Eugen Weidmann (5 February 1908 – 17 June 1939) was a German-born criminal and serial killer who was executed by guillotine in France in June 1939, the last public execution in France, an execution witnessed by the 17-year-old Christopher Lee who was visiting Paris at the time.
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Early life
Weidmann was born in Frankfurt am Main to a German Catholic family of an export businessman and went to school there. He was sent to live with his grandparents at the outbreak of World War I. During this time he began stealing. Later in his twenties, he served five years in Saarbrücken jail for robbery.
During his time in jail, Weidmann met two men who would later become his partners in crime: Roger Million and Jean Blanc. After their release from jail, they decided to work together to kidnap rich tourists visiting France and steal their money. They rented a villa in Saint-Cloud near Paris for this purpose.
Murders
His first kidnapping attempt ended in failure because his victim struggled too hard, forcing him to let him go. In July 1937, he made a second attempt, Weidmann having made the acquaintance of Jean De Koven, a 22-year-old New York City dancer visiting her aunt Ida Sackheim in Paris. Impressed by the tall, handsome German, De Koven wrote to a friend: "I have just met a charming German of keen intelligence who calls himself Siegfried. Perhaps I am going to another Wagnerian role – who knows? I am going to visit him tomorrow at his villa in a beautiful place near a famous mansion that Napoleon gave Josephine." During their meeting they smoked, and "Siegfried" gave her a glass of milk. De Koven took photos of Weidmann with her new camera (later found beside her body; the developed film showed her killer). Weidmann then strangled and buried her in the villa garden. She had 300 francs in cash and $430 in traveller's cheques, which the group sent Million's mistress, Colette Tricot, to cash. Sackheim received a letter demanding $500 for the return of her niece. De Koven's brother Henry later came to France offering a 10,000-franc reward from his father, Abraham, for information about the young woman.
On 1 September that year, Weidmann hired a chauffeur named Joseph Couffy to drive him to the French Riviera where, in a forest outside Tours, he shot Couffy in the back of his neck and stole his car and 2,500 francs. The next murder came on 3 September, after Weidmann and Million lured Janine Keller, a private nurse, into a cave in the forest of Fontainebleau with a job offer. Weidmann killed Keller with another fatal shot to the back of the neck, before robbing her body of 1,400 francs and a diamond ring. On 16 October, Million and Weidmann arranged a meeting with a young theatrical producer named Roger LeBlond, promising to invest money in one of his shows. Instead, Weidmann shot him in the back of his head and took his wallet containing 5,000 francs. On 22 November, Weidmann murdered and robbed Fritz Frommer, a young German he had met in jail. Frommer, a Jew, had been held there for his anti-Nazi views. Once again, he shot Frommer in the back of his neck, and then buried the body in the basement of the Saint-Cloud house where De Koven's body was interred. Five days later, Weidmann committed his final murder. Raymond Lesobre, a real estate agent, was shot in the killer's preferred fashion while showing him around a house in Saint-Cloud. 5,000 francs were taken from him.
Arrest
Officers from the Sûreté, led by a young inspector named Primborgne, eventually tracked Weidmann to the villa from a business card left at Lesobre's office. Arriving at his home, Weidmann found two officers waiting for him. Inviting them in, he then turned and fired three times at them with a pistol. Although they were unarmed, the wounded Sûreté men managed to wrestle Weidmann down and knocked him unconscious with a hammer which happened to be nearby.
Weidmann, a highly cooperative prisoner, confessed to all his murders, including that of De Koven, the only one for which he expressed regret. He is reported to have said tearfully: "She was gentle and unsuspecting. ... When I reached for her throat, she went down like a doll."
The murder trial of Weidmann, Million, Blanc and Tricot in Versailles in March 1939 was the biggest since that of Henri Désiré Landru, the modern-day "Bluebeard", 18 years earlier. One of Weidmann's lawyers, Vincent de Moro-Giafferi, had also defended Landru. Also present was the French novelist Colette, who was engaged by Paris-Soir to write an essay on Weidmann.
Weidmann and Million received the death sentence, Blanc received a prison sentence of twenty months, and Tricot was acquitted. Million's sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment.
Execution
On 17 June 1939, Weidmann was beheaded by chief executioner Jules-Henri Desfourneaux outside the Saint-Pierre Prison in Versailles. The "hysterical behaviour" by spectators was so scandalous that French President Albert Lebrun immediately banned all future public executions. Executions by guillotine continued to be conducted out of public view; the last such execution was that of murderer Hamida Djandoubi on 10 September 1977.
Notable witnesses
A then seventeen year-old future horror film star, Christopher Lee, was present for the entire duration of this event.
It affected him quite deeply, and was "profoundly disturbed" by the grisly behavior of the crowd and the gory nature of any execution by guillotine. (Additionally, this was to be the final public execution by guillotine ever to be performed in France). Through interviews and written works, his recollections reveal numerous insightful details of the event from a bystander's perspective.
Early on the morning of 17 June 1939, a friend awoke him and "dragged him" to Versailles, claiming to have something to show him.
We arrived to an open square, steadily filling with people.
Dawn broke on the scene, and I realized the focus of the amassed crowd was on Madame Guillotine.
Lee recounts that, within 30 seconds of Weidmann being brought out:
"...he was whisked off his feet, bound, punched in the gut, placed on the monstrous contraption, and adjusted into position.
The blade fell and I failed to look away. I was sick to my soul..."
Nearly half a century beyond this June morning, Lee portrayed headsman Charles-Henri Sanson in a 1989 French TV drama about the French Revolution, in which his character made frequent use of the device.