A Mysterious Murderer Stalks the Old Women of Paris

Crouched over a wooden walking stick, shuffling along the Avenue de L’Opera at a snail’s pace, Madame Marguerite Page is so frail that almost every good gust threatens to topple her.

Page, 86, fears for her life these long summer days. She can fight the stiff breeze by clutching to iron railings, but she knows she will not stand a chance against whoever is murdering the old ladies of Paris.

“I can’t even hit them with the stick or I fall down,” she said. “I am most frightened.”

Mostly working alone, assailants are catching elderly women at home, torturing and beating them before killing them. There are few solid clues. There are 70,000 women in Paris ages 70 and above.

Death Toll Is 32

The toll stands at 32 elderly women killed at home in Paris since Oct. 4, 1984, and the list is growing. So far this year, killers have murdered 14 old ladies.

An American woman, Ludmilla Lamon, 85, was strangled June 14.

Investigators think a single person is responsible for perhaps a dozen of the deaths. Other killers may have been spurred into gruesome action as they realized what easy targets elderly women have become.

Five suspected killers have been arrested since March but the mass murderer has not been caught. Police say they believe he or she is a drug addict killing for money to buy a next dose rather than someone mentally deranged.

Violence Called Extreme

But Georges Moreas, former head of the central office for the repression of banditry, points out that the extreme violence used against all the women indicates that the attacker enjoys causing extreme suffering.

Police are at a loss at what more to do.

“A few murders apparently by one person in 1984 started it off,” said an official at the Interior Ministry. “We really hope it will soon burn itself out.”

Germaine Cohen-Tanouji, 72, was the first. A neighbor, surprised to see her front door open, found her lying on her bed, strangled with a leather noose. A pillow was used to smother her cries of pain.

Beaten and Tortured

The women, some still in their coats, were bound and gagged.

Usually the attacker takes the few hundred francs from their purses and ransacks the apartment in a search for more. Jewelry and trinkets are left untouched, apparently because they can easily be traced.

Caustic soda was forced into the mouths of several victims in what police believe was an attempt to get the women to reveal the hiding place of more cash. Some were brutally beaten or tortured with scissors.

Police stepped up patrols, offered advice on better security and are on hand to escort the elderly when they go to collect large amounts of money. But there remain two main Parisian routes to death.

‘Market Murderer’

In one, the killer usually spots victims at the outdoor markets or in the shops in three main neighborhoods. The victims are then followed home and pushed inside as they unlock the door.

The “market murderer” last struck June 22, strangling 79-year-old Marthe Herve on a chair in her apartment. A few items of shopping were found scattered around the body.

In the second case, the killer is already known and trusted so the old women innocently open their locked doors when he knocks or calls.