User:Paris1127/Marcel Barbeault

Marcel Barbeault was a French serial killer active in the area near Nogent-sur-Oise, north of Paris, from 1969 to 1976. He is suspected of the murders of eight women and one man. As his crimes took place in the evening or early morning, and he was suspected of hiding in the shadows of trees, he was nicknamed the "Shadow Killer" (le tueur de l'ombre).

Early life
Marcel Henri Barbeault was born on 10 August 1941, in Liancourt, Oise, the eldest son of a steam locomotive driver father and textile-worker mother. He left school after failing to gain a primary school certificate, and in 1957 took up work as a riveter in Creil. He enlisted in the army on 13 December 1960 and was mobilised to fight in the Algerian War, where he worked as a stretcher bearer. On his return to France, Barbeault returned to the factory and later became a specialised worker at a Saint-Gobain factory. In 1968, his mother, Micheline, died of cancer; his two brothers died afterwards.

Killings
The first attack occurred on 10 January 1969. The victim, Françoise Lecron, was the wife of an engineer at Saint-Gobain. While cooking in her home in Nogent-sur-Oise, she was shot in the shoulder. Four days later, 17-year-old Michèle Louvet was shot in the stomach; she too survived her injuries. Thérèse Adam, a 49-year-old cosmetics saleswoman, was the first death attributed to the Shadow Killer. On 23 January, she was walking to her home when she was knocked down; her attacker then shot her in the neck, killing her. The killer hid her body in a thicket next to the railroad, where it was discovered the next day.

The killer next struck on 16 November. Suzanne Mérienne, 44, and daughter Micheline, 19, were at home on a rainy day. The killer broke in and threatened both women with a rifle. He dragged mother and daughter to a muddy field along the railroad tracks and separated them. After tying up Suzanne, he shot her in the head, killing her. Micheline managed to escape, and was able to provide police with a description: her mother's killer was a tall, well-built man with "cat eyes". The police linked all four attacks, noting that all the victims were attacked in early morning or evening and that all the victims had brown hair. The national press descended on Nogent-sur-Oise to cover the story. The killer went on hiatus.

On 6 February 1973, the Shadow Killer killed a 29-year-old cinema worker named Annick Delisle, bludgeoning her from behind with a truncheon and then shooting her in the neck with a long rifle. At the end of May, he attacked 25-year-old Eugène Stephan and 23-year-old Mauricette Van Hyfte. The couple were sitting in Stephan's car near a cemetery in Laigneville when attacked. The workers who discovered the scene found Stephan lying in a pool of blood in the car and Van Hyfte a short distance away; both had been beaten from behind and shot with a rifle. Although the Shadow Killer had not previously attacked a couple, the police were certain he was responsible.

The next winter, on 8 January 1974, brunette bank worker Josette Routier was murdered in her home. The killer climbed up to the balcony, broke in, and hid in the curtains. When she arrived, he hit her from behind with a truncheon, shot her twice in the head, and ripped off her underwear. Investigators would later note that this was the first instance of the killer showing sexual interest. Routier's body was not found for three days, when concerned neighbors checked on her.

At this point in the investigation, 250 gendarmes and 50 inspectors were permanently mobilised in Nogent-sur-Oise. Evidence consisting of a brown hair which may or may not belong to the killer, size 42 bootprints, a few bullet casings, a cord, and the testimony of survivor Micheline Mérienne, was considered very weak. Profilers suspected the killer was solitary and was incapable of having a normal sex life.

On 26 November 1975, a Portuguese resident of Nogent-sur-Oise reported the disappearance of his niece, Julia Gonçalves, 29, who lived with him. Every day, the laundry worker would walk through a public garden to the train station where she would catch the 6:09 AM train. On 27 November, a municipal worker cleaning the banks of a stream discovered her body. She was naked from the knees up; the forensic pathologist estimated she had been dead for two days. The police theorised that the killer had hidden in the shadows, hit her from behind and then shot her in the neck. The investigation turned up her bag and skirt the next day, under a pile of leaves, and a witness. The witness had seen in his headlights, around 5:45 AM on the day of the murder, a handsome man in black. What really stuck out to the witness was the man's eyes.