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You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them, Gasey, Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker BTK. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zufanski.
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nature box dot com slash true Murder. Blue Beard is the story documenting the history behind the reign of terror imposed on Europe by Jille Durey's The Famous blue Beard. The author brings the reader into the castles, pageants, battles and dungeons of medieval Europe to explore the enigma that was the life of the man who fought bravely and valiantly alongside Joan of Arc in pursuit of a higher cause, then descended into the dark depths of sexual exploitation of children,
which made him a historical monster. But what is it that causes a man to develop to being such a person. The author focuses on the man's life and the foundation set for his mental and intellectual development, then explores his life subsequent to the sword clashing, blood letting battles alongside Joan of Arc. She raises questions presents hypothesis from genetic disposition to DTSD to explain the demonic action of the man.
It is a book that gives the reader a breathtaking experience and presents thought provoking possibilities as to why a man who led of life of valor as a brave warrior could descend into the dark depths of depravity. The book that we're featuring this evening is Bluebeard, Brave Warrior, Brutal Psychopath, with my special guest journalist and author Valerie Ogden. Welcome to the program and thank you for agreeing to this interview.
Valerie Ogden, Hi, lovely, thank you for your introduction. It was wonderful.
Well, thank you. This is for those people that think that horror and serial killers and all that madness and craziness started at Jack the Ripper. Well, have we got a story for you here? Noil, let me just ask this question. Of all the books that you could have written, give us just a little bit of your background without giving away the story here at all. But what brought you to wanting to write blue Beard? What brought you to this project blue Beard?
Well, it's actually fascinating. I was at the wedding of my nephew and it was in an old, lovely church in Belgium, and it was I think built for the cross bowmen of the thirteenth century, and there were no chairs, who had to stand up. And standing next to me was this very well dressed man in his Italian suit, and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and he smiled, and in French, she said, how do you like your nephew marrying into the family of a murderer?
And of course I thought my friend had really gotten rusty, and I looked at him, and then the bride came in and we couldn't do anything more talking. And so when I got to the reception, I went over to him. I made a beeline for him, and I said, could you explain to me what you just said. Did you say that this was my nephew was just married into the family of a murder He said, oh, yes, yes, he's famous. His name was his nickname was blue Beard. Well, the only blue Beard I had known was it's a
fairy tale written by Charles Perrault. And actually he based his fairy tale. He changed his story where his you know, his blue Beard killed his wives who were very nosy.
Uh.
He based it on the true blue Beard, whose name was Gidiret, but he changed it from children to wives. So that's the only man I knew. And hear this, you know, her uncle would not tell me anything more. He said, oh, I know nothing more, Go talk to my mother. So I went to the mother, and of course the mother said, I know nothing he was except that he was a knight. We always live in France except for you know, her name is Beminice, except for Beminice's family who works for the EU. And that was it.
And I thought, this is very strange. You know this man apparently they did tell me he lived in the fifteenth century, and I thought, he's been dead for six hundred years. Why won't they say anything more? So When I got home, I started to do research, and there isn't that much in English, which is very interesting. It's it's very sort of prejudicial. This is just a horrible man, that's all they tell you. They don't tell you he
was the hero of the Hundred Years War. So I became very interested because I had I was a history scholar, you know, and college, and I was just curious. And so I could read French, which was a great help because I couldn't have written this book if it had just been English sources.
Unfortunately incredible. We're going to have to talk about that one hundred years War briefly too, and because that's really an integral part of this story. But let's start with a little bit of the background on Jill Deres himself and talking about G two and his mother Maria, and so tell us about his early life before we get to this obviously very very traumatic year when he was eleven years old. So let's talk about Gee two and his mother Maria.
And people did not get married, if they were a nobility at that time, for love. They got married for you know, combining their their properties and so forth and so on, and so these two came from very very wealthy in western France, and they took on the name of dray He. The father took over a baroness's properties because she was the last of that ancestry and she had no survivors, and he quadrupled his wealth by doing so.
And they lived absolutely lavishly in grandiose castles which were incredible. I'm sure they were terribly, terribly cold and drafty, but you just read about the beauty within these, you know, the intricate designs and the mantlepieces and the main eating area which is also their social area, and you just think, wouldn't you have loved to have been in a warm coat and been able to be there to observe what was going on. And there's not much known about his mother.
