Joseph Philippe was executed in Paris on July 24, 1866, for the killing of a woman named Marie-Victoire Bodeux and for an attempt on the life of a second woman three days later. At his trial the prosecution had tried to prove much more. The indictment charged him with three other killings in 1864, among them a mother and her two-year-old son, and the state's lawyer told the jury that the magistrates had looked at still earlier deaths, going back to 1861, before dropping them for want of proof. The jury convicted him on the two January 1866 cases and answered no on all three killings of 1864, which is an acquittal on those counts. The Gazette des Tribunaux, the Paris law court daily, printed the hearings day by day.
Philippe was 34 years old when he came to trial in June 1866, according to the indictment read at the start of the hearing. He was born in the Haute-Saone, in eastern France, in a village given as Villemainfroid. Questioned by the presiding judge, he said that his father was a farmer there and that he had lived with his family until he was about 20, when he went into the army.
He enlisted in 1852. He served first in the 38th Line Infantry Regiment and from 1854 in the 2nd Battalion of Chasseurs a Pied. About two years later a council of war convicted him of theft, described as the theft of bread, and he was sent to a penal unit in Africa. The indictment placed that court-martial at Lille. His conduct in Africa, the indictment said, drew no serious reproach. He was released in March 1860 and went home to his family.
At the trial the prosecutor, avocat general Ducreux, gave a harsher view of those years. He told the jury that Philippe had been a poor soldier, sent to the disciplinary companies, and that the uniform had done nothing to improve him. He also called him a bad brother and a bad son, and said that he had struck his own father. Those were the prosecutor's words in his closing speech; the defense did not accept his picture of the man.
Philippe arrived in Paris in March 1861. His first job, he told the court, was as an assistant cook at a restaurant. Over the next five years he worked as a cook, a servant, a coachman and a shop porter, and the indictment counted nine employers. Among them were a glass and crystal merchant who also had a house at Levallois, just outside the city; a coffee merchant, who let him go on April 10, 1864; a butcher, who took him on as a stable hand three days later; a wine seller; a perfumer; and, at the very end, a picture framer, who dismissed him on January 4, 1866. When he was arrested he was working as a frame maker, the Gazette reported.
Drink was the thread through all of it. The presiding judge put it to him that seven of his nine employers had dismissed him because of it. Philippe answered that he had never been violent when drunk, apart from one dispute with an employer's wife. The indictment described him as a man who led, in its words, two existences: peaceable, useful and harmless while he was in work and under someone's eye, and violent and secretive when he was not. The glass merchant told the court that Philippe had been a good servant who drank in bouts and suffered violent nightmares. The framer said Philippe had worked for him for twenty days and had been drinking from January 2, 1866.
The physical description in the indictment gave him ordinary height, very dark hair, a moustache and a small beard. On one arm he carried a tattoo of a flower over the words "Ne sous une mauvaise," completed by the drawing of a star, so that it read "born under an unlucky star." The indictment dated the tattoo to 1856. That tattoo became one of the central pieces of evidence at his trial.
The first count of the indictment concerned Julie Robert, who was 36. She was killed in Paris during the night of April 13 to 14, 1864, and money was taken. A man was suspected at first, but he proved an alibi, and the case went unsolved for almost two years.
The second and third counts concerned Flore-Therese Vigreux, called femme Mage in the indictment, who was 32, and her son Henri, who was two years old. Both were killed in Paris during the night of November 5 to 6, 1864. The presiding judge described the double killing as a crime that had gone unpunished until then.
Philippe denied both killings from the start and denied them to the end.
On Monday, January 8, 1866, Marie-Victoire Bodeux was killed in Paris, and a purse and about 100 francs were taken. A neighbor raised the alarm. The Gazette des Tribunaux reported the killing in its Paris news on January 12 without naming the victim or linking it to anyone, noting only that the examining magistrate and a deputy prosecutor had taken charge and that the security police were searching for the man.
Three days after the Bodeux killing, on January 11, 1866, Philippe tried to kill a woman in Paris, who survived. A police officer stopped him in Paris the same day. The Gazette's first report, on January 12, said a Paris guard had caught him. Philippe told the officers he had been quarreling with his mistress; the police commissioner told the court that this story did not hold up.
A search of his room produced a purse that a neighbor later identified as Marie-Victoire Bodeux's. On January 12 Philippe admitted that he had killed her. His accounts of how and why changed from one questioning to the next. During the night after his arrest he tried to take his own life; the physician who treated both him and the woman he had attacked told the court he regarded it as a suicide attempt, and the indictment said he had tried twice to take his own life that morning.
