Laetitia Toureaux: Murder on the Metro | #428

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I'm Saruti. I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. On a drizzly evening in spring 1937, a glamorous woman in a chic green suit. boarded a totally empty Paris metro carriage. Just 45 seconds later, the train pulled into the next station, and our heroine was found bleeding to death in her seat. with a nine-inch dagger sticking out of her neck. Her assassin was nowhere to be seen. It was as if a ghost had struck in the dark tunnels beneath the City of Light. So how and why...

had Leticia Thoreau met her grisly end. The deeper the investigators dug, the more layers of intrigue they would uncover. Beneath the surface of this well-liked, respectable young widow lay a woman with many faces. Factory Worker, Paramore, and Secret Agent. Yeah. How many legs does she have? As far as I know, two. Okay, well then, she's not as good.

But she did have an adventurous life that took her into the tangled web of espionage, extreme political movements and far-right terrorism that was brewing at the heart of interwar France. And it turned out that Leticia had been juggling... Many a knife before her death. But which one ended up killing her? It was a lockdown mystery that utterly bamboozled the Parisian police.

whipping the reading public into a frenzy with lurid headlines of sexual rumps and backstabbing galore splashed all over the news. And nearly a century later, the infamous murder on the Metro case... still remains officially unsolved. Perhaps because France's elite want it kept that way. Before her untimely demise... Leticia Thurome seemed to be living La Bellevue in Paris. She was a 29-year-old Italian immigrant known for her radiant smile, warm personality and enterprising nature.

determined to rise from her humble origins and make something of herself through hard work and play. Working in a glue factory by day, Leticia moonlighted after dark at Paris' vibrant dance halls, known as Balmuzette. there she checked coats flirted with patrons and danced cheek to cheek to the sound of wheezing accordions and clinking glasses she was known by friends and acquaintances on the nightlife scene as yolanda

Whether that was just a friendly nickname or a more calculated alias, we don't really know. But slow down. Don't get ahead of yourself.

on the surface leticia's final day on earth was fairly unremarkable sunday the sixteenth of may nineteen thirty seven was pentecost sunday which meant no work on monday for leticia and her fellow working-class Parisians. True to her busy bee nature, Leticia had filled the day with plenty of activities. That morning, her younger brother, Riton,

popped round to her modest apartment in Paris' 20th arrondissement. He didn't come empty-handed, bringing a stylish green skirt and jacket that their mum, a talented seamstress, had made especially for Letizia. Since her husband died two years before, Leticia had mainly worn widows black, but curiously, not today. She stepped out onto the Rupier Bailey an hour or so later in her chic new outfit.

accessorizing her striking green suit with a white hat, handbag and gloves, as well as high heels, a fur stole and a pretty parasol. She wore her old engagement ring, as always, engraved with her and her late husband's initials and their wedding date. Letitia chose to top off the look with a distinctive red and black lapel pin. It indicated her membership of a prestigious left-wing public service organisation called Ligue Republica de Bien Public.

Which means I hate France. Never, ever make me go there ever again or talk about it. But also probably means Republican League for the public good. And we will come back to it. So that day, the siblings went for a cheeky little aperitif. at a local bistro before nipping into leticia's hairdresser where she did the second thing that was slightly out of the ordinary that day she had her dark brown hair lightened to blonde

Which is a bold move. It's a big move. Hey, man. The older you get, the younger you look, the lighter your hair, as I'm learning. Okay. Because I'm haggard. That's not true. I have heard that the shorter you cut your hair. The older you look. Oh, I heard the younger you look. My hair's just totally fucking out of control. I just look at it and I'm like, what are we doing today? I feel like... What mental thing are we doing today, hair? Oh, it's raining outside.

Multiple mental things. Okay, cool. I feel like the day I decide that I'm not going to have long hair is like, I'm old. Okay. It's over. Sure, sure, sure. Why are you trying? Just a little bonnet. Fucking hell. See, at least in the summer I could just wear a hat everywhere and no one questioned it. You do that anyway. I know, but in the winter it's weirder. It's not very chic. It's hard to look chic in a baseball cap. Yeah.

What other kind of hat can I wear? I tried to wear that hat when we went to Bali and I looked ridiculous. Oh, I like the death on the Nile hat. So yes, she dyes her hair blonde. And then... The pair ate lunch at their mum's apartment, joined by their older brother Virgil. As for the afternoon, Leticia planned to test the theory of whether blondes really do have more fun. So Leticia and her brother Riton.

took a taxi to a bau musette called le mitage with their neighbour a young tailor called maurice caggan between three and five p m leticia by all accounts had a gay old time at the bau spinning around the dance floor with several men and women, including her friend Marceau Marneffe, who sounds like a fucking monkey in a children's book or something, and his little sister Pierrette.

At around 5pm, Leticia told her pals she intended to nip home soon to freshen up before her evening plans, dinner with her big brother Virgil and his father-in-law at a local restaurant, before attending a swanky banquet organized. by the Union Valladolid, a respected organisation for Italian immigrants in Paris. At 6pm sharp, Leticia asked the leader of the orchestra to pass on a message to her brother Riton that she was going.

leaving the smoky air and accordion trills behind her as she stepped out onto the dusky parish streets she was whether she knew it or not walking towards her doom The weather that day was unseasonably hot, but with a storm creeping in. As Letizia walked briskly to a nearby bus stop, the heavens opened. Hopping on the bus at 6.19pm,

Leticia took a three-minute journey to the Port Charenton metro station and hurried inside. The station was full of picnickers from the nearby park seeking shelter from the rain. Leticia broke from the crowd and entered the first-class carriage alone at 6.25pm while her fellow passengers crammed into the second-class cars. Witnesses would later describe seeing Leticia's distinctive figure in her white-brimmed hat and green suit.

framed in the window, sitting on a bench, facing the front of the train. She was, according to all present that day, completely alone in the carriage as the train set off on its journey along Metro Line 8. What happened inside that first-class carriage while it rumbled through the underground labyrinth of Paris for the next minute is a mystery. But thanks to witness testimony, we know the following facts.

more or less for certain. The train departed Port Charenton, the first station on the line, at 6.27pm and it arrived at the next station, Port Doré, less than a minute later.

