MONSTERS OF LES MANS The Pepin Sisters

 

I admit the case of “The Two Maids”, Christine and Lea Papin,  fascinates me.  Although there has never been any doubt as to the horrific nature of their crime, nor as to the guilt of the two women, there has never been a definitive explanation as to why the murders were committed.  Approaching now a century later the story still begins and ends with that central mystery - why?

On the evening of Thursday, 2 February, 1933, Monsieur Rene Lancine, a retired lawyer living outside of Le Mans, France (above), left work and arrived at a friend's home for a dinner party only to discover that his wife, Léonie and his daughter Genevieve had not arrived ahead of him.  He knew they were both looking forward to the dinner, so he anxiously returned to his own home to search for them. 

He arrived shortly after 6:30 to find all the doors of his home locked and the house dark- except for what looked like a single candle burning in the attic room where the families' two servant girls slept.  M. Lancine was concerned enough that he immediately went to the police station. Several officers accompanied M. Lancine home again, and one officer climbed over the back wall of the house and thus gained entrance. 

In a bedroom on the second floor were the battered and mutilated bodies of Madam and Mademoiselle Lancine, (above) wearing their coats and gloves as if about to go out.  The murder weapons were scattered about the landing, dropped from the hands which had wielded them; a kitchen knife, a hammer, and a heavy pewter pot.  But the bludgeoning had only been part of the assault. 

The eminent psychiatrist Jazues Lacan put it succinctly; “They tore out their eyes as Bacchantes castrate their victims.” One of the daughter’s eyes was found on the carpet. Both of Madam Lancine’s eyes were found in the folds of her scarf, still around her neck. 

And in the bare attic room (above) the police discovered the two servant girls, Christine and Lea Papin, naked and huddled together in one bed. Interesting, most of the blood stains were only on one side.

The police wrapped them in overcoats and brought them downstairs, where the first photographers were ready to snap the image of the monsters. 

Both girls readily admitted to having committed the murders. But they refused to offer any explanation for the brutal slaughter.

The case was an immediate sensation and a cause celebre’ for every side of the moral and political debate in France - to the Paris tabloids the sisters were “The Monsters of Le Mans” and “Les Arracheuses d’Yeux” (The Eye Gougers), and the murders were “…the most terrifying and cruel murders ever committed.” 

Jean Genet, author of “Waiting for Godot” was inspired by the trial to write a play, “The Maids” in which he has Christine say, “Madame likes us like she likes her armchairs. And maybe not that much!” Simone de Beauvior commented, “…there are no doubt women who deducted the cost of a broken plate from their maid’s wages, who put on white gloves to find forgotten specks of dust on the furniture:…one must accuse their childhood orphanage, their serfdom, the whole hideous system set up by decent people for the production of madmen, assassins and monsters.” 

And before the victims had even been buried (above), the new science of psychology found dark undertones of incest and sexual abuse , making the removal of the victim’s eyes most significant. The case was a theatre d’ete (a summer theatre), or perhaps a sarriette (a summer treat), in much the same way that the O.J. Simpson trial were to be a half century later. But after 77 years the central mystery of the Papin sisters remains; Why?

There were originally three Papin sisters. When the eldest daughter, Emilia, was 9 years old she was raped by her drunken father.  The mother had divorced the beast, but still Emilia was sent to a nunnery and had little to no contact with her family again; punished for being raped. 

The divorce dropped the family into bitter poverty. The mother hired out as a house maid, and the two younger sisters were sent to a Catholic orphanage. 

And when Lea and Christine were thought to be old enough (their early teens) they too became servants.  As often as possible the sisters worked together.  But after a few years they no longer spoke to their mother.

When the Papin sisters moved into the Lancine home. Christine (above, rear right) was 24 years old. She worked as the family cook,  while her sister, 20  year old Lea (above, rear left)  was responsible for cleaning and dusting the house. They had worked in several other homes around La Mans, and had good work records. And they worked for the Lancine family for seven years without any major trouble.

However Mademoiselle Lancine was known to be strict about cleanliness, and often ran one of her white gloves across surfaces to inspect Lea's (above) housework.  Lately the lady of the house was suffering from depression and had taken to beating Lea. Still, the only thing unusual about the afternoon of 2 February was a badly repaired electric iron which had blown a fuse. And it was this relative minor inconvenience which somehow precipitated the explosion of bloody violence. 

