Editing Henri Désiré Landru (section)

== The Murders ==
Landru began to put advertisements in the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_advertisement lonely hearts] sections in Paris newspapers, usually along the lines of ''"Widower with two children, aged 43, with comfortable income, serious and moving in good society, desires to meet widow with a view to matrimony."'' With [[World War I]] under way, many men were being killed in the trenches, leaving plenty of widows upon whom Landru could prey.

Landru would seduce the women who came to his Parisian villa and, after he was given access to their assets, he would kill them and burn their dismembered bodies in his oven. Between 1914 and 1918, Landru claimed 11 victims: 10 women plus the teenaged son of one of his victims. With no bodies, the victims were simply listed as missing, and it was virtually impossible for the police to know what had happened to them, as Landru used a wide variety of aliases in his schemes. His aliases were so numerous that he had to keep a ledger listing all the women with whom he corresponded and which particular identity he used for each woman.

In 1919, the sister of one of Landru's victims, Madame Buisson, attempted to track down her missing sibling. She did not know Landru's real name but she knew his appearance and where he lived, and she eventually persuaded the police to arrest him. Initially, Landru was charged only with [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embezzlement embezzlement]. He refused to talk to police, and with no bodies (police dug up his garden, but with no results), there was seemingly not enough evidence to charge him with murder. However, policemen did eventually find various bits of paperwork that listed the missing women, including Madame Buisson, and combining those with other documents, they finally built up enough evidence to charge him with murder.