As the train idled at the platform, two parties boarded the first-class carriage. The first group entered by the front set of doors, closest to where Leticia had been sat down. They were a military dentist named... major raymond de bruyo his fiancee and her brother who were all dressed in their finery on the way to the theatre the second group to board this first-class carriage was a trio of sex workers

scoping for rich sugar daddies in first class. That's where they are. There was Elizabeth Guy and Mary Canton, who were English, and Yvette Bailey, who was French. These good time gals entered via the doors at the rear of the carriage.

they all noticed the elegant woman in the white hat slumped forward in her seat and most likely assumed that she'd simply nodded off but then leticia slid with a horrible thud to the floor as major debris rushed to the stranger's aid he noticed a dagger protruding from her neck and a pool of blood slowly oozing down the slick carriage floor

His medical training meant that he instantly recognised that the victim's jugular vein had been severed. But did Major Dupree stick around to try and help? No. And as they say in France... which means he left English style, aka unceremoniously ghosting the scene. Which is an expression coined back in the 1800s as a response to the English phrase taking French leave, which means rudely exiting a party without saying goodbye. You can't just flip it back.

They can. They do it all the fucking time. No, they shouldn't. It's lame. Of course you can. It's fucking lame. An Irish goodbye, basically. Yeah. If we've already been saying French exit. You can't just then be like the English way. That's lame. Grow up. We had it first. I do strongly recommend, if you don't already, taking up the Irish goodbye. I think I've saved...

Like a year of my life. Totally. By just leaving. Totally. He's got the time. Not me. Out of there. Out of there. Go and be Irish somewhere else. So much more mysterious as well. Major Dupree and his party ducked out of there like bats out of hell. He later told the press, after they'd laboriously tracked him down,

That he knew there was nothing they could do for Leticia and his priority was protecting his fiancée from the inevitable scandal of being embroiled in a brutal murder. But he doesn't even, like, raise the alarm.

This is the thing, right? Like he leaves and he is just like, yeah, you know, I didn't want to upset my fiance or get her messed up in any of this. And also we had a theatre show to get to. Like, are you kidding? But like he doesn't even raise the alarm. And I get it. He was like, she's dead.

She wouldn't fucking stab him in the jugular. But it is quite weird to just be like, meh. But it was obviously the utmost importance that he got home and changed his bloody shirt in time for the theatre. Sure. And while that might all sound very suspicious and is definitely more than a bit callous, it's not actually that surprising given bourgeois societal values. As we'll come on to learn...

Letitia Turow had far bigger foes lurking in the shadows than a military dentist on his way to a night at the theatre. So let's get back to the scene. After our runaway dentist and his party made their... English slash French slash Irish exit, the group of sex workers leaned closer to see what all the fuss was about. And once they saw this woman was on the floor with a fucking knife sticking out of her neck and blot all over the place,

they swiftly started screaming the house down. The alarm was finally raised, and chaos swept through the platform at Port Doré. The conductor, who'd been doing his rounds in another carriage, halted the train from departing. He attempted to quell the rising panic by ushering passengers off the train, as well as blocking new arrivals from entering. Meanwhile, someone fetched a policeman who was patrolling the street above to attend to the victim. As Agent Isambar...

knelt beside Leticia Turow. He realised that, incredibly, she was actually still alive, her eyes wide and her lips moving without a sound. He asked her, who did this to you, madam? And then in an effort to help Leticia speak, the inexperienced young officer decided to remove the knife from where it was lodged in her neck.

I feel like I don't care how inexperienced anyone is. I feel like everybody knows that you never pull it out. Yeah, because of course this was a rookie era of fucking biblical proportions. Blood gushed from the wound, splattering everywhere as Leticia herself rapidly faded out of consciousness. Leticia Thoreau was stretched out of the metro station and rushed by ambulance to hospital.

but tragically died en route. Her lips stilled without being able to name or even describe her assailant. She'd become the very first person to be murdered on the Paris Underground.

and the mystery of the metro had officially begun. From the very start, the police were overwhelmed. Hundreds of potential witnesses had been travelling in the second-class cars, but questioning them swiftly hit a brick wall. Plenty of people remembered Leticia Turow. After all, she was hard to miss. That's what I want people to say about me if and when I'm murdered. Sure. Rather than lit up a room. Yeah. Well, I did notice that because she was incredibly chic.

That's what I want. I was going to say. When they were like, oh, they noticed her because of her wide-brimmed white hat. I noticed her because her hair looked a very puffy mess and she had a rather... grubby brown makeup sun hat on her head I would like people to be like she was so chic I feel like I'm alright chic wise when I make an effort but making an effort is so hard I know and also like my chic factor has plummeted since I stopped smoking

No one talks about that. You're right. It's the price you pay. Everything's a trade-off. If you had to place yourself on a day where you make 10 out of 10 effort, how chic would you say you are out of 10? I don't think I'm a very chic person. Like, I don't know if that's my, like, my vibe. I wish, but I just don't think I'm chic. Fair. Too scruffy. Nah, you're not scruffy. I think, is chic subjective? Not in France.

Well, yeah. But I'm not going to wear a little fucking green suit and a white hat, so we're fucked. You're going to wear a Marge Simpson's pink Chanel suit. Hey, man, that was iconic. Yeah. However, everyone agreed on one... crucial thing. Letitia, no matter how chic, was completely alone when she stepped into that first-class garage. Nobody saw anyone get on before her, with her, or after her at Port Charenton.

And Port Charentine's at the end of the line. So it would have sat there at the platform for a while before setting off. At Port-du-Re not a single soul on the platform saw a potential assassin sprint off the train before the next six passengers climbed aboard and walked into a murder scene. Could the killer have struck mid-journey then, slipping between carriages?

stabbing Leticia and then vanishing back into the heaving second-class car to blend in with the crowd. Technically, no. The doors between first and second class were locked, which was standard practice on the Paris Metro. And not a single passenger reported seeing anybody move between the cars. Investigators were stumped by what seemed like a classic locked room mystery. A Saruti Bala favourite. Totally.