There's much more about the father was apparently a very very decent person, and he really brought up to child very well. He had tutors for him. He made sure that he was schooled in Latin and Greek before he was seven. He could speak both, he could do mathematics. You know. I think the father, you know, prided himself in bringing up a real sort of of that time, more a Renaissance person than even the light Middle Ages. And then shall I go into what happened to the father?
Well before that too, you also you say he provided intellectually, he had the tutors, but also a very art He exposed him to a very rich artistic life. To he balanced that as well too with exposing him to the arts as well, didn't he.
I think he must have, yes, I mean he always It's not that clear, but he must have with someone at that age, you know, because certainly the grandfather didn't too to have an interest in as many aspects of the arts as he did. You can pick that up, I'm sure yourself. But it certainly doesn't hurt to have beautiful tapestries, your beautiful design statuettes which were exquisitely carved.
And when there weren't even these beautiful tapestries on the wall, they had Italian painters who were apparently the best painters of the day come in and do ceilings and wall paintings. And the floors were of jade, which the ones which weren't carpeted. So he was exposed to extravagance and beauty all around.
Now he had a brother just recent arrival in the family of the year, and then he was eleven years old, and so tell us what happened with the father? What happened with the So.
The father who he adored, who Jildra adored, was out hunting for bore in their forest and it's called chantoise, and he was gored by the wild boar and he had a slow, painful death. Obviously they didn't have many, you know, pills that they could give someone, and he just died a terrible, terrible death, which obviously Judra witnessed. And then his mother about six months later, died. So he was left in orphan at age eleven, his brother
being one who really probably couldn't comprehend anything. And there was a father had one of his I guess it was his cousins that he wanted to bring up Shedra, but the grandfather broke the will and he was able to take both Childerray and the brother into his own sort of under his own wing. And the reason he wanted to do that was he wanted to control the vast wealth that Jilt eleven years old inherited, So that's what he did. He was almost his name was de Crayon,
and he was, you know, he dressed in finery. He was a noble himself, but he was really almost no better than a thug. He invaded his neighbor's properties, he would steal, he would do whatever he could to take over somebody's property. And this is the influence you know, that Gira had, although he sort of left these boys alone to do whatever they wanted, which they did. And certainly it's interesting because the brother didn't turn out the
same way at all. But the one thing that this thug grandfather did was make sure that Jeure was schooled to be a fine squire, to be a very good night, which Girdray turned out to be. He turned out to want to surpass everyone else. He had that lust to be the best. And at the same time, yes, go go ahead, sort I was just to say at the same time this as I call him. You know, I'm just trying to distring its because there's so many French names. I don't want to get everyone mixed up. So I'm
saying thug grandfather, which he really wasn't. He was a noble, but he acted like a thug. He cared nothing about you know, books or anything of the kind. And of course, at this age, at eleven, Girdre could speak Latin fluently, which was at that time that's what the nobles did speak. And of course the grandfather could barely understand it. He didn't want to speak it, so still had that, you know, desire to read, which he did as well as the A Knight. He had that combination within him.
But at the same time there was.
Yes, go ahead, no, I was just going to say that because the grandfather really left him to do whatever. It's sort of is a sign. And you see that with children today when they are left alone. That is apparently the worst thing that can happen to a child
is not to have anyone care for him. And he desperately sought his grandfather's affection, which he never got, and he tried in all sorts of, as you know with the book, sordid ways to get the grandfather's attention, by beating up servants, by beating up his compatriots, and the grandfather just never cared, never cared. He was more interested in acquiring property.
You talk about the grandfather, though it's in the book, you cite an event where he would assemble a mock court of twelve and thirteen year old boys, and you say this was homosexual in nature so that his grandson could dominate these twelve and thirteen year old boys. So that's a little bit.
Yeah. No, I don't think he knew that this was going to be homosexual nature. He just had these boys. That's how he entertained right, was to bring in these courtiers as a mock court. But he wouldn't sit there and watch what was going on. I think what happened is that, you know, when grandfather wasn't around and some of the boys said, no, I don't want to be your servant. You know, I'm equal to you. He was probably very very strong, and he just he bullied them.
I mean, he just bullied them. And the thought is by one of the authors of French author he thinks that it was all what he did was homosexual in nature with these boys. But I don't think that the grandfather knew what was going on there. I mean, I think he just thought that he was probably you know, beating them up.
