RedHanded - Episode 271 - LIVE: Halloween Special Part 2 – Stalin’s Cannibal Island & Marcel Petiot

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

Recorded live in Columbus, Ohio, at Obsessed Fest 2022, H&S bring you a historical Halloween special. The girls look back at the horrors of Stalin’s cannibal island, and at one of the world’s most prolific serial killers, who terrorised Nazi-occupied Paris. Episode with slideshow: https://youtu.be/vDarJBeELEY See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Get ready for Las Vegas-style action at BetMGM, the king of online casinos. Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games and signature BetMGM service, there's no better way to bring the excitement and ambiance of Las Vegas home to you than with BetMGM Casino. Download the BetMGM Casino app today.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello, lovely listener, and welcome to part two of this year's Halloween Story Swap special. We really hope you enjoy it. We just wanted to drop you a quick note here and let you know that this episode is very special because it was actually filmed in front of a live studio audience at Obsessed Fest in Columbus, Ohio this year,

to which Hannah and I had the absolute honor and pleasure of attending. Thanks very much to our friends Patrick and Gillian over at True Crime Obsessed. So we had the best time, so we wanted to share this with everybody while we were on tour. So you can either listen to the audio that you're about to hear here, but if you'd like to listen to it along with the slides that we used, then you just have to head on over to YouTube and the Red Handed channel, for which we'll leave a link in the episode description to watch the whole thing complete with visuals. So enjoy, happy Halloween, kind of, and we'll see you next week when we're going to be back with a two-parter on the massive case that is, of course, the Delphi murders.

So we'll see you then. Hello, everyone. So many things in my hands. Let me put these down. And I also massively misjudged how big a walk-up that was when Patrick said our names. I also feel like I'm really far away from you. Oh, no. Let's move closer.

But don't get too far away from that giant angry red clock that will tell us how little time we have. Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for coming to our show. Hey. This is our first ever show in America. It is. Yeah. But, but,

no one tell Border Patrol. No. You are all very close friends and family and we are here on a social visit only. We are. And it also won't be our last, but we are very glad that we could lose our US show virginity

here in Columbus. My what? Your clipboard. Let's go. Don't worry. Sorry. So Columbus, Columbus, Ohio. We got here and we heard from some podcast friends of ours who I think are here, Crawl Space.

They told us that this is the state with the biggest wicker basket. Is that true? Is that true? Because everyone we've been saying that to just gives me a really blank look when I say it and then I feel really stupid and uncultured. And also I mean, actually let's figure this out. Who listens to the show every week? Woo!

Okay, you're being recorded so please make louder noises. Thank you. That's more like it. Silent laugh as you can fuck off. You are absolutely no use to us at all. The state motto of Ohio is find it here. Is that correct?

Find what? Yes. What am I supposed to be looking for? Is it the basket? Maybe, maybe. We also spent quite a lot of time yesterday backstage while we're, you know, killing time between bits we're doing. Which word is italicised?

Or are they all? Which is it? Is it find it here? Find it here? Find it here? I don't know. Someone tell us. Either way, I'm confused.

Our clock isn't running. Oh, no. Somebody start the clock. I don't know. Someone tell us. Either way, I'm confused. Our clock isn't running. Oh no, somebody start the clock. Can we get the clock? Yes, somebody? Can we? Maybe. We'll just figure out what it's up. No, we don't deserve the clock. We're already starting late. No, we don't need it. You're right.

Oh, look! What? The screen over there. Oh no, that's horrible. Oh, right there! still not oh look what at the screen over there oh yeah oh no that's horrible um but so guys so guys what we're gonna do today is i know um we'd have loved to do like the tour show that we're gonna be doing in the uk and europe but unfortunately that is like two two and a half hours long so we don't have time but don't worry we will be back to the us with proper official paperwork and be doing a proper tour sometime next year. So today what we're going to do is we're going to do a live recording

of our Halloween Story Swap special for October. So we'll be releasing this later next month. No, this month. It's the 1st of October today. No, it's not. Yes, it is. I honestly don't even know my own name um so let's start oh the clock started and it's jumped oh my god 12 minutes stressful okay right we're gonna go i also don't know if this is gonna randomly start playing the music or not it doesn't matter so i'm gonna go first okay cool right I have made this quite hard for

myself because I picked this and this case was done before I realized it was going to be a live one and doing these kind of more horrible cases is a lot easier when I'm not looking at you directly in the face um so I've done my best to make what is essentially a bit of a genocide as funny as I possibly can but it's going to start dark. Once a woman from the Island of Death was brought to our house. The woman was taken into the back room of our house to spend the night. And that's when I saw that her calves had been cut off. I asked what had happened, and she said,

they did this to me on the island of death. They cut them off, and they cooked them. All the meat from her calves had been cut away. Her legs were freezing because of this, and she'd wrapped rags around them. She was able to move on her own, but she looked like an old woman, though she was probably only a little over 40.