But I was very put off as you were saying that because I was like one of the things I despise on the tube and I've got quite a high tolerance for gross shit on the tube because I don't cycle. So I have to deal with it. So you do just like leave your body a little bit.

Have a bit of a just like existential moment where you're just like, I'm not here. This isn't happening. Like I was on the way to the doctors this morning and there was a man sat next to me who spent 10 minutes coughing. But I couldn't move. I couldn't move away from him. And I was just like. Sir, for fuck sake, why? Why are you? And he was open mouth coughing. I was like, you have two elbows.

Why are you doing this to me? I'm so upset. That is miserable. I was so visibly upset that other people could see how upset I was. Help me. I never. Someone punch him. I mean. I was never bothered about germs until COVID. And I really missed that version of myself that didn't care because now I just like imagine germs on things. But a friend of mine is a doctor and she said, never, ever.

eat on the tube but I never would have thought of that before that's how un-germy I was pre-covid honestly it's like something I would have envied to have been like un-germy because I've always been quite a germaphobic person to the point that

This makes me sound so awful, but like Sam will like be doing something and I'll be like, have you washed your hands? He'll like come out of the toilet. I'll be like, did you wash your hands? He'll be like, I'm 38 years old. And I'm like, but did you wash your hands? Or he'll be like, do you want me to make you a snack? Yeah.

Wash your hands. He's like, you're fucking, you're well annoying. But the reason I was upset about what you're saying about the metro and the cheap. One of the most unsettling things. Because I haven't actually had a lot of weird things happen in front of me on the tube. Like I've had people being like, someone got his dick out and was just like fucking wanking off and shit like that. I've never seen anything like that. A friend of mine had a guy wank into her hair on the bus. See?

Never had anything like that. Some people are just magnets for that sort of thing. Yeah, I really am not. I really am not. Very few weird things actually happen to me. I've had a boner pressed into me. See, nothing, nothing, nothing like that. Not that I'm like, you know. regretful of that please i'm just like i'm so not a magnet for that kind of weird shit but one of the most unsettling things that happens is when people walk between carriages the first time i saw that i was like

That's against the rules. Yes. I was like, if he's willing to do that, what else is he willing to do? He could murder us all. Are you watching this? I'm five foot. I can't stop him. Are you ready to fight him? Because he just walked into this carriage from that other carriage while this train was moving. Terrifying. So I wouldn't put it past this killer to have done that. No, me neither. Apparently it wasn't possible.

How could they possibly unlock a door? I know. Obviously, this is kind of a pasto case. So immediately, it's quite difficult to know exactly like the details of it. But they basically say it's technically not possible, not it's technically against the rules. So they could have done it. I don't know. Was it completely locked? It's hard to know for sure. But they kind of shut down that scope of investigation like it wasn't possible.

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Given all the police knew, there were only a few ways this could have gone down. Option 1. The killer struck while the train was still sitting in Port Chantoron station. stabbing Leticia in her seat, then leaping off just before the doors closed. They then left the station before the train had even set off. They had maybe a minute, two at the most, not long, but definitely enough to kill, especially with a single stab wound.

Then there's option two, the same setup. The killer struck while the train was still idling at Port Chantaron and then jumped out onto the platform. So off the first class carriage. But instead of bolting onto the street, they slipped back onto the train. in the second-class carriage, hiding in plain sight among the crowd. And once the train rolled into Port-de-Rae, they hopped off and disappeared into the night. And finally, option three.

The killer stabbed Leticia on the moving train during the 45-second window between stations, but at Port-de-Rae, they somehow left the first-class carriage without anyone seeing them and made their escape. Three theories. None that...

quite made sense. The police were hopeful that maybe Leticia's body could yield more clues. The autopsy concluded that she'd been killed by a single stab wound behind her right ear, which severed her jugular vein and perforated her carotid artery. Leticia would have been instantly immobilised, unable to scream.

or react as she was sitting with her back to the door it was theorized that she may well have been taken by surprise by someone entering the train after her the murder weapon unusually left inside her body Turned out to be a Lugol model knife, which were generally used in the hospitality sector. It was nine inches long and had a handle made of bone. There were no fingerprints on the handle.

suggesting that the killer wore gloves. And that particular knife could only be bought at two specific shops in Paris. But both of them, unfortunately, were large department stores that didn't keep a record of customer purchases. There were no other suspicious marks on Otisius' body, and the sheer force of the blow ruled out suicide straight away. Whoever had done this was strong. Almost certainly a man.

And the speed, precision and confidence of the attack, potentially carried out on a moving train, suggested something even darker. The work of a professional killer. It does seem that way. I've been doing this for nearly 10 years and I wouldn't have known those things. I agree. And I kill people all the time. Quite. Just sloppily. Sloppily. Do a bad job. They take ages.

Such an un-chic killer. I actually would be such an un-chic killer. Which brings us back to the witnesses. Now potential suspects at the scene. Major Dubré. We're just saying his name differently every time. The major. The dentist major. The major dentist. Colonel Custard. His decision to flee without talking to the police certainly raised eyebrows, as well it should.

But he had a solid alibi from fellow passengers and also no experience, skill or background that would suggest he was capable of a hit. Though I would argue because of his medical training, he did know where the jugular was and would know where to strike. And being a dentist. cold-hearted sadist so basically they were like there's no evidence that he did it which i do accept so basically they decided he was just a dickhead dentist who didn't you know alert anybody of what he'd found

rather than a contract killer. Over the next year, investigators would grill more than 800 other people who had either been on the metro that day or who were connected to Leticia in her day-to-day life. and still they failed to come up with a single viable suspect but one thing was clear this was no random act of violence letizia turot had been targeted executed in cold blood

With the crime scene giving up no real answers, investigators only had one place left to look. The victim herself. So who was Leticia Turow, really? And we don't just mean the person her workmates and dance partners thought they knew. We're talking about the juicy bits, the secrets that she would have preferred to keep hidden.

