Eugen Weidmann and the Last Public Execution in France

Eugen Weidmann was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on 5 February 1908. His father, Fritz Weidmann, was a businessman, but little else is known about his early childhood. By his teenage years, Eugen had already served time in a juvenile detention facility for theft.

In 1927, at the age of 19, Eugen left Germany and sailed to Canada. The ship’s manifest lists his destination as Winnipeg and his occupation as ‘farmer.’ His contact in Canada was recorded as VDCK, a German community association likely intended to help him settle and find work in his new country. It may have been meant as a fresh start and a clean slate, but it didn’t last. Rather than pursuing the rigours of farming, Weidmann quickly returned to crime, was jailed for theft and burglary, and deported back to Germany in 1930.

Slim and dark-haired, Weidmann spoke fluent English, French, German, and Portuguese. Described as composed and polite, he was capable of projecting the image of a respectable man; a skill he would later exploit to gain the trust of his victims. In March 1937, at the age of 29, he left Germany to avoid conscription, which had been introduced after Hitler came to power. He tried his luck in France working as an interpreter but failed. He considered making his fortune through counterfeiting but soon formed a partnership with a man named Roger Million, who proposed  a far more  sinister scheme. Together, they rented a villa in Saint-Cloud, a quiet suburb to the west of Paris, and embarked on a career of kidnapping and murder.

Eugen Weidmann’s Descent into Criminality

Their first known attempt occurred on 14 July 1937, when they lured a wealthy American named Stein into their car. As they drove towards Saint-Cloud, Stein grew uneasy and demanded to be let out. Unprepared for this, Weidmann and Million stopped and released him, letting the opportunity slip away.

Murder of Jean de Koven

Eight days later, on 22 July, Weidmann approached 24-year-old Jean de Koven, a ballet dancer from New York who was visiting Paris with her aunt, Ida Sackheim. While exploring the city’s sights, including the Eiffel Tower, which was marking its 50^th anniversary since the start of its construction, Jean encountered Eugen Weidmann in a café on the Champs-Élysées. Weidmann, who appeared charming and sociable, claimed to be a representative of a chemical company and invited Jean to visit him at his Saint-Cloud villa. Unknown to her aunt, Jean agreed to meet him the next day. Before the visit, she wrote to a friend with hopeful excitement, suggesting that she might secure a dancing role through Weidmann’s connections:

‘I have just met a charming German of keen intelligence who calls himself Siegfried. Perhaps I am going to another Wagnerian role – who knows? I am going to visit him tomorrow at his villa in a beautiful place near a famous mansion that Napoleon gave Josephine.’

When Jean first arrived at the villa, Weidmann maintained his charming façade, even allowing her to take photographs of him with her camera, posing casually in the garden. Later, he invited her to rest inside the house. While she was lying down, Weidmann suddenly lunged, forced a cloth into her mouth, and strangled her. When she lay motionless, he rifled through her belongings, taking 300 francs, worth about £2, and $430 in American travellers’ cheques – worth roughly £85 at the time, or about £5,000 today. He handed the cheques to Roger Million, who passed them to his girlfriend, Colette Tricot, asking her to cash them so they could split the proceeds. Weidmann then buried Jean beneath the front steps of the villa, under two feet of clay soil.

The following evening, when Jean failed to return to her hotel, her aunt Ida Sackheim contacted the police and the American Embassy. Initially, they showed little concern, assuring her that young women in Paris were often caught up in whirlwind romances. But before long, a letter arrived at the hotel containing a ransom demand for $500 and instructions for a meeting. Detectives accompanied Ida to the designated spot with a dummy cash envelope, but the kidnapper never appeared. Ida was left with no answers, unaware that her niece was already dead.

Murder of Jean Couffy

Less than two months later, Eugen Weidmann struck again, this time with a different method. On 6 September, he flagged down a taxi near the Paris Opera and asked the driver, Jean Couffy, to take him south towards Tours, in the Centre-Val de Loire region. As they entered a lonely stretch of road, Weidmann instructed Couffy to slow down. Seated in the back, he pulled out a revolver and fired a shot into the nape of the driver’s neck. He stole 2,500 francs from Couffy’s body, worth roughly £15 at that time, or £900 today, then fled.

Murder of Janine Keller

Later that month, Weidmann spotted a notice in the paper posted by a governess looking for work. 36-year-old Janine Keller was a divorced mother-of-two from Strasbourg, who spoke both French and German. Weidmann arranged to meet her on 4 October under the pretence of offering her a job. The day before her arrival, Weidmann enlisted Roger Million’s help, and together they scouted Fontainebleau Forest for a suitable location to murder her and conceal her body. They settled on a manmade sandstone hollow known as Brigands’ Cave. The next day, Janine Keller arrived in Paris and was met at the station by Weidmann and Million. During the drive to the forest, Weidmann persuaded Janine to take a walk with them, promising that the cave contained interesting inscriptions. As they approached the cave, Weidmann shot her in the nape of the neck. Million returned to the car for a shovel, and the two men buried her in a hole inside the cave, after taking 100 francs from her handbag, her diamond ring, and a postal order for 1,300 francs – worth about £500 today. The following day, Million’s girlfriend, Colette Tricot cashed the postal order by forging the dead woman’s signature, and Million handed her Keller’s suitcase filled with clothes.