What I just read to you is the 1989 testimony of, and I haven't practiced enough of these names, Fiafila Bailina, smashed it, thank you, who was a woman from the village of Naznino, speaking about what she witnessed at the age of 13. Because today, this is a story of Stalin's Cannibal Island. You love Stalin's Cannibal Island. It's your fave. Oh, no, that is the music. Never mind. There you go. Dun-da-dun. I don't even need to look behind me.

Oh, yeah, there it is. Oh, God, this is so much better. So good. This is so good. So the year was 1928 when Stalin introduced what he called collectivization. Yeah. Yeah, no, it's bad. It's bad. It's going to get so bad because this was the first of a five year plan for the USSR, which was a list of economic goals based on Stalin's policy of socialism in one country. This is a very accurate and I hear on-trend description visually of what Stalin did. Because he believed that by taking away privately owned farms from wealthy peasants known as kulaks,

there they are, and integrating them into collective state-run farms that he would be able to immediately increase food production for urban areas. You might be able to tell by my turn that that's not really what happened. So as you can imagine, these hard-working, I think I have a pointer, oh look at that, these hard-working and motivated kulaks weren't exactly thrilled about the idea of handing over everything that they owned to the state and going living on some sort of shared state-run farm. They weren't keen for it. But those who fought back were either shot dead immediately or thrown into kulaks, where they soon wished they were dead.

Now, all of this was known as de-kulakization. And while kulaks were dead. Now, all of this was known as de-Kulakization. And while Kulaks were described as wealthy, that's how they're always described in the propaganda pictures, and that this whole redistribution collectivization was described as redistribution of wealth, the problem was owning so much as a horse was enough to get you called a capitalist fat cat and thrown into a Kulak.

What's the story with the crab man? Do you know what? I am not sure because I picked these when I googled Kulak propaganda pictures, but I can't read Russian. So I don't know what they say. I feel like I'm doing history GCSE and this is my source paper. Or you're doing history GCSE in a school that's in special measures and your teacher's like, I don't know what they say. I feel like I'm doing history GCSE and this is my source paper. Or you're doing history GCSE in a school that's in special measures and your teacher's like, I don't know. But here you go. This is what's happening. So yes, propaganda pictures, wealthy.

That's how they sold it to the rest of the people in Russia, that these people deserve to have all of their things taken away from them. Surprise, surprise though, in 1932, the results of killing and arresting the most productive group in your society didn't really work out very well because it led to a lot of bad things happening. And one of those bad things happening was that severe famine was on its way. And this is a pattern that we will see throughout this episode of unintended consequences for the actions that the Soviet Union took at this point. So a man named Genrik Yagoda, who was the head of the OGPU secret police, this is a nightmare, oh no, right, there we go. The solution was to settle one million of these kulaks in Siberiaia and kazakhstan in special settlements so these unfortunate deportees

would be tasked with turning 2.5 million acres of virgin land into productive farmland yes where are they gonna find these people to do this and what are you thinking and they were like you've got to turn these 2.5 million acres of just barren land into farmland in two years. What could possibly go wrong? So get this, the Ontario Liberals elected Bonnie Crombie as their new leader. Bonnie who? I just sent you her profile. Check out her place in the Hamptons. Huh, fancy.

She's a big carbon tax supporter, yeah? Oh yeah. Check out her record as mayor. Oh, get out of here. She even increased taxes in this economy. Yeah, higher taxes, carbon taxes. She sounds expensive. Bonnie Crombie and the Ontario Liberals.

They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario Liberals. They just don't get it. That'll cost you. A message from the Ontario PC Party. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant.

When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs, a seductive cocaine dealer who desperately wanted to be part of the Hollywood elite. Together, they were trying to break into the movie industry. But things took a dark turn when a million dollars worth of cocaine and cash went missing. From Wondery comes a new season of the hit show Hollywood and Crime,

The Cotton Club Murder. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of The Cotton Club Murder early and ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus. But now that good old Soviet era tractor. I spent so long Googling farming fails to try and find something. You've got to work with me, guys.

There's not many images from this era in time that just don't look like a grainy mess. And also they weren't really up with the memes back then. So we're doing our best. I think you've done a great job. I'm very proud of you. So the problem was they've got the land, they've got the plan.

They're like, we're gonna farm land this to shit. And then we're all gonna be fine and no one's ever gonna be hungry again The problem was some people know the end of the story The problem was that they needed people to send to this 2.5 million acres of land to be the farmers The problem was how do you find these people? Well, I'm gonna do a little another remedial history lesson for all of us because the Bolsheviks had actually abolished what was known as the Tsarist internal passport system. And they were like, no, get rid of it.

Every Russian everywhere in the whole of the Soviet Union should be able to live and work wherever they want. So they got rid of it in 1917 during the revolution. And that just led to a bunch of starving peasants from all over the various corners of the USSR flooding into the major cities and creating a housing crisis for the proletariat. More unintended consequences. And so Stalin, thinking quick, was like, let's reintroduce the passport system.