Investigators began to piece together a life that on the surface looked respectable. She was born Leticia Marie Josephine Nourissa on the 11th of September 1907 in the tiny town Oias, which is tucked away in the alpine peaks of Italy's Valle d'Osta. It's a place where French and Italian cultures collide, and even the local dialect is a mash-up of the two. I think I watched an episode of, like, Rick Stein when he went there. Oh, did you? It was fun.

I like him. Psychopath. I like him though. I saw him give a talk once. He's fun. He's no Keith Floyd. No. It's because he's dead behind the eyes. R.I.P. Is Keith dead? I don't know. He was always hammered. I feel like he's dead. Yeah. 2009. Oh, my God, he's been dead for ages. Oh, Jesus. Fucking Saturday kids shouldn't just eat out on that shit. He's still on there every week. What the shit? Oh, my God.

I'm baffled. I watched him flambe something literally last week. He's been dead for 15 years. This has really rocked my world view, actually. Your dedicated viewership of Saturday Kitchen baffles me completely. It just feels at this point like a ritual. Call it a cult. Call it what you will. The weekend doesn't begin until I watch the poor joke making. And the mediocre looking food that is made on Saturday Kitchen. And I've had my fill of Keith Floyd. But never mind. Never mind. He's dead.

I was watching Pointless the other day. Oh, my God. There's more. Go on. I paid my license fee. I'm going to watch every fucking second of it. I got a letter. oh yeah we got like harassed and then they turned up at the house when we weren't there and they stepped a thing through being like we came here and then i was like i can't go to jail i literally can't go to jail i was like we'll just pay it but fuck you bbc

But I was watching Pointless the other day and one of the questions was about portmanteaus. Yeah. So it's like, just in case anybody doesn't know, obviously like two words that get smashed together to make a new word. And it was like, obviously they give you a list of portmanteaus.

And you have to pick the one to give the answer to of what two separate words made that word that you think is going to be the most obscure. And one of them was podcast. And I was like, I don't know what a support man do of. I've been a podcaster for a decade and I don't know what it's a portmanteau of. I do know now because they told me. Do you know, Hannah? I'm assuming the cast is broadcast. Yes. Pod. Podium.

No. iPod. Oh, fuck off, is it? Yes. It's a portmanteau of iPod and broadcast. Podcast. Because they started on iPods. And now they're like cast everywhere. To be fair, I have always hated the word podcast. Now we know what it stands for. I couldn't believe I didn't know. Me either. Isn't that a humiliating moment?

I'm so glad I pulled it into a public sphere. Yeah, thank you so much. You're welcome. It's fine. We all need humbling occasionally. There you go. That's mental. Isn't it? I never even thought about it. I'll believe literally anything, you know. I think I'm all, I think critically, obviously fucking not. Never questioned it. I thought, oh, I'm so curious. I'm so intellectually curious. Yeah. I didn't even wonder what podcast stood for.

Whatever. Back to the story and our podcast. Leticia came from an ordinary working class family. Her dad was a farmer. and construction worker who fought for Italy in the First World War. But Leticia herself was destined to be anything but ordinary. In 1920, teenage Leticia moved to France with her mum Marie and her three siblings.

Controversially for the era, Leticia's parents split up, with her dad Henri staying in Italy and the rest of them going to France. After a short stay in Lyon, the family made the jump up to Gay Paris when Leticia was 18.

chasing work excitement and a fresh start in the city of love and romance is exactly what leticia found waiting for her in the capital she started working at a pottery factory and across the crowded workshop floor she fell head over heels for the owner's son sylvain jules tyro it was a classic romeo and juliet scenario jules was a part of the old-school french bourgeoisie and she was a working-class immigrant

but it was for real jules and leticia tied the knot in nineteen twenty nine with one slight catch the marriage had to be kept completely secret from jules's snobby parents So, while their union was legal, Jules kept Leticia hidden away like a mistress in a fancy apartment that he'd bought in secret, while he still officially lived with his folks. It was unconventional, to say the least.

but the lovebirds seemed to make it work. Leticia adored dancing at the Balmuzettes, unpretentious venues where working-class Parisians, many of them Italians, let loose to the folksy sounds of live orchestras. The Bells didn't exactly have a squeaky clean reputation, however, with links to gangs, sex work, and pearl-clutching activities like homosexuality. They were viewed with suspicion by the upper classes as bohemian dens of iniquity.

But when Letizia introduced her high-class beau to the Balmuzette scene, well, Jules bloody loved it. The pair were reportedly mad for each other, dancing till dawn and staying faithful to one another all through their marriage. But this fairy tale romance was doomed to be short-lived. In 1935, after just six years of wedded bliss, Jules fell ill with either TB or throat cancer.

On his deathbed, he finally confessed to his parents about his marriage to Leticia, and they were not happy about it. Once Jules popped his clogs, the Tarots refused to accept Leticia as his widow, and they barred her from his will. All she got was a couple of pieces of furniture and a small sum of money. And French citizenship. But the biggest blow for Leticia wasn't losing the bougie lifestyle. It was losing jewels. She was...

devastated by his death and mainly wore black for the two years afterward, far longer than was customary for widows. She also visited Jules's grave every Sunday, although interestingly not on the day she died.

still leticia wasn't the sort of woman to curl up and wallow in grief she kept on hustling determined to make her own money and climb the social ladder in november nineteen thirty six she started working at a glue factory called Labatoire Maxi. Leticia was diligent, competent and quickly impressed her bosses. Moving up from slapping labels on jars to showing off the company's products at expos.

she got on well with her colleagues and nobody had a bad word to say about her meanwhile laetitia also picked up ships at various balmusettes across the city these included le lotus in the latin quarter or le petit on the rue de la a notorious red light district and the ace of hearts where she worked until she died letizia was hired officially to work in the cloak-room

But the role also involved dancing with lonely male patrons who could purchase special tokens to dance with staff members. Might sound a bit seedy to us, but it was pretty common in the 1930s Paris nightclub scene. for both male and female workers to fill in as dance partners for a little extra pocket money. When it came to her personal life, those close to Lysicia had nothing but praise for her.