Weidmann’s Continuing Murder Spree

On 16 October 1937, a Parisian theatrical producer named Roger Le Blond was invited to the Saint-Cloud villa. The details of who fired the fatal shot would later be disputed, but at some point during the day, Le Blond was murdered, robbed, and his body placed in his own car, which was then driven away. The perpetrators took 1,000 francs before abandoning both the body and the car in the Paris suburb of Neuilly.

The next murder would be the least lucrative but was committed to silence a potential threat. Around this time, Weidmann had bumped into Fritz Frommer, a German exile who had once been his cellmate. Frommer was not a criminal but a political prisoner who had been jailed for his anti-Nazi views. Now living in France, he began asking Weidmann pointed questions about his activities and seemed to be getting suspicious. To prevent discovery, Weidmann shot Frommer and buried him beneath the floor of his villa, pocketing just 200 francs from his victim.

On 30 November, Eugen Weidmann dressed smartly and approached estate agent Raymond Lesobre, claiming he was looking for a property and had plenty of money to spend. Lesobre showed him around an empty villa at Montplaisir. Once inside, Weidmann struck him with a hammer and then shot him in the nape of the neck, just as he had with Couffy and Frommer. This time, he took 1,500 francs from his victim, worth £10 at the time, or £600 today, then buried the body in the cellar of the vacant house.

Arrest of Weidmann and His Associates

The police investigation was slow, but by December 1938, enquiries repeatedly pointed towards the Saint-Cloud  villa. Inspectors Primborgne  and Bourquin visited the house, posing as income tax officials to avoid rousing suspicion. Once inside, Weidmann must have sensed his time was up, as he drew a pistol and opened fire, wounding both men. Despite their injuries, the inspectors grappled with him, and one managed to seize a nearby hammer and hit Weidmann over the head with it. He was arrested and received medical attention. The house and garden were searched, revealing the bodies and other evidence, including Jean de Koven’s camera, with photographs of Weidmann on the film. Roger Million was also arrested, along with an associate named Jean Blanc. Colette Tricot was taken into custody on suspicion of receiving stolen goods, though she claimed she had been coerced into involvement by threats to the life of her young son.

The Trial

The trial opened at the Versailles Assize Court for the murders of Jean de Koven, John Couffy, Janine Keller, Roger Le Blond, Fritz Frommer and Raymond Lesobre, attracting attention both in France and abroad. Members of the British press travelled to Paris to cover the proceedings, and the case, particularly the murder of New York dancer Jean de Koven, was reported extensively in the American papers. The defence team consisted of four barristers, including the distinguished Vincent de Moro-Giafferri, the youngest person ever appointed to the Paris bar, and Renée Jardin, one of the very few women practising law in France at that time. Under French criminal procedure, there was no presumption of innocence, so the burden lay on the defendant to prove why a guilty verdict should not be delivered. Weidmann pleaded insanity, but his methodical modus operandi was difficult to ignore. There was a clear pattern where he would meet or lure a victim, take them somewhere – often his own Saint-Cloud villa – and, with the exception of Jean de Koven, who was strangled, shoot them in the nape of the neck, a technique inspired by the SS and Gestapo. Bullets recovered from the bodies matched those found in Weidmann’s possession when his home was searched.

On the third day of the trial, when Jean de Koven’s case was discussed, Weidmann lost his composure, burying his face in his hands and appearing visibly shaken. When the judge asked why he had lured the young American woman to his villa, he replied quietly, ‘I am not morally in a position to explain.’

The question of responsibility for Roger Le Blond’s death sparked a heated exchange in court between Weidmann and his co-accused, Roger Million. Million insisted he had not fired the fatal shot, to which Weidmann replied, ‘Come on, face the facts. I have admitted to four murders. You were to blame for the other two.’ Million shouted back, ‘You killed him, I did not.’

The argument only served to highlight that both men had acted together, leaving little doubt of their guilt, even if it remained unclear who had killed which victim. Vincent de Moro-Giafferri tried to persuade the jury that Weidmann’s criminal behaviour had deep psychological roots and reflected a struggle with uncontrollable impulses. The prosecution, however, argued that the killings were deliberate, calculated, and driven by monetary gain.

Verdict and Appeals

After almost six hours of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict on 31 March 1939. Eugen Weidmann was convicted on all six counts, while Roger Million was found guilty as an active participant in two of the murders. Both were sentenced to death and held at Saint-Pierre Prison. Associate Jean Blanc, who had played a minor role, received a 20-month prison sentence, while Colette Tricot was acquitted of any wrongdoing.