Right.
And you also talk about homosexuality how it was regarded at that time, the previous centuries before that and at that time, so tell us how it's homosexual he was regarded at that time anyway.
Fascinating in the earlier centuries, up until the twelfth century, it was accepted. You know, it cared and some of the best right was from many homosexuals. And then suddenly, somehow this all changed and they began to think that homosexuality was equal to best reality. And you know, this
was performed within the kingdom. You were going to bring wrath upon the kingdom, so it was frowned upon and really frowned upon, so that you know, if you were caught being a homosexual and your third offense, I think they put you to death. Judi of course flaunted his homosexuality. I think he probably could because of his rank and the fact that he had been such a war hero, so he could flaunt this. He didn't really flaunt it when he was young, I mean, you know, he didn't.
I think it was known, but it was only at the castle's it was not publicly known. But as he got older and he came back from the military, he literally flaunted it. He had no women in his castles. He excused to have women in his castles, so you know, his this might be fun to talk about it here. The grandfather, of course, wanting to have more property for him, married him at sixteen illegally, they dragged this girl who
lived next door. So what do we say lived next door, meaning lived with thousands of acres next door When she was on a ride and her father had just died, and Judira and the thug grandfather and a bunch of their troop took her to a monkst I guess retreat and he married the two, which was totally illegal at
that time because they were fourth cousins. And then like two years later or three years later, the sug grandfather was able to give a huge amount of money to Rome, and instead of this being the marriage annulled, they then got married in a huge ceremony because I guess they were given a nice stipend for all of this in Rome, so he was married. He hated his wife from the beginning. He found her to be a total nuisance and really
never paid attention to her. It was just absolutely there a marriage of convenience too, But I think he was probably just awful to her, as you know, as later turns out, when he came back from the military and she went running off and they did have a daughter, they went running off to one of her castles, you know, way away from him.
Now, let's introduce a character that's very important to this story as well, which is his cousin Roger. And if I butcher this last name, correct me, please, Roger brief the Brickville.
You do it very well. That's exact English translation. Yes. And he came into the family, no, excellent. He came into the family from Normandy when he was a teenager. His father had, as everyone in Normandy did, fought the British, and all of them were either you know, murdered or they escaped, and he escaped, his whole family escaped, and being a cousin, a distant cousin from Normandy, he was taken into the ducreyon Dey household and so he lived with them ever since he was a teenager. And he
just hated Deray for many reasons. I think because he was bully, he was a small man, and I think that he was dominated by J. Deray, dominated all his life and also sexually abused by him. And consequently he was set to get back you know, one, his fortune that he lost when the British took over his father's castles. And two I think he realized when Jdray came back
from the military. He really was. He was quite I think, mentally ill, and he was just going to take advantage of him in any way he could, which he did. In a way. I think he is the true villain of the story because he had such way over this man, you know, and instead of helping him in any way, I mean, I know at that time, and that's another story we'll get into about mental illness, but he definitely
saw something that was someone that was weak. You know, like chickens do in a chicken coop, they know which one is down and they all pick on it. That's exactly what he did.
Yeah, let's let's wait for the PTSD and that complex uh psychology, you know, psychiatric sort of analysis later, because as we're gonna as people are going to hear about this book and about the times, I mean, I can't see how everybody wasn't suffering from PTSD actually just living at this time.
So that's why I know, I think they probably were in many ways, you know, brutal time.
Tell us about the hundred tell us about the Hundred Years War just basically and what that really amounted to in terms of conditions in France, and talk a little bit about because This is very important too. The barbarity that the French saw from the English invading and fighting on French soil.
Well, I think, you know, war hasn't changed that much unfortunately, but they definitely, I mean the British were out. What the one hundred Years War was fought for the crown of France, both the England and France. The King of
England and the King of France claimed France. Now the kings of England where most of them were, you know, descendants of French, the French, so there was there's a history to it, or they married someone French who was you know, a nobility or more the nobility, even you know, a princess. So it went on for over one hundred years,
different skirmishes. What the British would do is they would come over and they would do like horse charges where they would go through villages, burn the village is, kill the people, kill the animals, do whatever they could to frighten the public.