Her mum Marie described her as a spirit of joy, while her dad back in Italy called her his only joy in life. His other kids had cut ties with him after moving to France, but Leticia still went to Italy to visit him every year. She was devoted to her family, with her little brother gushing that they were each other's true friend, and she doted on her sister Simone's little girl. Her kindness even extended to looking after poor children in her neighbourhood.

Far from a cold, mysterious femme fatale, Leticia seemed like the girl next door, never too busy to stop for a chat. Investigators searched her one-bedroom apartment and found it, to be more or less, what they expected. Small, humble. No running water, but stylishly decorated with inherited furniture from her marriage. A few things, however, raised eyebrows. In Leticia's handbag was a book full of first class train tickets. Unusual!

for someone of her working-class background. Some even speculated that these tickets may have been related to sex work. Ladies of the night were known to cruise first-class train cars for customers. But there's no real evidence to support that. And Leticia's mum offered a simple explanation. Occasionally, Leticia treated herself to first-class travel to protect her nice clothes, especially when she was wearing her Sunday best.

But then, in Leticia's apartment, they found a treasure trove of love letters from various men that opened up a whole new avenue of investigation. Because, let's just say, that Leticia Turow... was one popular gal. Of course, she's so chic. Quite. While she was still heartbroken over Jules' death, she'd had her fair share of romantic entanglements in the past few years.

Love letters found in her flat revealed that at the time of her death, she was involved with two military men, both stationed outside Paris, René Schramm and Jean Martin.

Schramm was a plumber in his civil life and met Letizia Adebal-Muzette in 1936. They quickly became lovers before he was sent to the Maguignon line for a service. Letizia's most recent side piece, Jean Martin, was a sailor who was stationed at the port of toulon they'd only recently met but they were keen to keep seeing each other in fact a note found in leticia's handbag showed that she'd planned to hook up with him after the gala

on the night she died. But Martin's commanding officer confirmed that he hadn't secured leave, so the meeting never would have happened. Schramm also had a solid alibi from his commanding officer, so neither of Leticia's lovers... We're actually in Paris that weekend at all. Still, the police hoped her personal entanglements might shed light on her private world. Investigators found evidence of flings with a Renault dealer, a married Italian barman.

and another mysterious wealthy lover. But all of Leticia's documented bows had alibis for the night of her death.

And while the scandalous details of her sex life may well have shocked the bottomed-up public, they ultimately weren't felt to be significant when it came to her murder. Because, like we said, this had all the hallmarks of a cold-blooded political... assassination it was baffling why an ordinary red-blooded girl like leticia would be a target for such a hit that is until a man called george

A rotund, mustachioed figure who reportedly looked exactly like Hercule Poirot came out of the woodwork. Rufignac claimed that he had employed Leticia as an operative for his private detective firm. And that means that Leticia Thoreau was the chicest thing of all. A spy. Yeah. Standing out too much, though, to be a spy. Gotta be the grey man.

Disappear. Definitely don't want people noticing you and being like, she was so chic, she was hard to miss. I know. Anti-spy. She's like hired to do this, right? Because she's got skills to make her good at this. But I think she thinks.

Spy means glamorous. Yeah, that's what we all were told. But that's why she gets kids. Georges Ruffignac insisted to the press that he'd only ever hired Leticia for low-level assignments like... tailing adulterous wives i don't know why but i think being a spy for a private investigator is not as cool as doing it for a nation state but then i don't know why i feel that way because i'm not a patriot

Because, well, it's just not as cool. It's just not. I don't make the rules. Ian Fleming does. Yes. But we suspect that Rufignac was telling Porky's here. He was inconsistent with his statements to the media about Letizia, sometimes saying she was clearly an accomplished sleuth outside of his small-time agency, while other times claiming she was just sloppy amateur.

And while he said he'd only hired her for six minor jobs, it emerged that she'd actually undertaken at least 16 assignments on his behalf over the course of a year. So yes, definitely lying. Riffignac seemed keen to create distance between his agency and Leticia Thoreau, which all made sense, since she was France's most infamous murder victim.

and he clearly wanted the public to swallow the idea that his business was just related to petty domestic dramas rather than anything deeper. But this, Kale's surprise, was far from the truth. In fact, Rufignac hadn't just employed Leticia to catch naughty spouses. Not at all. He was actually the one who engineered her place at the maxi factory where she worked.

In the summer of 1936, general strikes crippled French industry. It's nice to know they haven't changed and sparked a wave of pro-communist sympathies in the country. Basically, the 1% were shitting themselves that another revolution was on the cards. Factory owner Monsieur Delite had recently sacked a female employee for a stirring up trouble amongst the workers.

and was looking for a less rebellious replacement. Rufignac offered up Leticia to kill two birds with one stone, to be a reliable worker whilst also keeping an eye on her colleagues for any rumblings of unionisation. So as it turned out, Leticia wasn't just screwing lids on glue bottles. She was screwing over her colleagues as well. It was also Rufignac who got Leticia her job at the Ace of Hearts nightclub.

Undercover as party girl Yolanda her position in the cloakroom provided the perfect opportunity to intercept sensitive letters and witness people in compromising situations. Leticia apparently loved moonlighting as a private detective. She reportedly told her close friend Marie that she loved how the work enabled her to make connections with people in high places and make something of herself.

So, keen to ingratiate herself into the upper echelons of French society, Leticia's ambition didn't stop at union gossip. It dragged her deep into the shadowy world of political terrorism.

which was brewing under the surface of interwar France. So, it's time for my favourite bit of life. Historical context. It's Red Handed Rundown time. In the 1930s, France was run by a socialist government called the Popular Front. But their position was quite precarious, with unrest brewing on all sides. Fascists and extreme right groups squared off against communists and Paris witnessed violent riots in 1934. By 1936, a series of strikes ground production lines to a halt.

