IDENTIFICATION AND MAJOR CRIMINAL CASES OF THE 20th CENTURY: LANDRU, PETIOT
Keywords:
Post-mortem identification, criminal affair, serial killers, Landru, Petiot, 20th century, doctor Charles Paul.Abstract
The field of post-mortem forensic identification of human remains was completely revolutionized in the latter part of the 20th century by techniques such as genetic identification and post-mortem imaging and 3D facial reconstruction that it allows. What appears to us as indispensable techniques today, however, does not date back to the possibility of identifying the skeletal
human remains of the discovery of DNA by Alec J. Jeffreys and his team in the mid-1980s. In the archives of a very famous Parisian medical examiner from 1910 to 1960, Doctor Charles Paul, two very famous criminal cases illustrate the techniques and means used at the end of the two successive world wars: the Henri-Désiré Landru case in 1919 and the doctor Marcel Petiot case in 1944. One can judge the progress made in forensic identification between these famous cases and the cases currently encountered in forensic practice.