And let's only give it to the people that we like. Let's not give it to the kulaks. Let's not give it to the people that we like let's not give it to the kulaks let's not give it to the criminals let's not give it to anybody else that we deem socially undesirable and so basically that meant that if you were living in a major city at this point in like 1932 soviet era and you didn't get one of these internal passports given to you life was about to become very hard because you were now essentially an illegal resident in your own country. So then what they would do, you leave your house without your passport,

they are going to arrest you. And when they arrest you, what are they going to do? Give you a big hug. They are going to use you as farm fodder. Okay. It's very smart. It's very smart. I thought that would move.

Never mind. So, Yagoda gave every police officer a very strict quota of how many people they had to arrest using this internal passport system. And here they are, looking very scary with their dogs, and they're going to come get you. And so the police were incredibly motivated to arrest as many people as they possibly could. And they arrested a old man who stepped outside of his house to buy cigarettes without his passport. They arrested a 12-year-old girl who was standing outside of a

shop waiting for her mom to buy some bread. And they arrested a 103-year-old man who just didn't have a passport so as you can imagine these people aren't prime who the fuck is living to 103 in the ussr someone who's eating other people and um yeah these people aren't going to make prime farm hands as you can probably imagine so between march 1933 around march and July, they arrested around 85,000 people. Exactly. From Moscow. And 5,000 from Leningrad. And they deported them in the space of just two days. This is a map. There you go.

And most of them were never heard from again. So these people were stuffed onto trains, and together with the police, they were sent to Siberia on a journey that took 10 days. On the 10th of April, 1933, the deportees arrived in the small city of Tomsk. I think that's how you say it. There it is. And the thing was that Stalin and Yagoda

had carried out this plan so quickly, they had arrested so many people and shipped them to Tomsk so quickly, that they had failed to let the Siberian officials know to expect them. Or finish the roads. Or finish the roads. So as a result, there was no food, there was no water, there wasn't enough adequate shelter for the 90,000 deportees that arrived in Tomsk by May. I'm so glad you recognized him because I was like I need to find a picture of Billy McFarlane but if nobody recognizes him the joke doesn't work

so thank you everybody. So on the 14th of May four it's also really annoying that I didn't put anything else you're just gonna have to look at him now for a while. So on the 14th of May, four river barges destined to haul timber were packed with 5,000 deportees and sent to Nazino Island, the place that would go on to be called Stalin's Cannibal Island. Of those 5,000 people, a third of them were dangerous criminals so already you're starting off on a bad note i think everyone is a dangerous criminal if they're hungry enough i mean that is very much the tagline i am certainly a danger to others and myself and the problem was criminals but they also had no agricultural skills whatsoever. So it just gets worse and worse.

And also, of those 5,000, 4,600 of them were men and 4,000 were women. Uh-oh. Also problems. Also problems. Yeah, I really didn't know whether to go for too many men, but I didn't know if you guys would... Do you guys know that one? We need some more girls in here. Too many men?

Okay. All right. Well, that's a banger, so look it up. It was a toss-up. So during the four-day journey, each deportee was given no more than 200 grams of bread each. Guys, I was working with a tough case here. So a number of guards were sent with the deportees overseas to the labor camp.

However, they were told only two weeks before they went, and they were given absolutely no training, absolutely no resources on how to manage the situation. So things are getting worse and worse. Now, the barge was also stocked with 20 tons of flour. That sounds like a lot, but it's actually only four kilograms per person. I don't know either of those. It's like...

Like a small baby? It's like, no. A big baby. It's like a bag of sugar or a bag of flour. It's not enough. It's not enough. A small baby. It's a small baby.

It's two kilos. Oh. I mean, so a baby, a small baby's worth of flour is all you've got. Right. And you've got to... Why is my measuring system babies? I don't's worth of flour is all you've got. Right. And you've got to... Why is my measuring system babies? I don't know. So that's all they've got.

They've got no food. They've got no tools. They've got nothing else that you could possibly need to turn virgin land into farmland. And things are going to get worse because 27 of them died on the way there. And as horrible as it is to say, they were probably the lucky ones. Because as soon as they got off the barge, the deportees realized that Nazni Island was nothing more than a patch of uninhabitable swampland. So they haven't even done very good site checking here. It's not even virgin land, it's just a swamp.

And it's about two miles long and about 600 miles wide with no infrastructure whatsoever. And it also happened to be in one of the coldest parts of Siberia. Again, not prime farmland. I feel like they should have known that. I feel like that's the least they should have known. Columbus, you guys are prime farmland, Ohio? Yeah, see? That's kind of apt.

So enthusiastic. I know. They were more enthusiastic about the wicker basket. So that first night on the island, 273 people froze to death. Because, if you remember, they were wearing basically the same clothes that they were arrested in in Moscow. And we think Moscow is cold, but this place is much colder. So they just froze to death.

