Henri landru bluebeard restaurant in boston

Once the war started, Landru, who was still married to but estranged from Remy, began the scams that lead to his downfall. Perhaps it was the war with its heretofore-unknown measure of death that turned Landru into a murderer; perhaps it was the years spent in undoubtedly harsh French prisons, or perhaps it was something else.

Henri Désiré Landru (12 April – 25 February ) was a French serial killer, nicknamed the Bluebeard of Gambais.

The Earl of Birkenhead, eminent Oxford don and author of Famous Trials of History , discounts the theory that Landru was driven by bloodlust to kill his female suitors. It is therefore inevitable that a proportion of the women would be difficult to shake off and some must have shown no great disposition to hand over their property. We must therefore postulate that he was callous and inhuman — an assumption which offers no difficulty, seeing that his very mode of life was impossible for any other kind of man.

Well-known criminologist Colin Wilson calls Landru "a callous ruffian who deserved to be guillotined;" the entry in Wilson's Encyclopedia of Murder recounts the savoir-faire that made Landru attractive to his victims. His sense of humor and strong will certainly came out during his detention, interrogation and at his trial. Perrault's fairy tale about the blue bearded monster that kills his wives but is done in by a young woman's curiosity is a well-recounted story.

Not only does it exist in French literature, but in African, Spanish and Chinese legend as well. If ever a serial killer resembled a mythic figure, it was Henri Landru as Bluebeard. There is not a lot known about Landru, but by his actions, it is possible to develop a simple profile of this modern Bluebeard. His victims, both the living and the dead, were among the more vulnerable members of society, so he was clearly without conscience few serial murderers are ever stricken by remorse or guilt for their actions, except to say that they are sorry to have been captured.

There were so many victims of his confidence schemes — the contemporary estimates numbered about — that he was clearly greedy. He was probably a romantic man, able to sweep lonely women off their feet, and since his physical appearance was more comical than handsome, he must have been a smooth, fast-talker. His sexual appetite reportedly was ravenous.

Landru was intelligent and silver-tongued, not only with the ladies, but also with his fellow soldiers and other men. All the while he was taking advantage of women, Landru was also defrauding weary recently discharged soldiers of their pensions.