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Look, they would, you know, if they caught someone, they would impale them on a stake. They roasted people alive. I mean, it just it will remind you very much of isis. It's a very similar primitive way of scaring people into submission. But what it did in France, besides those that were absolutely you know, just walking around having lost their minds, which I think that a lot of
them probably did, was it brought resistance instead. You know, there was a great resistance to the English doing this. And I think in that way they just, you know, whether Joan of Arc became the savior, what issue really was the savior? These people truly believed they needed someone like that to to defend them from the English.
Now you talk about Charles and you talk about his you know, grasp on sanity here. So talk about this Charles, and I won't try to pronounce his last name, and so you go ahead and do that and talk about his mental state and his.
The King of France, Yes, yeah, there were many. There were the first the king and King Charles the sixth of France was beloved. He was apparently a lovely ruler. He was fair to the people. They adored him. What what happened was he went in sane and he had schizophrenia, and so there were periods when he was they just left him alone in the courtyard. No one would pay any attention to him except for his mistress, who took
care of him. And he was beloved, but he couldn't do anything about the war because he really was insane for so much of the time. When at times his brother ruled France, and that was the Duke of Orleans, and that was when he was more sane, and when he wasn't assane, his nephew, the Duke of Burgundy, ruled, and these two men hated each other and they were
brutal to each other. And Burgundy, when it's just, I mean, everything is so intriguing with this Burgundy found that the Duke of Orleans was the queen's lover, and so when he came out of her mansion one night, he had seventeen assailants knock him off his horse and chop him to death. And that's the kind of life that these people lived. So the king was really quite useless to
do anything. And there was a brutal civil war that went on between Charles's nephew, the Duke of Burgundy, and Charles's brother, the Duke of Orleans, and it was brutal. It was just brutal. So he finally died, although he had a he had three sons, and two of them were in the custody of the Duke of Burgundy when he took over the reign of France, you know, temporarily, and they both mysteriously died in his with him when
he was taking care of them. And he sent for the third son, and he was living down in Aragon with the family, and he had been married at fourteen, and they said he must come to court, and Aragon wouldn't give him up. They would not let him go book they knew what would happened to him. He would be murdered. He was a very weak person. He never knew. I mean, his mother, who was a Bavarian, played on
whether he was legitimate or not. She apparently had notorious affairs with everybody that was a noble in France, and so she kept on saying, well, he's not legitimate. And it was Joan of Arc who came to the king, even though he at first you pretended who he wasn't the king or the dolphin, and she said, you are the legitimate ruler, and I will make you king.
Now you talk about Let's go just back a little bit here, because we've got to make sure that people understand that Jill Derray becomes this decorated, awarded, recognized war hero, a knight, to spot these battles, and then with Charles in this really weak position France being besieged by English, by the English, losing his kingdom, and this seventeen year old peasant girl that's supposedly a virgin who says she
has a vision. And at that meeting, I'll let you continue with what she actually says to Charles in the company of Jill Day, this hero, this professional knight, tell us about this actual what she said. What was Charles' reaction and what was Jill's Jill's reaction.
Well, you know, Charles at first disguised himself so that so that Joan of Arc wouldn't know which one was the Dauphin of France. She knew immediately and she went to him where he was hiding between his courtiers, and she said, I will make you king of France. You are the legitimate ruler. You were the legitimate son of the king. And jild Guy was just blown over by her, blown over by her. He was blown over by her comments.
The king was not quite as you know, he and his all his courtiers weren't sure what to make of her, and it took a while for him to finally decide, you know, he had to grasp but something, and he did finally grasp at her what she said, because he I don't think where else was he going to go, you know, he was really all his court was being were just waiting to be driven out of France by the English, so he was grasping its drawers when he
went along with this. Although je Derai believed in her immediately and she did make him protect her of her on the battlefield, she saw something in Gill, you know, she saw something, and he remained valiant and loyal to her through his whole time with her on the battlefield, even though he'd been so.
Yeah, sorry, it was really fascinating. Would you talk about that? Charles and others were, he was skeptical, and so they she had her examined to make sure that she was a virgin.
Yes, and and.
Also that she did have a little bit of a track record because she had predicted a defeat at the hands of the English previously and so and then someone had informed Charles about this, so she had this little bit of mojo going on before she walked in there and continue.