Once Philippe was in custody, investigators went back to the unsolved killings of 1864. For the November killings their key witness was a young woman, 23 at the trial, who identified Philippe as a man she had seen that night. She had given the police a description at the time: a moustache, a pockmarked face, a scar, white hands, and letters arranged in a circle on one arm. The indictment said that description fitted Philippe "infallibly" and that she had recognized him when he was arrested. In court she pointed to the tattoo.
For the April killing the prosecution relied on two napkins. One, found among Philippe's things, was marked "J.R."; the prosecution said it had belonged to Julie Robert and that a seamstress had hemmed both the napkin at the scene and the one in his possession. Philippe said the napkins had come from his family. He claimed alibis for both nights of 1864: for April he said he had slept at the butcher's, and for November at the glass merchant's house at Levallois.
The prosecution also called a woman who described a remark Philippe had made in a bar while he was drunk, which the indictment treated as significant. She said she had taken it at first as a bad joke. Other women testified that he had threatened or attacked them in earlier years. A chemist gave evidence on items seized from Philippe's room.
The trial began before the Cour d'assises de la Seine on Monday, June 25, 1866, with M. Goujet presiding and avocat general Ducreux for the prosecution. Philippe was defended by Edouard Dupont. Because the hearing was expected to run three or four days, the prosecutor asked for a fourth judge and two alternate jurors, and the court agreed. The Gazette listed 61 prosecution witnesses and several for the defense.
On the first day a juror spoke out of turn. While the two napkins were being compared, the tenth juror remarked aloud that they seemed to be the same size, and he later said they were of the same cloth. Dupont had the remark placed on the record. The next day, June 26, he formally asked for the case to be sent to a later session, saying his client feared the jury had been swayed. The prosecution opposed the request. At about a quarter to one the court ruled that the juror had given an opinion on an essential point and could no longer sit, replaced him with the first alternate juror, who had heard all the evidence, and refused to adjourn. Dupont tried to file further objections to the new make-up of the jury; the court treated them as a protest against its ruling and set them aside. Philippe let it be known that he did not want to be tried by that jury. Dupont had said he could not in conscience stay on if the adjournment was refused, but he kept defending his client through the rest of the hearing.
The evidence on the 1864 cases took up much of the hearing. The glass merchant, called on the Levallois alibi for November 1864, said only that Philippe had been in Paris that evening and that he did not know whether he had gone out to Levallois. A woman who owned property at Levallois said he used to climb the garden wall to stay out at night. Philippe argued that the witness had heard about the tattoo before she identified him, and Dupont showed the jurors his client's hands, which were red, not white. An expert called to compare the napkins fainted on the stand and gave only limited explanations when she recovered; the defense disputed her findings.
On the January 1866 cases there was little contest. Asked about Marie-Victoire Bodeux, Philippe said only that he had killed her and did not know why. He said he had been drinking that day, and Dupont told the court he would not offer that as an excuse. Philippe denied that he had planned the killing or meant to rob her, and said the purse had been his for four years. On the January 11 attack he gave several versions and denied that he had meant to steal: "I am not a thief," he told the court. The police commissioner reported that Philippe, tired of being questioned after his arrest, had said they might as well sentence him to death at once.
On the third day, June 27, the court heard Dr. Ambroise Tardieu, professor at the Paris medical school, who had examined the victims of the April 1864 and January 1866 killings and the woman attacked on January 11. He told the court that the April 1864 and January 1866 killings matched each other and that the January 11 attack had been an attempt to kill. A cousin by marriage, who had served with Philippe in Africa, testified that he was a good fellow who drank heavily, and that his hands and lips trembled and his speech sometimes faltered. The cousin said he had never heard Philippe's honesty questioned. Philippe's sister also gave evidence, about a watch.
Ducreux's closing speech presented Philippe as a man who killed to steal. He rejected both 1864 alibis, leaned on the witness's identification and the napkin marked J.R., read the medical report on the November 1864 killings into the record, and argued that the drink defense did not fit the period of the crimes, since Philippe himself admitted to drinking only modest amounts. He reminded the jury of the earlier attacks and killings that the magistrates had dropped.
Dupont began by telling the jury that an advocate was not a machine for winning acquittals. He argued that the 1864 evidence was uncertain, and that heavy drinking had left Philippe with serious mental disturbance that, if it did not remove his responsibility for the January 1866 crimes, at least greatly reduced it. He read a letter from the priest of Philippe's home village, written on behalf of what the priest called his grieving family, urging him to repent and telling him that his family had chosen Dupont to defend him. Dupont told the jurors that Philippe did not want his life spared and had asked him not to plead for attenuating circumstances. He did not ask them to abolish the death penalty, he said, but ended with an appeal for pity for human life.