Now, the following morning, the guards attempted to distribute some of that baby measurement And we think Moscow is cold, but this place is much colder. So they just froze to death. Now, the following morning, the guards attempted to distribute some of that baby measurement flour. But too many fights broke out. So they were just like, okay, you organize yourself into groups. And then you come tell us who we give the flour to. So problems. Problems galore already. Would you put me in your group or would you have it all for yourself? I mean, I would probably have you in my group okay thanks yes yes i wouldn't do what these people did

because the hardened criminals just were like fuck everybody else and they went and they were like i'm the leader give me the flour and they took all the flour and then they just bullied everybody else and by bullied i mean viciously assaulted and ate eventually so um lots of things were happening um people couldn't cook the flour obviously they didn't have any tools or anything to start a fire with so some of them just mixed the flour with like river water and ate it and then there were huge outbreaks of dysentery i know i should have been more festive so So out of desperation, many people began chewing on the bark and the moss that they could find on the trees that were on the island. This kind of filled their stomachs, but it didn't really do anything nutritionally for them. So people were struggling

and you might be wondering, well, why didn't they just try and escape? Maybe that would have been a good plan. Well, some of them did. Some of them got together. They built big life rafts. They tried to get off this island. But they were basically stopped at every opportunity because the river around there is just not made for that kind of thing. And also the guards would just shoot them because they didn't have anything else, but they did have rifles. And then also, if they did manage to escape

into the woods that surrounded this island the guards would follow them in there and um basically hunt them down making this guy seem like father fucking christmas and it was funnier when it moved i don't know so the guards settled on the shores of the island. I saw him on Raya, by the way. Did you? What was his profile?

I don't think I'm allowed to say that. Oh, yeah. No, there's rules. You saw you get kicked out. What did it say? This is my face. This is my face. Good.

Look at my penis. So the guards settled on the shores of the island. They basically just started taunting the people that were on this island for fun. They'd throw lumps of bread into groups of crowds to see people fighting each other for that food. It gets very dark very quickly. And on the 21st of May, two doctors were sent by Stalin to go and monitor the number of people that were on this island, kind of like a who survived situation. And they get there and they record a further 70 deaths that occurred. And to their horror, they also noticed that five of the bodies showed signs of cannibalism. But when they reported this back to officials in Tomsk, they were told that these people were degenerates anyway.

What else could they expect? And to make matters worse, on the 27th, Stalin decided to send another barge full of 1,200 more deportees to the island with no additional resources. And things got worse and worse, and what I'm about to, yeah, there we go. And what I'm about to read you is eyewitness testimony from a survivor. On the, and this is bad, everybody. So I hope no one's eating their lunch in here.

On the island, there was a guard named Kostya Venikov, a young fellow. He had been courting a pretty girl who had been sent there. He protected her. One day, he'd been away for a while. People caught the girl. They tied her to a poplar tree. They cut off her breasts, her muscles, everything they could eat, everything. They were hungry.

They had to eat. And when Costia came back, she was still alive. He tried to save her, but she'd lost too much blood. Yeah. This is kind of a bummer, mate. I know, I know. It's okay, I'm almost done. And then I think Alice is better.

No, you're doing a great job. So by this point, the stronger deportees formed gangs in order to survive and terrorize the weak. Cannibalism had obviously become commonplace. And people were murdering each other just to have something to eat or someone to eat. Their remains were also often pillaged for clothing. And even gold dental work was dug out of their faces. But I'm like, where are you going to use that? Well, I told you this.

I went to uni with a girl whose family buy dental gold. I mean, I believe that it's... So you can melt it down. Oh, I believe it's a thing. But what are you going to do with it on Cannibal Island? Trade it for stuff. Because there's such an abundance of stuff to trade. Exactly.

And also such an abundant need for more gold. I don't know. So the only people that sort of live anywhere near this island are a local indigenous group of people called the Osteac people. And they only even came to this island to like randomly go fishing in the summer. They didn't live here. But they lived near enough that they said that they could hear screaming and gunshots coming from this island for weeks until one day in early June 1933 everything stopped and it all went

silent Stalin had decided to put a stop to this project, and the surviving 2,856 deportees were moved back to smaller settlements elsewhere in Siberia, where they were, of course, forced to work. They weren't like, oh, we're sorry we did that to you. Not a holiday camp. No. Here you go. Go to Center Parcs. They don't know what Center Parcs is.

Mate, there's so many British jokes in my half of the show, you're going to have a bad time. But by that point, some of the people that were left on the island were just far too ill to be moved and those who were transported many didn't survive so of the original 6 000 deportees that found themselves on stalin's cannibal island 2 000 had died from starvation exposure or murder or murder, and 2,000 had simply disappeared without a trace and were presumed dead. So the rumors of the horrors that had occurred on this island spread, and a local communist instructor by the name of Vasily Velichok, there he is, I think that's him, decided to investigate for himself.

And he went out to the island in August. The grass by this point had grown tall, and he couldn't see much of the floor. That is, until he got closer. And he realized, to his horror, that he was standing on piles and piles of rotting corpses. Vasily went home and he compiled an 11-page report on what he had found there, including interviews with dozens of survivors and local eyewitnesses who were there. And he sent this report to Stalin

and he said that they were left noticeably disturbed by what he had said. A few of the former guards from the island were sentenced to prison for like one to three years they were left noticeably disturbed by what he had said. A few of the former guards from the island were sentenced to prison for like one to three years because they have to like be seen to do some things. They were just like, it's your fault. It's because you didn't handle this properly. You can go to prison.