So that's true, that is true. But they you know that, I think they just would have loved her to the court, would have loved her to fall on the feet, because you know, I mean, anyone that wasn't a noble was considered just one step above chattel. So they couldn't believe that the Dolphin of France was speaking to an first in a literate passage, who secondly was a woman. It was a girl, yeah, so yes, And the other thing, I mean, it is very funny because if you were
if they found that she was not a virgin. Of course it would have been they would have killed her because they would have thought that she had had intercourse with the devil, because that's.
What sure's always the thought.
So was quite a time, quite a time, but it reminds me so much of our time today, unfortunately. But yet so finally, you know, Charov gave her a command of you know, his army, and that must have been quite something for the hardened soldiers. But she, i guess, was so devout and so really just you know, had just one idea that God was going to save France. That these people all rallied behind her. Finally and really, did you know, she really inspired the French.
The thing is when she went to Charles and in the presence of Gilderay, she had said she had that
she was speaking to the saints. So she prayed to the saints, Saint Catharine and Margaret, and she had had God's command to save his king, Shia his king, and so then yes, and so what it established as well as when she went to the army again, another fascinating part of your book is that these soldiers that have lived a life of basic debauchery, and these had rampant bestiality, and these guys were the epitome of pretty close to criminals that she inspired them to take confession and to
repent for their sins. And the next thing, you know, she had this army of former thugs singing hymns and anthems.
Yes, and and also then instead of the banner that they always held up, you know, when they went into battle, they then had her beautiful banner of Christ on the you know, and all the mendicant friars were carrying this instead of the soldiers. So it's just it's it's amazing, and you can understand how the English must have been
frightened to death of her with something like that. How could someone get And a lot of the Catholic Church was too, because how does someone talk to, you know, the saints, And if she can talk so easily to them, then many of the priests and the Catholic Church would be redundant, they wouldn't be needed, so many of them took the side of the English that she should be burned as a witch.
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There is a siege of Orleans, which was you know, both the English and the French wanted. The French wanted to keep it. The English wanted to you know it because it would mean really that that was the end of the French, because it was so important. It's pivotal. And the siege had been going on for quite a while and all the nobles had left Orleans. The people
that were there were starving to death. And Joan of Arc was able with her army to come into town because there was one gate that they could go over, which is the Burgundy Gate, which was the only gate left open that the French could get food through the
Burgundy Gate. She came in with her troop and absolutely rallied the Oron people, and she was able after I think it was a week and many battles and we could either go into the battles or we don't have to, was able to turn the tide against the English, and they fought so well the French and destroyed impregnable castles that the English had that the English turned the next day, this is seven days later after the battle started and
walked away left the siege. The siege was over. And they think it was all because of her, and all because of you know, the really the French put themselves instead of running from battle, which they had been doing, they absolutely defended Ordeon and all the places around Ordeon to their success. And from there, and this was when she was seventeen, so she won one of the biggest battles in the world at age seventeen, as had never been,
you know, a commander of anything. And from there she went on with Dray at her side and some other very loyal comrades to take the whole Noir Valley which had been absolutely ridden with English. And from there she was able to have a pathway so that Charles could come up through the Noir and be crowned king at rens Ri I m s. And it was a very
emotional ceremony. It lasted seven it lasted five hours. And the interesting thing was, you know, she wrapped herself around Charles's legs and said, I have accomplished what I wanted, and that was the last time her voices ever said
you will accomplish what you were made to do. So that's quite interesting because she went on to try to capture Paris, and just you know, Charles is now Charles King Charles he had advisers who had sold out the town to the English and made sure that she couldn't capture Paris for one place, what is yeah, sorry, go ahead, no, no, what it's going to say with that was right after his coronation, Charles made Gidlay one of his marshals at France, so at age twenty four he was made in marshall
of French, which today would be equivalent to a US general, a five star general in the US Army at age twenty four. So that was you know, I mean, that's extraordinary. He went on. He refused to go back to the
Noire with Charles. He went on with Joan to Paris, where she did not win the offensive and she was wounded and she asked Jim to be with her, which he was, and as he was with her, there was word that the king insisted that he come back to his castle in other words, what happened was his advisors did not say he did. They didn't want you to
go there because they were afraid. Between Joan and Jiu and the Parisians, who many of them hated, being you know, they were dominated by the English, probably Paris would fall to the French, and they did not want that to happen, so they made Juke go back to the castles with the king, and Joan of Arc soon after was at another siege in Campaigna, and she was taken prisoner by the English. And then she was finally brought to Rouen, which is again, you know, one of the very sad stories.
