As always, let us begin with the legal system in France. Now this Crime Story takes place in 1933, so during the third French Republic. (France is currently in the fifth republic). The French Third Republic lasted from 1870 to 1940 when WWII broke out. French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of the Third Republic. The law of France is under the civil law system with the two main categories of law being Public and Private law which differs from the common law system which is Civil and Criminal law. 1933 in France was not a bad time, France was insulated during the great depression due to the fact their economy focused on agriculture. France. France’s social, political, and economic year was far superior to the rest of Europe during this time. The only real difference of France’s legal system in the third republic in contrast to today is that the courts were independent therefore the government has no say how a judge decided a case or what happened after. Without further ado, let us jump into the Crime Story.
I first heard about this case watching one of my favorite shows Deadly Women on the episode Double Trouble (so dramatic) and it never left my mind because it is that nuts. This case takes place in Le Mans, France in February 1933. Le Mans is southwest of Paris and is located in the Pays de la Loire region of France, today the city inhabits just under 150,000 people is known for 24 Hours of Le Mans, which is a car race. It was considered to be a small town in the 1930s.
Christine and Léa Papin were sisters, Christine was born in 1905 and Léa was born in 1911. They did not have the best childhood. Their father was an abusive alcoholic who had actually raped their older sister Emilia and their mother, Clemence was what I can best describe was a narcissist. Clemence sent Emilia and Christine off to go live in a convent that was known for its harsh discipline and Léa was sent to live with an extended family giving the mother Clemence duty-free of motherhood. Emilia and Christine flourished in the structured environment on the convent and Emilia decided to take vows to become a nun. This angered Clemence because she wanted to send her daughters to work in order to make money for her. Therefore, Clemence removed Christine from the home and Christine started to work as a maid. She had learned maid skills at the convent and was known to be exceptionally good at her job. But her mother was not liking the wages that Christine gave her and forced her to resign from some positions for better-paying ones. During this time Léa was also pushed by her mother to become a maid. Though Léa and Christine were not living together they became awfully close and hung out with each other during their free time.
In 1926, Christine was offered a new position for a retired lawyer Monsieur Lancelin and his wife Leonie and their daughter who still lived at home Genevieve. After a few months of this position, Christine convinced the family to also employ Léa. Finally, the two sisters were living together and their bond becomes closer than ever. The two sisters hardly left their home, not to go dancing or seek gentleman callers. They only left home to attend church and to visit a fortune teller. Apparently, this fortune tells told them that they were man and wife in a previous life. (Creepy…) The sisters shared a room in the attic that had a balcony and worked extremely hard, making their employer incredibly pleased. But, people in town noticed the girls to be a bit odd, they were cold and distant and a previous employer of Christine fired her only after 15 days because she was mad to do duties that she deemed were beneath her. The Lancelin family had no such problems with them. Christine and Léa considered Madame Lancelin to be a mother figure to them. When Madame Lancelin discovered the girls were sending all their earning to their mother she was pissed and demanded that they stop. She looked after the girls.
But after a few years, there was a shift. Madame Lancelin became overly critical of Christine and Léa’s work she would pinch Léa hard and forced her to kneel on the floor until every crumb was up off of it and checking the dusting with white gloves. Christine was reported to be fiercely jealous of Genevieve, who on occasion, would attempt conversation with Léa. Léa confided to Christine and they become closer and closer, almost to close. Christine was definitely the more dominant of the two. It is said that Léa could hardly think for herself. The two sisters were very much alike, they looked alike, had the same hairstyle, body type and were seen as one. Christine considered Léa to be her one and only confidant, her beloved soul mate, and most of all, her property. Sexual relations between Christine and Léa were suspected by the Lancelin family because they were soo close, spent a crazy amount of time together in the attic.