But as for the report, Stalin had it stamped as classified and swept the whole thing under the rug. Again, don't know why it's not moving they know what it's supposed to be doing what it is and um much like he would do with a plethora of other soviet horror stories and it wouldn't be until 1988 through the efforts of a human rights group called memorial that the report and testimonies from survivors would see the light of day again. And this is a little island memorial that they have set up there now, which I think is very sweet.

In one interview, a criminal who was deported to Nazino Island revealed how the cannibalism unfolded. So this was a part of Vasily's report. And when he was asked if he had ever intended to... Oh, no, no, sorry. When he was asked if he had eaten humans, he responded with the following. No, that isn't true.

I only ate livers and hearts. It was very simple, just like Shashlik. We made skewers with willow branches, cut it, by which he means human bodies into pieces, stuck it on the skewer and roasted it over a campfire I picked those who were not quite living but not yet quite dead

it was obvious that they were about to go that maybe they had left in them a day or two and then they'd give up so it was easier for them this way now I could kill them quickly that maybe they had left in them a day or two, and then they'd give up. So it was easier for them this way. Now I could kill them quickly, without suffering, for another two or three days. And I guess you have to rationalize it to yourself, don't you?

What else are you going to do? And I guess he doesn't want to eat the dead bodies, because they're all gross and dead. I don't know it's okay it's almost over guys today every year a small group of locals from the siberian town of tomsk in russia make the 550 kilometer journey all the way to nazino island in the middle of the ob river and they place a wreath at the foot of the memorial. That's nice. Yeah, they do it every year in memory of the 4,000 people

that died there in the horrifying summer of 1933. Happy Halloween. Yeah. Sariti Barler, everyone. Thank you. You're being very kind. Here you go. Well done.

Okay. Mine's also kind of like old and timey also I'm gonna have so many things in my hands prepared to witness the dyslexia of movement I'm gonna drop some shit I can feel it and also my hands are so sweaty look so it's not my fault that was a little bit sexual I'm not going to lie sorry just got to rearrange the mic slipping out of my disgusting hands oh this bit

I forgot this bit we've talked a lot of smack on Stalin there he is and you guys have all seen this right because he might look like that in his old age but he was quite the babe back in his day

he's kind of hot yeah I mean he's no young Benjamin Netanyahu he is no young Benjamin Netanyahu if you haven't seen a picture of young Benjamin Netanyahu google that immediately there you go that's that that's you He is no young Benjamin Netanyahu. If you haven't seen a picture of young Benjamin Netanyahu, Google that immediately. You're welcome. There you go. That's that.

There you go. That's you. Thank you. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime, and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media.

To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. He was hip-hop's biggest mogul, the man who redefined fame, fortune, and the music industry. The first male rapper to be honored on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Sean Diddy Cone. Diddy built an empire and lived a life most people only dream about. Everybody know ain't no party like a Diddy party, so. Yeah, that's what's up. But just as quickly as his empire rose, it came crashing down. Today I'm announcing the unsealing of a three-count indictment,

charging Sean Combs with racketeering conspiracy, sex trafficking, interstate transportation for prostitution. I was f***ed up. I hit rock bottom. But I made no excuses. I'm disgusted. I'm so sorry. Until you're wearing an orange jumpsuit, it's not real. Now it's real. From his meteoric rise to his shocking fall from grace, from law and crime, this is the rise and fall of Diddy. Listen to the rise and fall of Diddy exclusively with Wondery Plus. Let's get rid of this.

Oh, even worse. Right, so... Yeah, we're just trolling you all. We're just, like, catfishing you all because those pictures were taken when we were, like, 25. Yeah, exactly. It's a lot worse now. We will never update it. Right, I am taking you to Le Gay Paris,

which looks like that, in case you needed a reminder. Voted the most disappointing tourist attraction in the world. More than the Wicked Basket. Have you heard of Paris Syndrome? I have heard of it. What is it? It happens to Japanese men, specifically, where they go to Paris and they're so disappointed by it that they get really depressed.

Because Paris does, if you have not been, stink of piss. Fucking prove me wrong. Anyway, so I'm taking you to Nazi-occupied Paris. And just out of interest, I tried to find a funnier picture by Googling Le Gay Paris. And when you Google Le Gay Paris... What did you find? This Which for our listeners at home

is from a bakery in Paris and it's called Baguette Magique and it's baguettes in the shape of penis and balls £2.20 for a baguette I think that I don't know if it's to scale. It might be bigger.

It's just a giant clip. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, Le Gay Paris, 1944 to be specific. And on a street in Paris, smoke was billowing non-stop for weeks and weeks and weeks out of a chimney and the neighbors had had enough because it was disgusting and it smelled really really terrible so they went over to the house but there was no one in there was just a note on the door that said forward mail to 18

rue de lombeau in uh i can't speak french so i'll let the funky music do the talking. Another British joke that will fall on its face. Just tell me when they're there and I'll laugh really loudly. Fuck. Anyway, so the concerned neighbours told the French police

that there was all of this stinky smoke coming out and they'd even seen people coming in the middle of the night to drop things off and pick things up. One truck picked up 47 suitcases in the middle of the night, in the dead of night, one might say.