And let's not forget, fascism was booming just next door in Spain and Italy. We tend to think of neighbourhood spying as a Cold War thing, like curtain twitchers dobbing in their neighbours to the KGB for not taking out the bins on time. But... With the political landscape more unstable than ever, interwar Europe took intelligence pretty seriously as well. Mussolini's Italy was keen to keep tabs on its citizens living abroad.

particularly within the Valdetown community that Leticia came from, since they historically tended to be less fascist-minded than most in the old country. And the French police were just as jittery about the rise of political extremism. They routinely used paid informants, often women, to infiltrate political groups that they couldn't reach themselves. In short, plain-clothes political spies...

were everywhere in 1930s Paris. And Letitia Thoreau was one of them. Remember that lapel pin Letitia was wearing when she died? Oh my god. Was it a microphone? A camera? No, sadly not. Poison dart. No. Goldfinger. Just so much more boring now than I'm going to say. Just a chic brooch. No, it was for the Republican League for the Public Good, as you told us earlier, Hannah, which is, you know, at the time, a well-respected left-leaning public service organisation.

It had been founded by two prominent socialists and it aimed to fight the spread of fascism in France. On the surface, Leticia's membership might not have seemed that unusual, but the League required sponsorship to join. And who were Leticia's two sponsors? None other than her spying boss, Georges Ruffignac, and a high-ranking police officer, Inspector Sator. Just like Ruffignac placing her at the maxi factory.

The French police were using Leticia to inform on any communist rumblings within this league. So it was just actually a pin that she wore. Inspector Sator. later admitted that Letizia had been a police informant since her teenage years, when she first came to Paris, as had her seamstress mother. Deeply embedded in the Italian immigrant community,

They were an incredibly valuable source of information for the French police. As for Leticia's personal politics, they're a bit of a mystery. While she stepped out on the day of her death, proudly toting a socialist pin, investigators found that letters in her apartment indicated right-wing views. Her friend Yvonne Carrot-Rio later told the press that Letitia was, quote, absolutely a fascist. But...

Regardless of where her own sympathies lay, it ultimately seemed like Letitia's espionage work was motivated largely by money and social climbing. Her trade was secrets. It didn't matter what side they came from.

And we know that because, as well as informing from inside left-wing circles, Leticia's biggest and most dangerous assignment took her to the extreme right of France's political spectrum. infiltrating a terrorist group called Lacagoule. Yeah. Le anorak. Yeah. Le raincoat. Mac. That was the word I was looking for. Mac in a bag.

Mac in a sack. Mac in a sack. Mac in a bag. Ah, yeah. I was thinking that didn't rhyme, but I'll just get the joke out there anyway. Be fine. Any way I can. Any way I can. It's peak chic, though. Le cagoule. Le cagoule. Cag in a bag. Cag in a bag. Now you might be thinking, isn't that an anorak that your nan makes you wear when it starts drizzling outside? If you're me, it gives you flashbacks to Duke of Edinburgh trauma. Quite. Well, you're halfway there.

The group we're talking about actually called themselves CASR, the French Initials or Secret Committee of Revolutionary Action. But their nickname, Le Cagoule, came from the French word for hood. Apparently because the members would disguise their identities with black or red hoods. So basically, the KKK, en français. And they had a reason to hide their faces.

Le Cagoule wasn't your average gang of angry, beard-up street thugs. Their leaders included ex-army officers, engineers, doctors and industrialists, and many were from France's poshest families. The group was bankrolled by huge names like Michelin, L'Oreal and L'Ossia Oil, with plenty of high-ranking friends inside the French military. Anti-communist, anti-socialist, anti-democratic and anti-Semitic to boot.

le cagoule's primary aim was to overthrow the popular front government and replace it with a fascist-style dictatorship based on the italian model their ultimate goal after that the re-establishment of the french monarchy And how exactly did they plan to make all this happen? The answer is simple. Terrorism. Everyone knows that the best...

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Le Cagoule used terrorist tactics in the hope of creating a helter-skelter-style collapse of the current regime. On September 11, 1937, a very ironic date they bombed two buildings in paris's wealthy 16th arrondissement making it look like the communists were to blame essentially they wanted to trigger a moral panic against the reds kick off a civil war and then save the day with a military coup

Kagool members secretly trained militias and built up massive stockpiles of weapons both in Paris and the French provinces. They carried out multiple political assassinations, both on their own enemies and on behalf of Mussolini's fascist secret police. in a you-scratch-my-back-and-I'll-execute-your-enemy sort of way, in a return for armed shipments. And operating in the shadows, they were truly dangerous. So how did Leticia Turo come into this murky picture?

investigators learned that at some point in 1936 she became the lover of a guy called gabriel jantet le cagoule's arm smuggling expert jantet ran a garage near montmartre commanding a fleet of cars used to smuggle weapons from Geneva to Paris. He was an upper-crust type with a soft spot for slumming it at the Balmuzettes, which is probably where he met Letizia. Or should we say, Yolanda.

using her feminine charms laetitia snuck her way into the heart of kagoule operations most likely picking up more than a few morsels of gossip during pillow talk and that terrorist tea was piping hot Because around this time, it's now believed that La Cagoule was plotting the murders of several high-profile socialist figures. One of these was Russian economist and advisor to the French government, Dmitry Navashin.

He was stabbed to death on the 26th of January 1937 whilst taking his dog out on a morning stroll in the Bois de Bourlion Park in Paris. That's bold, assassinating someone with a dog. We don't know what type of dog, though. That's very true. I think I 100% feel so much safer at night when I'm out with Mabel than when I'm not. If I'm out with Big Blue, rock solid. If I'm out with Little Blue, someone's going to murder me to steal him. And he's going to go.

Big Blue, chew their face off. Chew their face right off. Yeah. You should see the face of joggers who just accidentally come a bit too close. He's like... And then... There were the Rosselli brothers, Carlo and Nello, both prominent anti-fascist Italian activists. Just a few weeks after Leticia's death,

The brothers were gunned down in broad daylight by la Cougoule assassins whilst they were visiting the French seaside town of Ballon de Lyon in Normandy. After almost a year of brick walls, the answers finally started to tumble out in early 1938.