After their arrests, the sisters were separated. Christine (above left) began to wail and cry out for her sister. After several days they were allowed contact again, and Christine showered Lea with kisses, and tried to undress her sister. The doctors sent to examine the girls decided that Lea was a simpleton and that Christine was mentally and emotionally unstable. At one point Christine became so distraught at another separation that she tried to gouge out her own eyes, and had to be restrained in a straight jacket. 

When their trial finally reached its climax in September of 1933 Christine was sentenced to the guillotine, but this was later commuted to life in prison. Being alone again in prison she went into a profound depression and stopped eating for long periods. Eventually Christine was transferred to an insane asylum, where in 1937 she died of “cahexia”, a diagnoses which basically meant that she simply gave up fighting to stay alive. 

Lea (above) was sentenced to ten years of hard labor, of which she served eight. After she was released, Lea was reunited with her mother and they moved south to Nantes, where Lea worked as a chamber maid at a hotel under an assumed name. She died in the year 2000.

It is a sad story, and I have little more than touched on the details here. It highlights a world now long gone, and the life of two bourgeoisie peasant girls, born into a universe that seems to have had little use for them until they achieved fame by doing something despicable. And the instant they did it no longer mattered who the Papin sisters really were. At that point they became merely characters in someone else’s passion play.

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GAMESMANSHIP, The Botched Execution of William Wilkerson

I think, maybe, if Wallace Wilkerson (above) had known a little of the history of the game of cribbage, then William Baxter might have died of old age, instead of in his forties when two metal balls were forcibly inserted into his brain., and Wallace Wilkerson would have died of cirrhosis of the liver.

Honestly, the scoring in cribbage is so complicated, it seems to have been invented by a card shark. Which it was. So a little information, and a little self awareness, might have saved Wallace from a very painful, and slow death. Maybe. But then, people are not their intellect, but their personalities. And Wallace's personality was that of a foul mouthed, short tempered alcoholic. Not that dissimilar from the inventor of cribbage.

The charming and witty Sir John Suckling (above), the crook who invented cribbage, quickly dissipated his substantial inheritance on gambling, wine, woman and poems. He rebuilt it by investing in elaborate decks of marked playing cards. Suckling sent these Trojan gifts to several of his wealthier landed gentry "friends", along with a short book, explaining the wonderful, exciting game he had just invented, which he called Cribbage.

Then, when he later dropped by for a visit, his hosts invariably brought out his gifts for a friendly game of cribbage, with a friendly wager, of course. And that was how John Suckling amassed his new fortune of twenty thousand pounds, even tho “no shopkeeper would trust him for sixpence.”

On 11 June, 1877 the 100 odd denizens of Homansville, Utah were living at 6,000 feet, up a canyon two miles north east of Eureka. That Monday afternoon there were nine or ten men talking, smoking and drinking in James Hightower's general store and saloon, mostly teamsters who carted potable water to the 120 mines in the surrounding Tintic Mountains. As the temperature struggled to take the chill off the air, and the water tanks at the wells were slowly re-filled, the primary entertainment was two men seated at a small table, playing cribbage.

Cribbage is usually played by just two players, each dealt six cards. They retain four, their joint discard forming the “Crib”. The top card in the remaining deck is turned over, becoming the starter. All face cards are worth ten points, the ace just one. The non-dealer begins by laying one of his cards atop the starter, while announcing the cumulative value of those two cards. Players alternate, adding the numerical value of the cards, up to thirty-one. Why thirty-one? Why not?

The popular William Baxter, who normally tended bar in Eureka, was seated on an upturned beer barrel, his cheek resting in his right palm as he was recovering from a previous night of drinking. He was a “pleasant and peaceable man” - when he was sober. Drunk,. he was a violent bully, according to Wallace, and prone to pulling a gun to get his way, although he does not seem to have ever shot anyone. One of William's best customers in Eureka had been the tall, thin 43 year old Wallace Wilkerson, who now sat across the small table from him in Hightower's store. But William had previously pulled a gun on Wallace, and even insulted him by calling him a “California Mormon”. Or so said Wallace. And yet, here they were, playing a friendly game of cribbage. And Wallace was losing.

When a player cannot lay down a card without going over “31”, the opponent scores “1” point, called a "go". Once all eight cards have been played, the dealer picks up the “crib”, and adds those points to his or her total. The score is then recorded by moving pegs in a cribbage board, and the deal then passes to the second player.

It is unclear why Baxter was in Homansville. Wallace was there to visit his brothers, who worked at the wells in the four year old town. None of Wilkerson's or Baxter's relatives were in James Hightower's establishment that Monday, and I don't think the witnesses had any influence upon the the events, which began when Baxter observed that Wallace had moved his peg in the cribbage board too many spaces. Or so the volatile Wallace said he said,.