On February 2nd, 1933 Madame Lancelin and her daughter returned home to a darkened home. The sister claimed it was because she had shorted the power with an iron. According to Christine, Madame Lancelin was mad when she heard this and went into a rage. It is speculated that she mentioned their incestuous ways. Christine then picked up a jug a smashed Madame Lancelin’s head on it. As the daughter Genevieve check on her mother, Léa joined in on the abuse. Christine shouted that she was going to massacre them and told Léa to smash their heads into the ground. Léa and Christine then proceeded to take the eyes out of the Lancelin women and finished the job. They beat the women with knives and hammers while the Lancelin ladies were still alive and presumably begging for their lives. After they killed them, they prepared their bodies to cook following a rabbit stew recipe. They then lifted the skirts of the women and mutilated their genitals and thighs. In a nasty detail, Christine and Léa used the menstruation blood of Genevieve and smeared it over the two women. They the women got ready for bed as if nothing happened. I do not know about you but this sounds like an awful awful way to die and a very brutal crime scene.
When the father returned home, he found his entire house locked, he tried to get in through windows and other doors but when nothing worked, he alerted the police. The police and Monsieur Lancelin noticed the only light on in the house was coming from the maid quarters. When the police and Monsieur Lancelin walked around the house nothing seemed to be amiss, then they saw the awful crime scene. Can you imagine? One of the policemen preceded to go up to the maid quarters presuming to find the maids in an equally awful state. But he heard voices from the hallway and where he entered the room, Léa and Christine were on the same bed, nude, hugging each other. On the nightstand was the hammer that had blood and brain matter on it. The sisters did not even attempt to cover up the horrendous crime.
The sisters confessed to the murder (how could they not) and were arrested. In a crazy turn of events, there was a lot of sympathy for the sisters from the public who believed the crime was a sign of class struggle. Their lawyer pleaded insanity (the only defense they had in my opinion) and the sister played the part making no eye contact with anyone in the courtroom and seeming to be in a daze. The sisters never turned on each other and both confessed to sole responsibility for the crime. The lawyer stated they had an awful childhood, history in the family of mental illness, and their mother was partly to blame. However, when doctors and psychologists examined the sisters, they determined them to be sane. The police investigators worked tirelessly to find a purpose for the sadistic killings but could find no evidence that the crime had been premeditated. It was as if both sisters had simply murdered their employers without incident.
In just 40 minutes the jury handed down the verdict. Guilty but there was some leniency for Léa who was given 10 years of hard labor while Christine believed to have been the mastermind was sentenced to death by guillotine (the French love their guillotine’s right?). During the sister’s time in prison, they were separated and Christine was on the decline. She begged to see Léa, had violent fits and attempted to tear her eyeballs out (she really loved to do that, eh?). Finally, the judge allowed them to see each other and Christine made sexual advances to her sister. On January 22, 1934, the French President at the time Albert Lebrun issued a stay of execution for Christine and was sentenced to a life of hard labor. She begged the President to be housed with Léa which was denied. Christine’s health declined as she refused to eat and died at the age of 32 on May 18th, 1937. Léa was released 8 years after the trail on good behavior after she moved to Nantes with her mother and worked as a hotel maid.
In 1966, Léa was interviewed by a French journalist. She was described as a “ghost of the past that has burnt her until she is the color of ash. Léa admitted that she saw vivid apparitions of Christine visiting her in her room. Léa was convinced that the spirit of Christine was living in paradise. She also kept a number of photos of Christine and a trunk containing all the dresses and memorabilia Christine and she had collected over the years they spent together in the Lancelin home.” In a documentary made in 2000 called in Search of the Papin Sister, the filmmaker believed to have found Léa living in a hospice center in France, the women had a stroke which left her paralyzed and unable to speak. She died in 2001, while other reports claimed Léa died in 1982.
That completes the 10th episode of A Crime Story Podcast! I would love to hear your thoughts on this case, do you think the murder was premeditated? Do you think Lea and Christine committed incest? And what was Christine’s obsession with gauging eyeballs?
Sources: Deadly Women-Double Trouble, Serial Killer Central, Film Daily, Obsolete Oddity, Crimes of Horror
コメント