The Chilling Case of Henri Landru Who Burned 11 Women in His Fireplace 1922

Paris, 1869 — Henri Désiré Landru was born into a respectable working-class family, served as an altar boy, completed military service with an impeccable record, and married his cousin. Nothing in his early life predicted what he would become. But when the First World War sent hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen to their deaths in the trenches, Landru — already a convicted fraudster and fugitive — saw a hunting ground. He placed lonely hearts advertisements in Parisian newspapers, courted the war widows who replied, lured them to his rented villas at Vernouillet and Gambais, murdered them, and burned their bodies in a cast-iron kitchen stove. He corresponded with at least 283 women during the war years; seventy-two of them were never traced. He was convicted of eleven murders — including a teenage boy — but the true number of his victims may never be known. He was brought to justice not by the police, who were indifferent, nor by the press, who mocked the women who testified, but by the sisters, nieces, and friends of his victims — women like Marie Lacoste, who walked the streets of Paris for months until she spotted her sister's killer outside a porcelain shop on the Rue de Rivoli. On the 25th of February, 1922, Henri Landru was guillotined at the Prison Saint-Pierre in Versailles, maintaining his innocence to the last. His severed head remains on display at the Museum of Death in Hollywood, California. His secrets died with him. The women he destroyed deserve to be remembered. ABOUT: 🩸 THE CRIMSON FILES 🩸 Welcome to The Crimson Files—where we unseal history's most blood-stained archives and bring forgotten crimes back into the light. Specializing in Victorian and Edwardian true crime, we investigate the murders, mysteries, and scandals that shocked society over a century ago. From female poisoners who evaded detection for decades to tragic victims whose stories were buried by time, each video opens a crimson-stamped file that hasn't seen daylight in generations. Our focus: Historical murder cases (1800–1920), with particular attention to female perpetrators and victims whose voices were silenced by history. Every case is researched with historical rigor and told through atmospheric, documentary-style storytelling. This is not sensationalism. This is memorial. This is justice for the forgotten. 📜 New episodes weekly 🩸 Subscribe to ensure no victim is forgotten The files are sealed. Until now.