Beyond the single point awarded for coming closest to reaching “31”, an additional point is awarded for hitting “31” exactly, and “2” points for hitting “15” exactly. If a player lays down a card matching the suit of the previous card, they call out, “That's “1 for the go", and “2” for a double.” If the next card by either player also follows suit, that player says, “That's “2” for a double and “3” for a triple.”

A fourth matching suit card, even if played in the next “31” is called as a quad and counts for a total of “10” points. All of these are cumulative, as in “1” for the go, “2” for fifteen, “1” for the “31” and “2” for the double, etc., etc. Adding in the many sometimes obscure additional points that can be called out in the rush of the contest, almost always without a pencil and paper tally, makes the game quick, meteoric, exuberant, confusing and tension filled.

In other words, the scoring seems to have been designed by a card shark. And it was. It was designed to make cheating easy. The first player to reach 121 points is declared the winner. Why 121, I have no idea. I do know that the first player to be shot and killed is the loser.

Hearing William's accusation about his misplaced peg, Wallace pushed his chair back from the table, stood up and claimed he was the one being cheated. As Wallace started to take off his jacket, preparing for a fist fight, the unimpressed and hung over William Baxter merely said “Sit down, Wilkerson, and don't make a fool out of yourself.” At that, Wallace drew a small pistol from his jacket and shot William in the face. The victim fell backward, against the flour bags. Wallace strode through the black powder smoke and grabbed a hand full of William's hair, lifting his head. Wallace pressed the gun's muzzle against William's right temple, and fired again, literally blowing William Baxter's brains out. Then Wallace Wilkerson ran out of the store.

The inventor of cribbage, Sir John Suckling, should have died like a character from a Felding novel, an ancient retired reprobate, safely ensconced in his estates purchased with his ill gotten booty, and surrounded by dutiful if not respectful servants. Instead, his mercenary morality finally drove him to plot too obvious a crime. Escaping just ahead of the authorities, Sir Suckling fled so quickly he had to leave his fortune behind. Within a few weeks he realized that life without his 'raison d art', his one true love, his money, was not worth living, and he self administered poison. He died alone in May of 1641 at 32 years of age, flat broke, vomiting away his life in a dingy Paris apartment. But, unfortunately for Wallace Wilkerson, before Suckling died, he had invented cribbage.

Wallace Wilkerson was arrested and taken north to the village of Goshen, to avoid a lynching party. His defense was that William Baxter could have been carrying a gun. The only problem was, he wasn't. The only weapon found on the victim was a small pocket knife. Wallace seemed indifferent to the outcome of his November trial, but after his conviction he told Judge P. H. Emerson, “When I did the shooting I supposed my life was in danger.” He also claimed the witnesses had lied. Judge Emerson was no more impressed by the theatrics than Baxter had been, and ordered that Wallace was to be executed in December. At the time, the Territory of Utah had a choice in killing Wallace: he could be hung, shot or beheaded. Unfortunately for Wallace, the court chose the firing squad.

The results were delayed for over a year when Wallace's lawyers appealed his sentence to the U.S. Supreme Court, saying execution by firing squad was a cruel and unusual punishment, denied by the U.S. Constitution.. During his time in jail in Salt Lake City, Wallace was deemed to be “the most foul mouthed and profane man” in the prison. Well it was Utah. In March of 1878 the Supreme Court held, by an unanimous vote, that death by a firing squad was not a cruel or unusual punishment. So, at about noon on 16 May, 1879, Wallace was led into the yard behind the Provo, Utah county courthouse and jail (above). Wallace was wearing a black suit, topped with his habitual white ten gallon hat, and smoking a cigar, donated by a sympathetic family member. And he was swaggering, because he had been drinking since his long suffering wife Amilia had left him an hour earlier.

The sheriff led Wallace to a chair, set out away from the courthouse wall. Wallace insisted he not be tied to it, and he refused a blindfold, saying “I give you my word, I intend to die like a man, looking my executioners right in the eye.” Except he could not do that. Thirty feet away a barricade had been constructed, pierced by four rectangles, just large enough to accommodate the protruding rifle barrels. The gunmen were hidden from Wallace's drunken challenging stare. But they had a clear view of him. Or thought they did.