Before the jury retired, Philippe spoke for himself: "I swear before God that I am innocent of the murders of 1864, and that I never stole anything from anyone." The jury went out at a quarter to five and came back at five o'clock. It answered no on the killings of Julie Robert, of femme Mage and of her son, and on the theft from Julie Robert. It answered yes on every question concerning Marie-Victoire Bodeux and the attack of January 11, and said nothing on attenuating circumstances. Philippe heard the verdict without any sign of feeling and stayed impassive, the Gazette wrote, almost smiling, when the court sentenced him to death.
Philippe's appeal went to the criminal chamber of the Cour de cassation, which heard it on July 19, 1866, with M. Legagneur, the senior judge, presiding and M. Lascoux as reporting judge. His lawyer there, Albert Gigot, raised two grounds. The first was the juror's remark: a juror who announced his view in advance, Gigot argued, did more than breach the secrecy of the vote, and his words had tainted the whole jury, alternates included. The second concerned a witness who had taken the oath and testified without having been properly summoned; on June 27 the presiding judge had annulled her oath and had her heard only for information, which the defense said went beyond his powers. Avocat general Bedarrides asked the court to reject the appeal, and after deliberating it did so. The Gazette published the ruling on July 20.
The execution took place in Paris on Tuesday, July 24, 1866. A crowd gathered through the night before, and police arrested about ten people for singing and shouting. The Gazette des Tribunaux put the crowd at about thirty thousand people.
Early that morning the prison director, the chaplain and the head of the security police went into Philippe's cell. He was sleeping so deeply that he had to be woken. The director told him that his appeal had been rejected. He listened coldly, dressed without showing emotion and made his confession to the chaplain. The chaplain told him that his repentance in prison had been noted and that God would take account of his atonement, and Philippe answered that he placed all his hope in what lay above. He walked to his execution without help.
The killings of 1864. Philippe was tried for the deaths of Julie Robert, femme Mage and her son, and the jury's no answers are acquittals on those counts. The prosecution believed he was responsible and said so to the end; Philippe swore he was not.
The earlier cases. In his closing speech, avocat general Ducreux named four earlier cases in Paris that the magistrates had examined: an attempt on a woman named Marie Legris on October 30, 1861; the killing of a woman named Laville on September 3, 1862; the killing of Marie Lenoel on February 6, 1864; and the killing of a woman named Marie Elle on August 11, 1864. He told the jury that the gravest presumptions had arisen against Philippe in those cases but that the magistrates had dismissed them before trial. The presiding judge, questioning Philippe on the first day, spoke of six similar crimes between 1861 and 1864. None of these cases was put to a jury. They are attributed to him by the prosecution only.
The motive. The prosecution said he killed to rob; the defense said drink had damaged his mind. Philippe admitted the Bodeux killing but denied any plan or any intent to steal, and said he could not explain it. Neither the court nor the jury was asked to rule on his mental state as a separate question, and the jury's silence on attenuating circumstances left the death sentence as the only outcome.
1852: Enlists in the army; serves in the 38th Line Infantry Regiment, then from 1854 in the 2nd Battalion of Chasseurs a Pied.
About 1856: Convicted of theft by a council of war and sent to a penal unit in Africa.
March 1860: Released; returns to his family in the Haute-Saone.
March 1861: Arrives in Paris; works first as an assistant cook.
October 30, 1861: Attempt on Marie Legris in Paris (attributed by the prosecution; dismissed before trial).
September 3, 1862: Killing of a woman named Laville in Paris (attributed by the prosecution; dismissed before trial).
February 6, 1864: Killing of Marie Lenoel in Paris (attributed by the prosecution; dismissed before trial).
April 10, 1864: Dismissed by a coffee merchant; hired by a butcher three days later.
Night of April 13 to 14, 1864: Julie Robert, 36, killed in Paris (Philippe tried and not found guilty).
August 11, 1864: Killing of Marie Elle in Paris (attributed by the prosecution; dismissed before trial).
Night of November 5 to 6, 1864: Flore-Therese Vigreux, femme Mage, 32, and her son Henri, 2, killed in Paris (Philippe tried and not found guilty).
January 4, 1866: Dismissed by the picture framer.
January 8, 1866: Marie-Victoire Bodeux killed in Paris.
January 11, 1866: Attempt on the life of a woman in Paris; Philippe arrested.
January 12, 1866: Philippe admits killing Marie-Victoire Bodeux.
June 25, 1866: Trial opens before the Cour d'assises de la Seine.
June 26, 1866: A juror removed; request to adjourn refused.
June 27, 1866: Convicted of the Bodeux murder with theft and of the January 11 attempt; the jury answers no (acquittal) on the 1864 counts; sentenced to death.
July 19, 1866: Cour de cassation rejects his appeal.
July 24, 1866: Executed in Paris.