He appears in the Pantheon (unenviable) of most prolific French serial killers Of the history. Supplanting Landru (11 victims) or the Toulousain Patrice Alègre (5 victims). With its peroxidized hair, this cinema “face” that Melville or Marchal could have made turn, and this falsely angelic air, Thierry paulin remains an enigma in view of the devastation it has committed.

Old Ladies Assassin

Between 1984 and 1987, this mixed race native of the island of Martinique has, by his own admission, murdered 21 old ladies in Paris (justice only filed 18 murders, editor’s note), fueling a psychosis hard to imagine thirty-five years later.

Night Bird, high roller, retained by the glitter, Ieasy money and the mirror with the larks of the show biz, Paulin tracks the grannies as others go to the distributor. “I have to go to the bank”, he launches cynically, before stalking his prey in the middle of the day. Purely villainous, his crimes involve a time lover son, Jean-Thierry Mathurin.

Two victims on the same day

He spots his prey in the street, the costume to their building. Feline, he follows suit in the stairwell. And the worst begins. The coup d’etat, the torture to make them “spit out” the hiding place of their meager savings. Then their elimination. Cold. Methodical. Sometimes even killing two in the same day.

Relentless, Paulin was dubbed by the press “The Monster of Montmartre” u “The Old Ladies Killer”. Women whose youngest numbered seventy springs, beaten to death, suffocated with a plastic bag, for some, forced to swallow detergent.

AIDS mows him down in pre-trial detention

Those over forty remember it. Thierry Paulin did not escape the life imprisonment which was promised to him – perhaps even in real life, as the Ogre des Ardennes, Michel Fourniret, an absolute rarity – only thanks to his state of health.

Affected by AIDS, the epidemic that decimated the gay generation of the 80s, he succumbed to this 100% fatal disease, at the age of 23, after two years in pre-trial detention. But the echo of his murders still resonates in criminal retrospectives. To date, only the Doctor Petiot (27 victims) and Yvan Keller (23 victims), another killer of old ladies, beat him in this macabre count.

A robber is born in Toulouse

More secret, on the other hand, is the birth of the “monster”. Son emergence. How did the young man fall into horror? What was the trigger? Not many people know it, but this original quest goes through … Toulouse.

It is in fact in the Pink City that the adolescent falls into delinquency, the Sunday 14 November 1982. The young Martinican, just major, is then called up the contingent. He performs his military service in Paris, as barracks barber.

His father refuses to help him out

He takes advantage of a three-day leave to go down to Toulouse to see his father, who moved there after his remarriage. He finds some childhood friends of the City of Violets, at Mirail. But when it comes time to return to the barracks, we have to face the facts: the money has slipped through his fingers. As usual. Like always. And there is nothing to pay for the return train ticket for the capital.

His father refuses to help him out. Too used to the inconsistencies of this son with a badly accepted sexual orientation? Thierry Paulin cannot be dismantled. He absolutely must return to the City of Light. One idea is needed: to rob a business.

I retrained (sic) in the robbery, in my old neighborhood. I’ve had enough. I was on edge. Until then, I had more affection for my father than for my mother. But there he did not want [me donner d’argent]. I took a knife …

Saving reflex of the shopkeeper?

His target? An old lady. Daisy, 76 year old grocer of the Bourrassol district, must have experienced, with hindsight, a few retrospective cold sweats. Paulin enters for the first time. Chat, affable, quit the trade. Time to put on a stocking on her face, he comes back, knife in hand.

The shopkeeper takes refuge in the back room. Saving reflex? The robber plunges his hand into the cash drawer, extracts the equivalent of 300 euros and fled. Marguerite denounces him illico to the police. By what miracle would she not have recognized him?

“Idiot that I am, I go out, I go to the cafe 500 meters away to call a taxi … I saw the taxi arrive, plus the police van”,

Folder “not found”

Paulin fails in police custody for “Robbery with violence”. In Toulouse, his judicial file cannot be found Nowadays. No doubt he ended up in the dumpster for lack of space in the archives. “Once he died, the case was no longer of real interest to justice,” evades a source.Toulouse news.

For the first time in his life, Thierry Paulin finds himself at the bar of the criminal court. The Toulouse magistrates condemn the first-time offender to 2 years in prison, June 7, 1983.

16 months after Toulouse, he kills for the first time

Sixteen months later, the young man is expelled from Paradis Latin, famous music hall of the capital, where he played the servers. Become addicted to hard drugs, he kills for the first time in Paris (18^e). To pay a booty five times less to that of its Toulouse robbery. The mechanics of the crime were on …

_{Sources: The childhood of criminals, Agnès Grossmann (Hors-collection), Serial killers of France, Sylvain Larue (De Borée Editions)}

Articles of our series already published:

>> Thérèse Humbert case. Commentary the scam of the century was matured by a woman, near Toulouse <

>> Martin Guerre case. Incredible identity theft: the fake addresses the real one, near Toulouse <

To read on Saturday:

>> Rayssac affair. Toulouse: the blond angel of the canal exhales a scent of scandal <

Has this article been useful to you? Note that you can follow Actu Toulouse in the Mon Actu space. In one click, after registration, you will find all the news of your favorite cities and brands.