After the sentence was read, Wallace was asked if he had anything to say. In a slurred speech, he assured the 20 men present within the yard that he bore them no ill will, but insisted again that the witnesses at his trial had lied. The sheriff pinned a three inch square piece of white paper above Wallace's heart, as a target, and then stepped aside. Wallace called out, “Aim for my heart, Marshal!" The four riflemen aimed at the white target, and their commander quietly gave the order. Four men pulled the triggers, and four bullets raced toward Wallace Wilkerson's chest.

At the impact of the lead, Wallace jumped “five or six feet” from the chair, screaming in pain. After staggering a step, Wallace shouted, "Oh, my God! My God! They've missed it!", as he pitched over, face first into the dirt. Four doctors rushed to the condemned man's side. Wallace was moaning in agony. On examination the doctors found that one round had shattered Wallace's left arm, and the other three had pounded into Wallace's chest, all missing his heart. They now faced a quandary. What do you do if the condemned man survives the execution? Do you minister his wounds? Do you shoot him again? While these discussions continued, Wallace lay in the dirt, moaning and writhing for almost 30 minutes. Some timed his death throes at 27 minutes, others at twenty. Finally, Wallace did the right thing. He died.

At last Wallace Wilkerson was as dead as William Baxter. The only difference was that while the reprobate Wallace was solely and fully responsible for the death of William Baxter, the entire territory of Utah and its taxpayers, and the nine judges on the U.S. Supreme Court, were all responsible for the botched execution and slow painful death of Wallace Wilkerson. The process of state sponsored death seems, at least in this case, to have been designed by a drunken sadist or a crooked gambler.

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THE MAD HOUSE OF LORD LUCAN

  

The murderer was Richard John "Lucky" Bingham (above), the Seventh Earl of Lucan.  There was never a mystery about that.  He was hard to miss, standing six feet four inches tall, dark and handsome and debonair with an arrogant entitled blue blood air about him. You might think if he had been just an average guy, he might have never felt entitled to commit murder. But lots of average men try to murder their wives. 

Lord Lucan (above, center) fancied himself as a professional gambler, and was descended from a long line of royal cads. His great-great-great grandfather, the second Earl, gained infamy during the Irish Potato Famine as the very epitome of a heartless, greedy Englishman, throwing starving Irish peasants out of their homes to starve to death. 

John’s Great-Great-Grandfather, George Charles Bingham, the third Earl (above), was the cad who ordered the charge of the Light Brigade. The Fifth Earl, George Charles Bingham, sat out the First World War in the House of Lords, but liked to be called “Major” a rank he achieved between the wars when there was no shooting going on. And John’s father had shocked the family by switching his alliance to the Labor Party in the 1930’s.

John chose his profession the way most gamblers do, right after a winning streak: he won twenty-six thousand pounds in two days, while playing backgammon. 

What John did not know was that his gambling club of choice, the Clermont Club (above), was in fact a den of thieves. The club's owner, gangster John Aspinall, described his upper class customers as pigeons...

... and described the Claremont as “…like robbing Fort Knox or the Bank of England - just a lot easier.” Lord Lucan was such a favored pigeon that Aspinall had a bust of him placed on display in the club

In November of 1963 John married the petit and pretty Veronica Duncan.  She gave birth to three children; a daughter, Frances, in October 1964, George (the heir) in 1967, and Camilla, born in June of 1970.

John seems to have always been a control freak, and one nanny would later claim that John beat Veronica with a stick wrapped in masking tape when to punish her for suffering from postpartum depression.  Veronica would not admit the abuse until decades later, saying that John beat her with a cane to get the “mad ideas out of your head. .He could have hit me harder. They were measured blows. He must have got pleasure out of it because he had intercourse (with me) afterwards”.

Lady Lucan's untreated depression became worse after Camilla was born, and required medical assistance for herself,  and a young nanny, Sandra Rivett,  to help her care for the children.

Meanwhile, his Lordship had discovered that not only was the income of a professional gambler prone to ups and downs, it was also prone to its own addictions. By the mid 1970’s, after putting in his time at the backgammon table, John began spending the wee hours of each morning, playing what he had once labeled as the “mugs games” of roulette and craps and even bridge, trying to recover what he had lost at his first choice of games.

He was losing them all, of course. Because he was being  fleeced by his friend, the gangster John Aspinall (above).

The marriage bent under the strain of mounting bills and Veronica’s personal struggles, and the couple separated. John moved into an apartment a few blocks away from their five story London townhouse at 46 Lower Bellgrave Street (above) . (It was just around the corner from Buckingham Palace.) He hired a private detective to spy on his wife and gather information for what he was certain would be an eventual divorce.