The French authorities exposed and dismantled Le Cougou following a failed coup in November 1937. In January, one of the arrested members, a Michelin engineer named René Lockety, revealed that his superiors in Le Cougou claimed responsibility for leticia's murder slowly a picture of leticia's downfall began to emerge by spring 1937 leticia's cover had grown thin

Le Cagoule suspected that she was a rat and hatched a plan to flush her out. And in a very Wagatha Christie-style move, they leaked fake details of a cross-border arms run to her, and Letizio... walked right into the trap by tipping off the French police. When the car was stopped at the Swiss border, it was empty, but it let Le Cagoule know for certain that Leticia Turo was not to be trusted.

Senior Kagool leadership allegedly met on the 10th of May 1937, just six days before Letizia was found bleeding on the metro floor. And it was then that they sentenced her to death. The real question is...

Did Leticia know that she was running out of time? While her brother insisted that she was her usual happy-go-lucky self on her last day alive, in retrospect there were some troubling signs. For one, Leticia had told a few friends and relatives that a stranger attempted to attack her just three days earlier. On the 13th of May, a man approached her with a knife outside her apartment building.

But she slapped him and the concierge let her in before any damage was done. When she relayed that story to a Metro Guard acquaintance, Letitia laughed it off and insisted that she now carried an umbrella to fight off any potential assailants. She didn't even report the incident to the police. Leticia didn't seem to be taking it seriously, but perhaps she was secretly more nervous than she let on.

Whilst dancing with her friend Marceau at Le Hermitage on that fateful Sunday, Leticia made the cryptic comment, I'm laughing now but I won't be laughing tonight because I don't expect things to go well. She even tried to get Marceau's little sister to walk with her to the metro station, which was massively out of character. She travelled every day on her own, without fear.

The bus driver who took Leticia to Port Charenton also noted that she seemed rushed and anxious, unlike her usual self. And then there was the unusual way that Leticia had dressed that day. She'd also, remember, dyed her hair blonde and was sporting brighter colours than she'd worn for the past two years as a grieving widow dressed in black. Was this Leticia afraid for her life attempting to disguise herself? Or on the flip side?

Was she deliberately trying to stand out? Many witnesses remembered Leticia's pin badge, indicating she was a member of the Republican League of the Public Good. But she'd never worn this pin before. And in fact, it wasn't even clear how she'd got it. since she hadn't been a member for long enough to earn one. She's not very socialist. Targets, perform better. Do you want this reward? Everyone gets one, don't worry.

was this a deliberately chosen accessory therefore designed to identify her to a contact maybe perhaps someone in the french police who she desperately hoped could help her escape the increasingly sticky web of the cagoule Unfortunately for her, though, the French police themselves had been infiltrated by Kugul double agents. If Leticia was trying to reach help, she may have been set up and lured straight to her death by someone sworn.

to serve and protect her. So now comes the one million franc question. Who actually plunged the knife into Letitia Turow's neck? A cagoule grunt called Ferdinand Jacobiers claimed that Letitia was stalked by their operatives for weeks. They sussed out her daily routines before pointing her out to the group's top assassin, a guy called Jean Fillon. And he was one scary motherfucker, a mad dog hitman notorious for brutal executions and terrifying acts of violence on the streets of Paris.

If anyone had the skill, audacity and downright sociopathy to pull off the attack on Leticia in the middle of a crowded metro, it was him. In 1938, Inspector Charles Chevenier wrote in his final report that the trail of evidence in Letitia Thoreau's death led directly to La Cagoule. So, mystery solved. Not quite.

in their twenty ten book on the case historians annette finley crosswhite and gail k brunel came to the intriguing conclusion that another group was actually more likely to have bumped off And that group was Mussolini's secret police force, Ovra, the Italian precursor to the Gestapo. They speculate that Busy B Letizia may have actually been a triple agent. That's chic. Also, you've got to sell a book. You've got to have a new theory. It wasn't like a ghoul at all. Jack the Rip is a woman. Shh.

So anyway, let's look at this theory before I, you know, poo-poo it too much. This is what they thought. That alongside Leticia's work as a paid informant for the French police, she was allegedly leaking to Mussolini's secret service as well. Letizia had visited Italy several times in the past few years, apparently to see her father. But on more than one of these trips, she also went to the Italian embassy. Hmm.

with her personal fascist views plumb position within the italian immigrant community and access to several political groups on both sides of the political coin in france leticia would have been the perfect candidate for this risky triple cross Finley Crossway and Brunel also based their theory on the style of Leticia's murder. It didn't quite match mad dog Jean Filio's signature method, a sort of bayonet that left a distinctive triangular wound.

It's pretty chic. And the fact that the dagger was still inside the victim, they argue, is more indicative of an old-school Italian contract kill. Their calling card was a stiletto folding knife left in the body as a chilling signature. But while this scholarly pair have dedicated years of research to the Metro murder case...

Even they admit it's impossible to say for certain who did the deed. There's only one thing we can all agree on. Leticia Turo played a deadly game and ended up paying the ultimate price. That also does remind me. of the other day when i was on the tube and i have watched far too much luther but across the tube like seat from me there was just one singular playing card stop it a king of hearts face up

And it was perfectly positioned on the seat. And I was like, do I pick it up? But I can't pick it up because I'll look mad. You can't pick it up because it will end up on a Korean island. Exactly. So I didn't touch it. A handsome man will smack you in the face. And it's probably really dirty. So I didn't pick it. Oh, man. Who just has a loose playing card that they lose on the tube? I don't know. I don't know. We'll never know now. We won't.

Well, we might. Might see it in the papers. Somebody murdered by the infamous fucking tube playing card killer. Some maniac just walking up and down all of the carriages and through the doors. Honestly, ma'am. Don't make eye contact. Don't pick up cards. I can't believe you didn't pick it up.

I was just too embarrassed and grossed out. The life you could have had. I know. In Korea. Who knows? Despite all of the questions still surrounding Letitia's death, the Paris police closed the case in 1938 as officially... Unsolved. How satisfying. I don't know if you could close it. I know. It's when they're like, we've completely cleared these people. How? Well, the Second World War. That's how and why. That'll do it.

As Europe hurtled towards conflict, priorities shifted, understandably so. By the time Paris fell and the Vichy government came to power in 1940, the authorities had much bigger fish to fry than digging through dusty old case files. And it's not like there was anyone really left to charge. Upon the outbreak of war, most Kugul members, including Letitia's suspected assassin, were released from prison and mobilised to fight for France.