And another man with a horse and cart delivered 30 heavy sacks of something completely unidentifiable. A lot of busybodies on this street. Not minding their own business. They're French, what do you think? I don't hate the French. I just severely dislike them. It's okay, they don't like us either.

Exactly. So, the police tracked down the owner of this house and his name which i have practiced but will definitely say wrong is marcel peteau that's the house it's not the house it just looked a bit like that in my opinion there he is oh not i mean he's just non-descript yeah non-descript french man from the black and white times. So, Pateau asked the officers on the phone, though, he was like, oh, have you gone in the house yet? And they were like, well, no.

And he was like, okay, well, just wait until I get there. Definitely don't go in. And the police are like, okay, fine. And they wait and they wait. And then they've waited for about half an hour. He doesn't show up. So, they ring the fire brigade to break into the house. And they did that. They to break into the house. And they did that. They all run into the house,

and then the firemen come out, white as sheets, vomiting everywhere. And they told the policemen that they had quite a large job cut out for them, and this is when I'm going to drop something. There we go. So, not knowing what to expect, the police cautiously entered the house

and made their way down to the basement. And there they found a large coal-fed stove burning at full blast. And when they looked a bit closer, it became incredibly obvious what the horrible smell was. Because it wasn't just coal that was in the stove. It was human legs and arms and also in the corner of the room a baguette a baguette in the shape of a penis classic pedio classic classic that guy um there was also a sack of coal in the corner with more miscellaneous body bits in it uh and then uh as the police made their way outside the house

marcel peteau showed up and because he's french he was on a bicycle and also this might this might are you guys having an energy crisis like we are in europe okay so maybe this can be our is this like the the new thing we just have to burning bodies because we can't get any coal or oil or gas anymore. I feel like it's not as bad. Only one person said you're having an energy crisis. Yeah, I don't think you can be because I filled up a car the other day for like 50p. Oh, okay. Okay.

This date? Oh, bad times? Bad news? Okay. We're on a cultural learning trip. We're on a cultural learning trip. We're on a cultural safari. So, the policemen are outside, and so now is this guy. And he will not speak to the police until they prove to him that they are French and not German.

And they were like, oh, I'm French. And then he was like, OK. And he was like, oh, well, the good news is I'm actually a member of the resistance and all of the bodies downstairs are the Gestapo. And the police are like, OK, cool. And then they leave. So they realized they had made a mistake, but it was far too late. No one would see Marcel Pateau in Paris again for seven whole months. This is the story of this guy who has lots of names. Oh, Marcel André Henri-Félix Pateau.

Otherwise known as Dr. No, that's the resistance. Dr. Satan. Oh. So let's tell you the story of the guy that absolutely has nothing to do with this picture. I just Googled Dr. Satan. He was born on the 17th of January, 1897 in Burgundy. And his mom died when he was still young. His dad couldn't be bothered, so he had to go and live with his aunt.

His aunt gets a tough deal because all of the sources are like she just you know did a really terrible job raising him uh but to be honest it sounds like he was just a fucking nightmare yeah i think she probably was okay but here's what he did he'd he'd bite her and pull her hair and he'd catch birds and lock them in cages and watch them starve to death. Or he would catch them, blind them with needles and then set them free. Presumably to fly into trees and windows and stuff. Oh, that's sad. Bad guy. Yeah, I feel like that's not all on Auntie.

No, absolutely not. He also smothered his pet cat because he tried to drown it and failed. Normal little boy stuff. But even though he was doing all of these horrible things, he was very obviously extremely intelligent. But at school, he had no mates because he was awful. And he would bring his dad's gun into school and fire it around.

And he also would throw knives at his peers in an alleged circus act oh this is a british joke but i don't care that's barry chuckle is it it's not it just looks like him oh right but i'm very impressed you know who barry chuckle is fucking tumbleweeds the rest of the room. Anyway, in his early adolescence, he committed a few petty crimes. And one day a policeman caught him stealing from a post box. And that meant that Marcel had to go and see a judge. And the judge, not a doctor, the judge had to do a psychiatric evaluation on him. And that psychiatric evaluation led to the charges being dropped and Marcel being diagnosed as an abnormal youth with hereditary and personal mental illness.

It's me. Anyway. And it was also suspected unlike the magnificent beast in those pictures that Marcel had a frontal lobe injury which if you have read the book you will know is bad news bears

he went on to be expelled from a string of schools but he finally managed to finish his education and by the time he did that World War I what happens in World War I, where... What happens in World War I? Oh, don't make me do this.

Nobody knows. I don't know. No one knows. What was World War I about? Franz Ferdinand was shot, and then some stuff happened at the end. That's all we're ever told. But France was under German control,

and some people say that Marcel voluntarily enlisted in the army. Some people say that he was conscripted. Either way, it doesn't matter. He was a terrible soldier. He had a really bad time. He spent most of his military career inside of mental asylums between the years of 1915 and 1921. And whilst at the front in 1917, he was gassed and injured by grenade shrapnel. Those wounds healed, but his mental state took a turn for the worse. And he was sent to numerous clinics and psychiatric hospitals where he was diagnosed with all sorts of stuff. Depression, disequilibrium, which...