Lord Lucan was now suffering from regular headaches, and drinking heavily. He became obsessed with regaining control of his children. Not that he actually wanted anything to do with them, on a daily basis. But when he could no longer afford the Private Investigator,  John was reduced to stalking Veronica himself.   

In March of 1973 John kidnapped his children and sued to gain legal custody.  But in June the judge sided with Veronica.  He labeled John’s behavior as “lawless” and granted Veronica full custody. All three children moved back into the mansion on Lower Bellgrave.  What with child support and alimony, plus Veronica’s medical care and the cost of a nanny, the judge’s decision left John in debt for forty thousand pounds. So John began to make other plans.

By 9:30 P.M. on the night of Friday 8 November 1974 the two younger children had been put to bed. Frances was watching television with her mother in the family room on the second floor when, just before ten, the new nanny, Sandra Rivett, (above) poked her head in the door and asked if there was anything else she could do before going home. On a whim Veronica suggested a cup of tea, and Sandra went down to the basement kitchen to put the kettle on. Thirty minutes later, when Sandra had not returned, Veronica went downstairs to see what had become of her. When she reached the darkened main floor she was attacked by a man wielding a bent pipe.

He struck her several times in the head. Veronica tried to cry out, but the man ordered her to “shut up”, and roughly shoved two gloved fingers down her throat. Veronica instantly recognized the voice as John’s. She fought back, bit his fingers, grabbed John by his testicles and squeezed as hard as she could. He released his grip and the two collapsed on the floor in heap. 

Gathering her courage and her voice, Veronica asked where Sandra was. John admitted he had just murdered the nanny.  In the dark of the basement he said, he had mistaken her for his wife (they were both 5’2” tall and slightly built). Thinking quickly Veronica assured John that Sandra would not be missed, and that in order to avoid a scandal she would help him dispose of the body. John led her to the second floor where they both told their daughter Francis to go upstairs to her own bedroom. In the master bedroom Veronica lay on the bed while John went in to the bathroom to wet a washcloth. And the second Veronica heard the water running she leapt off the bed, ran down the stairs and out of the house.

She stumbled down the street to the Plumber’s Arms Pub (above). In her nightdress and covered in blood, she made quite an impression. She gasped hoarsely to the startled patrons, “Murder, murder, I think my neck has been broken - he tried to kill me”  Back at the house, when John realized that Veronica had escaped, he ran for it. They found poor Sandra stuffed in a bloody sack near the basement door. She had been horribly bludgeoned to death. A victim of mistaken identity.

John’s apartment was empty. The police would discover he driven forty miles to a friend’s farmhouse, and told them he had been passing the home on Lower Bellgrave when he saw an attacker through a basement window.  He said he had rushed in,  only to be knocked down by the attacker. Then he claimed, realizing he would be blamed for the murder, he had run away.  He called his mother twice. The second time she asked if John wanted to speak to the police officer who was with her. John hung up. And then, after his friends went back to sleep, Lord Lucan disappeared.

Three days after the attack they found his car parked on a public street (above) near the docks in Newhaven. In the car was his passport and a note to a friend,  asking him to look after his children. In the trunk was a bloody length of pipe, bent by the beatings administered to the innocent Sandra Rivett and then Veronica.

For decades the police continued to search for Lord Lucan, with dogs, and divers and detectives. An entire industry sprang up,  seeking the most famous missing royal murderer in recent history.  John was reported living happily in Australia, in South Africa, and even in India. 

But oddly enough none of this string of "Could-Be Johns" has displayed a gambling addiction, or an affinity to act like an arrogant snob.  In 1984 Scotland Yard tried to reopen the case but it ran into another series of dead ends. Eventually they gave up. 

The last suspected "John" was a man living in a van in New Zealand with a pet possum, a cat and a goat. But like all the others, he turned out to be somebody else.

Veronica Lucan, (http://www.ladylucan.co.uk/) never remarried,  and always insisted that John threw himself into the Thames estuary (the Solent), probably on 9 or 10 November.  And to tell you the truth, I agree with her.  Over time her mental illness slowly took control of her mind, and by the time she died at 80 years of age,  in October of 2017, she was estranged from her children, and died alone in her Belgrave apartment.

Still it makes a much more interesting story if Lord Lucan had managed to escape to someplace, Tahiti maybe, or perhaps Ceylon. But like the famous missing Judge Crater in the United States, Lord Lucan will likely remain not dead, but missing, forever.  Because that’s the way most of us prefer our  harsh reality; with a softening dose of myth.

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