Roger Million chose not to appeal, believing that death would be preferable to life in a penal colony. However, President Albert Lebrun issued a reprieve, reportedly influenced by a letter from Weidmann pleading for mercy on behalf of his accomplice. Million’s sentence was commuted and later reduced, and he was released by the 1960s, after which he faded from public record.

Weidmann’s own appeal was unsuccessful. While awaiting his execution, he wrote eight letters which he asked his lawyer to deliver. One was addressed to his mother, and another to Ida Sackheim, the aunt of victim Jean de Koven. The contents are unknown, but on the day of his death, he reportedly told his lawyer, ‘I have been waiting for this day to pay my debt.’

Execution by Guillotine

On the night of Friday 16 June 1939, crowds began to gather in Rue Georges Clemenceau outside Saint-Pierre Prison in Versailles. Overnight, thousands assembled in the square and surrounding streets, held in check by a heavy police presence. At that time, executions in France were still public and promised a spectacle that many were eager to witness. Among the onlookers, according to his own later account, was a 17-year-old British student named Christopher Lee, who would later become one of Britain’s most recognisable film actors.

At 2:00 a.m. on Saturday, less than three months before the outbreak of the Second World War, France’s chief executioner, Jules-Henri Desfourneaux, began assembling the guillotine outside the prison gates. It was customary to hold executions before dawn to limit public disruption. The machine arrived in sections and had to be constructed beneath the flickering lantern light, while the crowd waited in the darkness. Two vertical wooden beams were fixed into place, forming the frame down which the heavy angled blade would descend along its metal runners. At the base lay a hinged plank, known as the bascule, and the wooden lunette, designed to hold the condemned man’s neck in place. Nearby, two wicker baskets were ready to receive the body and its severed head. The preparations took around two and a half hours, with the restless crowd jeering and whistling throughout.

In the hours before dawn, Eugen Weidmann was roused from his cell. In the presence of officials and a priest, the executioner’s assistants prepared him for the guillotine by cutting the hair from the back of his head, opening his shirt collar, and binding his hands behind his back. Shortly after 4:30 a.m., as the first rays of sun crept over Versailles, 31-year-old Weidmann was led along the few steps from his cell to the scaffold. Though thousands had gathered in the surrounding area, only around one hundred were allowed closer access, including relatives of one of the victims and several journalists. Despite official attempts to prevent photography, an image was captured that remains one of the most widely circulated photographs of a public execution by guillotine.

The guillotine, used in France since the late 1700s for its efficiency at beheading, did not function entirely smoothly that morning. The hinged plank, or bascule, failed to pivot as intended, and the executioner’s assistant had to push Weidmann forward to position his neck correctly. The decapitation itself was instantaneous, and as his head fell into the waiting basket, the crowd erupted with shouts and jeers, with some even dipping their handkerchiefs into the blood as a grisly souvenir. Weidmann’s body was then removed in a wicker basket and later interred at Les Gonards Cemetery.

Rather than serving as a deterrent, the spectacle seemed only to fuel morbid curiosity and disorder, prompting President Lebrun to decree that all future executions would be conducted in private.

End of Public Executions in France

With Weidmann’s death, the era of French public executions came to an end, though the guillotine would remain in use behind prison walls for several more decades. The last man to be executed by guillotine in France was Hamida Djandoubi, a Tunisian murderer, who was beheaded on 10 September 1977 at Baumettes Prison in Marseille. The death penalty in France was finally abolished in 1981.

Eugen Weidmann was a serial killer motivated by greed rather than by pleasure in the act of killing itself. Even so, he showed little remorse for his victims apart from a sudden display of emotion in the courtroom when Jean de Koven’s death was discussed. The police suspected he may have been involved in other crimes of theft and murder besides the four men and two women whose deaths he was convicted of in 1939. However, no further evidence was ever uncovered, and Weidmann took his secrets with him to the grave.

Researched and written by Prash Ganendran. Published 6 March 2026
© 2026 Prash Ganendran. All Rights Reserved.

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Sources

Ancestry.co.uk
Daily Herald – Thursday 30 December 1937
La Tribune – Tuesday 9 December 1937
The Windsor Star – Monday 13 December 1937
La Crosse Tribune – Monday 13 December 1937
The Philadelphia Inquirer – Sunday 23 January 1938
Oakland Tribune – Sunday 6 February 1938
San Francisco Chronicle – Sunday 25 December 1938
Bradford Observer – Tuesday 14 March 1939
Bradford Observer – Wednesday 15 March 1939
Daily News (London) – Thursday 16 March 1939
Daily Express – Friday 17 March 1939
Daily News New York – Friday 17 March 1939
Daily Express – Thursday 30 March 1939
Birmingham Mail – Saturday 01 April 1939
Leicester Evening Mail – Tuesday 16 May 1939
Hull Daily Mail – Saturday 17 June 1939
Halifax Evening Courier – Saturday 17 June 1939
Sunday Post – Sunday 18 June 1939
https://www.guillotine.dk/pages/history.html