That's an old and timey one. It just means sort of like not right. Just a bit out of whack. Neurothenia, don't know what that is um OCD and phobias not a specific one just general me too babes and he was sent back to the front even though he had all of these things wrong with him um and he actually had a nervous breakdown and shot himself in the foot but instead of being sent to prison as a deserter he was sent right back to hospital where he had a nervous breakdown and shot himself in the foot. But instead of being sent to prison as a deserter, he was sent right back to hospital where he had loads more fun diagnoses.

And a psychiatrist recommended that he be committed to a mental asylum. That did not happen. He went on to enroll in an accelerated study program for ex-servicemen and became a doctor in eight months. That's World War I. That's World War I. That's number one. So at the age of 26, he was now a doctor and he started up his own practice outside of Paris, about two hours, which obviously looks exactly like that. I mean, if you keep showing people pictures like this

to people who haven't been to Paris yet and then they go to Paris, they are going to all get Paris syndrome. It's not Paris, it's a little town. Oh, it's a little town, sorry. Something people... Someone hasn't seen Beauty and the Beast, fuck. No, sorry, it's been a long time.

That's with a widening German accent. I wasn't. I know, I it's been a long time. I saw the why you're doing a German accent. I wasn't. I know, I know. Also bad at accents. Oh, you were doing a German accent. No, I thought you were doing a German accent. I'm very tired. We're still kind of jet lagged, guys. Anyway, everyone thought he was the best doctor ever

because he was charismatic, apparently. He also helped a local bistro owner called Frasco, I believe. He had rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis. Rheumatoid arthritis. And Marcel helped him stand up straight for the first time in years. And how did he achieve this medical miracle?

Cerruti's favourite, heroin. Those are grains of rice or salt. It's crisps. It was crisps. I just like to put things in rows. They were in size order. And we took a picture of it.

Anyway, so Marcel was a great doctor because he was over-scribing everyone with heroin and so this whole village was off their tits the whole time. And then he began dating a lady called Louise de la something. That's her. Ooh, what a babe. Probably her. Anyway, I'm running out of time.

He kills her. She's dead. She's gone. She's gone. And the same year that he killed her, he decided being a doctor wasn't enough, and he decided to run for mayor. But he was unwilling

to put in the work to win fair and square so he actually hired a saboteur um when his opponent was speaking this saboteur cut the electricity to the entire village and set loads of buildings on fire i love it that is such good saboteuring. And it worked because he won by a landslide. Because everybody else is like, that guy's possessed or something. Every time he starts to speak, we lose all of our electricity and buildings suddenly burst into flames.

Exactly. So he had killed his old girlfriend, so he got a new one. Almost certain that is them. And probably nothing to do with the fact that she was a very, very wealthy heiress. Anyway, moving on.

1930, a house burned down. The house of a local wealthy businessman and when the firefighters arrived they found the lady of the house also called Henriette, like his auntie, beaten to death in the kitchen 20 000 francs were found to be missing and many speculated that marcel was having an affair with henriette uh so he was right at the top of the suspect list and then

frasco our rheumatoid arthritis patient from earlier, testified that he saw Marcel Pateau near the house on the night that it burned down. But small town. So after he dobbed him in, essentially he still had to go back to Marcel for his rheumatoid arthritis treatment. And then he died after a mysterious injection. Not that mysterious, though, is it?

It's pretty obvious what happened. Suspicion surrounded Marcel more and more but it wasn't until he was imprisoned for stealing electricity which I'm not even sure how you do that but that's apparently what he was just nicking nicking vaults should find out. Knicking volts in his pockets.

Exactly, just putting electricity in his bag and riding off on his little French bicycle. Anyway, he moves his family back to Le Gay Paris in 1932, and he started his own practice. He claimed to have the cure for cancer and also be an expert in gynecological problems. Oh. And he plastered posters around the area that he had been an intern in a mental asylum

when in fact he had been an interne. Oh. Which is a patient. Oh, it's like... Laugh right, guys. Thank you. Also, it's like the French version of, you know, when there's like the comma.

Is the comma in the right place? Oxford comma. The Oxford comma. We can't get back into that. We've only got nine minutes. But here it's just the? Oxford comma. The Oxford comma. We can't get back into that. We've only got nine minutes. But here it's just the little hat comma. Yeah, exactly.

The little hat. Right, so... He's doing loads of fucked up shit in Paris. He's having a great time for a man who has such severe disequilibrium. Well, exactly.

And all of his patients liked him loads, presumably because he was handing out heroin. But he was still doing some pretty bad stuff. He got himself in trouble for shoplifting, assaulting a police officer, tax avoidance, tax evasion, violating drug laws, and having a patient under his care

die from a heroin overdose, which I imagine happened quite a lot. But he managed to get away with it all by pleading insanity and paying a small fine. And nobody stopped him being a doctor. So he's like, I'm insane. Yes. And you can have some of my drug money. Yep. But I can keep being a doctor.

