lawyer and it was very clear that he’d already decided that Chikatilo was guilty. However despite this, there would not be a verdict on the case for another two months. On the 15th of October 1992, Chikatilo was found guilty of 52 murders, and sentenced to death 52 times.

Chikatilo appealed his conviction, claiming that his psychological evaluation was biased and that he was never fit to stand trial to begin with, but his appeal was denied, and 16 months later, on the 14th of February 1994, he was executed by a shot to the back of his head.

A positive not to end, Alexandr Bukhanovsky, the psychiatrist who was viral during the investigation, actually went on to become a celebrated expert on sexual disorders and serial killers.

Phil