Jean Filliol, the assassin, ended up in the Milice, a brutal squad that hunted and tortured political prisoners opposing the Vichy regime, while other Cagoule members actually rebranded as resistance heroes. The case against Le Cagoule didn't even go to trial until 1948. And by then, most of the group's major players had either emerged as unlikely war heroes or fled to Spain, like Jean Filiot had.

He scored a cushy job with L'Oreal and spent the rest of his days in San Sebastian as a wealthy and presumably very moist happy man. It's quite good, isn't it? Like brutal calling card assassin. Working for L'Oreal until he dies. Why not? Lots of reasons. But also none. Apparently. In the end, very few Kagool members faced any real comeuppance and presumably quite a lot of them died in the war.

But it also does pay to have friends in high, moist places. And so Leticia Turo's story was pretty much forgotten for years. But then, in 1962, it was resurrected.

when the paris police received an anonymous letter from a man claiming to be letitia's killer and this guy wasn't a spy or a terrorist he was a jilted lover He wrote a rambling yet strangely compelling account of how he met Letizia in November 1936 when he had been a young medical student. He claimed to have courted Letizia for a while but she didn't really take his devotion seriously.

and treated him like a child with a crush. On the day of Letizia's murder, he'd apparently asked her to dinner, but when she said she had to cancel, growing jealous, he accused her of seeing another man. which prompted Leticia to admit that she was indeed going to meet up with her sailor man, Jean Martin, instead. The man claimed that he'd spent hours in a fury that later settled into a cold rage. Having gone to the Balmuzette,

where he correctly thought Letizia might be, he tailed her to the Port Chantaron station in his car. He followed her on board the first-class carriage and called her name as she sat down. And when Letizia turned in surprise... he plunged a knife into her neck in a state of shock the man said he returned to the platform and quickly slipped into the second-class carriage just before it departed the station when letizia's body was discovered at port

He was ushered off with the other second-class passengers and made to wait for around an hour. He said in the letter that he felt that everyone was staring at him and he had no idea how nobody seemed to have noticed how freaked out he was. He was also never questioned by the police and was eventually allowed to leave. Accidentally, he claimed, getting away with the perfect murder. Pretty chic. Ten out, ten. Ten out, ten chic.

Apart from sweating bullets in the station, that's very uncheek. Well, you know, can't have a rule. Some people are convinced by this letter, but not me. Letitia's killing smacks of calculated... professional hitman stuff. It's not the outburst of a rejective suitor in the spur of the moment and how would you know to stab her behind the ear? He was a medical student. Not a good one. I checked.

Wouldn't know a juggler if it knocked him in the face. But as with so many elements of this baffling story, we're never going to know. And that's exactly how the French like it. Especially the establishment. Curiously, all files related to this case were sealed. That's not that curious. There are loads of terrorists involved. And they will stay that way for a whopping 101 years.

Only to be opened in 2038, long after everyone involved has kicked the bucket. Saw that one right off the White House, didn't they? Fucking hell. So the powers that be in French society might want us to view the Letitia Tarot affair as a long buried cold case that will just never be solved. But we don't know about you, but sealing the archives and insisting that there's absolutely nothing to see for a century, that does seem a bit suspish.

So what could possibly be in there that would be so damning to future leaders? It's complicated and has a lot to do with legacy. According to our historians, Finlay, Crosswave and Brunel. Letizia Turow's story forms part of the larger French refusal to come to terms with the pre-World War II era, when many French sympathised with extreme far-right politics, fascism and anti-Semitism.

Basically, throughout those tumultuous years, France liked to think of itself as firmly being on the side of the goodies. And it stayed that way. Later politicians weren't exactly keen to admit that there had been homegrown fascists kicking around even before the Nazis came to be. So Le Cagoule's reign of terror and the group's ties to the infamous murder on the metro...

was an inconvenient truth, better off shoved in the junk cupboard of history. Yeah, with Oswald Malsley, we've got one of them. So hey, maybe we'll see you in 13 years' time when the files are finally unsealed. The fact that 2038 is only 13 years away is disgusting. Gross. But if that does happen, maybe we can crack open those bad boys together. No, I'll be long dead like the cuckoo ghouls. Until then.

We leave you with what is, at least officially, a perplexing mystery. Au revoir. Yes. Desperately trying to go through my brain for any French word that would be appropriate. Weh. No. No. Enough. Sacre bleh. That was a great case. We don't do Paso cases very often because they are a fucking nightmare to research.

But that one just, you know, it was worthy of the time, despite almost murdering Hannah with all the French words we had to pronounce today. We hope you enjoyed it. We hope you learned something. And that is the penultimate case we will be covering on Red Handed in 2025. Because it is December when you are listening to this. If you're listening on time, there is just one two-parter left to see of our year. And it is on none other than Mr. OJ Simpson.

The juice is loose. The juice is certainly loose in my brain. And we will see you next week for part one of two on him. It's so bad. Let's do it. Goodbye. Bye. In the fall of 1620, a battered merchant ship called the Mayflower set sail across the Atlantic. It carried 102 men, women, and children, risking it all to start again in the New World.

Hi, I'm Lindsey Graham, the host of American History Tellers. Every week we take you through the moments that shaped America, and in our latest season, we explore the untold story of the pilgrims, one that goes far beyond the familiar tale of the first Thanksgiving.

After landing at Cape Cod, the Pilgrims forged an unlikely alliance with the Wappanag people who helped the Pilgrims survive the most brutal winter they'd ever known, laying the foundation for a powerful national myth. But behind that story lies another, one of conflict.

betrayal, and brutal violence against the very people who helped the Pilgrim survive. Follow American History Tellers on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of American History Tellers The Mayflower early and ad-free. right now on Wondery Plus.

It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. Of the 880 men.

who survived the attack, around 400 would eventually find their way to one another and merge into one larger group. With a touch of humor. Shout out to her. Shout out to all my therapists out there years. There's been like eight of them. A dash of sarcasm and just... garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing.

And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.