Exactly that. Ha ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. Probably no one was paying that much attention because World War II was kicking off. And in 1940, what happened in Paris in 1940? Nazi occupation, correct. And Marcel began telling people

that he was the head of a major resistance movement called the Flytox Network, which is the least French thing you've ever heard because it is made up. But he said that he was providing an escape for Jewish people, fugitives, resistance fighters, criminals, etc.

He said, if you come to me, come to my big townhouse, I will smuggle you out and you can go and live in Argentina with all of the other Nazis. Confusing. Anyway, so he bought the large townhouse, which definitely isn't this one but looked a bit like it. And this is where his clients would come to in the middle of the night.

It had been abandoned and it was falling apart. I think that is what it looked like. But he didn't mind because he wasn't going to live in it. He was going to do other stuff. He would sneak clients into his townhouse, and then they would never be seen again. He told his victims that the Argentinian government required them to be inoculated

before allowing them into the country. But he wasn't injecting them with, like, the yellow fever vaccine. It was cyanide, which... Again again if you've read the book you will know terrible way to go um and he would shackle them up in his a padded soundproof chamber of death and rush through a peephole as they slowly died he's like a french hh holmes exactly yes exactly sorry if i give it something no it's fine i think i did reference it but i just forgot to read it

yes exactly like a franchise um without the train bit that's confusing that no one understands anyway what's next what did someone just snort? They did. I hope that is so loud on the recording. No, I appreciate it so much. Honestly, I love that. Thank you. Took the pressure off me. Anyway. He got away with this for ages

until loads of bodies started washing up on the shores of the Seine. And the French police were like, this is some fucked up shit. But the Nazis were like, well, we're much more concerned with this doctor who's smuggling Jewish people out of Paris. And if you don't know what the Gest police were like, this is some fucked up shit. But the Nazis were like, well, we're much more concerned with this doctor who's smuggling Jewish people out of Paris. And if you don't know what the Gestapo look like...

You're welcome. So Marcel's feeling the heat. He grew a beard. He changed his name. And he got a job at the French forces of the interior. And he got all the way up to captain and then they asked him to track down Marcel Pateau. Brilliant.

He was like, this is outrageous even for me. I'm out this bitch. So he moves away from Paris. He stops pushing his luck. But on Halloween after the liberation of Paris from the Nazis he was recognized at a police station wearing a bad disguise and he was arrested a train station Oh a train station which I didn't say so when they arrested him he had a gun 30 000 francs which might not be that much money 50 documents under six different names bad stuff and at his trial the true horror of oh it's here

the hhm so there it is. There it is. The police had uncovered a lime pit where he was leaving all of the bodies to decompose, just like HHM's. And they found scalps and jawbones all over the place. And they also found a canvas sack containing a headless left half of a body with all of the inside bits not there. Ooh.

Yeah. Nice. But of course, the most terrifying thing of all was the octagonal soundproof chamber, which had shackles fitted inside a wall and a peephole in the door. And in this murder factory, they found... Fucking hell.

And he's here today. Wait, who built that for him? He built it. He built it. Oh, so he's a doctor, a captain, and... A mayor. And a mayor. And a construction person.

And a construction worker. And an architect. And probably a chartered surveyor. They found in this house 16 kilograms of charred bones. How heavy is that? How many babies? How many babies is that? Quite a lot.

12 kilos of unburnt human fragments. Six kilograms of human hair. And three bin bags full of unidentifiable tiny bits of human. The oldest victim was 50 years old. The youngest was 25. He faced 135 charges including 26 premeditated murders.

He eventually admitted to killing 36 people but the real number is probably much closer to 150. 150? I guess if you are a serial killer during those two wars. No one's looking. No one's looking. No. So he, his whole idea in the trial was like, yeah, I definitely did kill them all, but they were the Gestapo.

And his lawyer said that he was a hero of the French resistance, which got a standing ovation in the courtroom, but the judge and jury weren't having literally any of it because not a single member of the actual resistance knew who he was or had heard of the Flytox network. So that one didn't work. At one point during the trial, he wasn't paying attention. The judge told him off and he said, I am listening, but it doesn't really interest me very much. That's so funny. And he was sentenced to death. And whilst he was on death row,

he refused to see a priest saying, no, I am one traveler who is taking all his baggage with him. And obviously we're in France. That priest would have been Catholic. And this is what Catholic looks like. It's me. You do look super jazzed to be a Catholic. Yeah, so much. Right.

And then basically he was killed by guillotine in 1946. And quite a lot of people present said there was a smile on his face as his head went into the basket. Oh. There you go. Does anyone know the last execution by guillotine in France? What year? 1976. Close.

Same year that Star Wars came out we told them and also the other film with Jack Nicholson Chinatown there you go that's my story

there he is that's it guys thank you so much hi I'm Lindsay Graham the host of Wondery Show American So much. Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of Wondery Show American Scandal. We bring to light some of the biggest controversies in U.S. history. Presidential lies, environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our latest series, NASA embarks on an ambitious program to reinvent space exploration with the launch of its first reusable vehicle,

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