She was kept in a horrible prison. She was not guarded by you know, women, She was guarded by drunk, drunken soldiers, and they had her in a cage most of the time because she was so dangerous. They felt that's how they kept their dangerous prisoners. And the trial went on for six months. She had no representation. She had to defend herself, and she did it I think quite well until I think they just wore her down.
They just wore her down. So she confessed to you hearing voices and she thought if she would do that they would not burn her at the stake, which they kept on threatening to do. She thought she would be then put in a prison where there would be you know, nuns to guard her. They didn't. They took her back to the same prison. They took away her female attire, and she had no recourse but to put on this old, grungy male attire. And they accused her of being a
transvestite for doing that, and that was a sin. And since she was a relapsed sinner, because she'd already confessed about her voices, gave the church the permission to, along with the English, have her burned at the stake.
Now what was jille Day's reaction to all of this, Well.
Of course he could. He and two other of her very loyal captains tried to attack Ruon and get rid of the English. They could not do. It was very heavily fortified. He even tried to rescue her in the castle, and that rescue was found out that he was going to do that, and the English threatened to throw her into the law in a bag if he even tried to rescue her, so she was burned at the stake.
He was absolutely devastated, devastated, and he and these other two captains were able to make great headway after her death into Ruent. They still never captured Luon. And then he was brought by the king to do other battles, which is in the Marne, very near where the where the Second World War went on, and he was able to raise a siege there, which again made him another here, you know, he was he remained a hero, but his
heart wasn't in the battle any longer. And then there was this huge, ferocious battle that went on and he sent his brother instead of himself to defend the French, and that's when the king dismissed him from from his position and from the army, and then it was downhill from then on. I mean the death of Joan of Arc.
That he could not save her, that he had been so close to her, and there was I think some almost myscal tie between them because he had seen her, you know, pray for the wind for example in Orleon where the big battle went on to shift and he was just astounded as the winds shifted. You know, you have no idea, who knows what really happened, but there was some kind of mystical you know, the feeling of
his ends. She had also sat in front of him that the person in Orleans, the commander of the English, would not die a bloody death. Well, in effect he didn't. He drowned in the Loire because the bridge where he was collapsed and he had on all his armor and
he couldn't swim. And then the prophecy of course that the Dauphin would be made king, and it cemented Jill's feelings about Joan of Arc and I think the world just fell apart for him when his heroine, you know, who was supposedly God's you know, almost a handmaiden, was killed as she was, and I think he snapped. I think he just snapped. And whether it was you know, PTSD, whether it was some other mental illness, I think from
there on he just became a totally different person. And his reaction to all of this just I mean, you know, I think he had flashbacks about her all the time. He also had this huge production five years after her death in Oron, you know, which was called the Siege of Ordinance, as he called it, and she was the heroine of this. I think it was really a eulogy
to her. It was also to show that he had been such a brave warrior, and he spent all his fortune with this, with this production, it was free to everyone in France who could come to watch it and who wanted to eat and drink, and everyone came from all over the place to eat and drink, and he paid for it all. And here was this du Brickville, who I mentioned, the cousin who was so evil, just saying, oh, go ahead, do this, do this, do this, when it absolutely bankrupt him.
Now you talk about him leaving the Joan of ar Ark was the handmaiden of God himself in this crusade to save France. And now after war and after time and after disappointment, you could talk about he snapped this is he explores his faith in the completely opposite direction one hundred and eighty degrees. So we talked about someone named Prelati, and so talk about his interest in some of these things by virtue of meeting a man named Prelatti.
He was interested in black magic before he met Prilate. Who is this Italian who was apparently gorgeous, a young younger man than Deray at this point, and he was gorgeous, and he absolutely bemboozled Debray said yes, yes, we will get your money. You know, the devil will bring you gold,
and so they became steamy lovers. He did everything that Pilate suggested, he do nothing seemed to bring on the devil, and Parloate keep on saying, well, that's because you know, you keep all these statuettes of the Virgin Mary and everybody else, and you have to get rid of those because otherwise the devil's not going to show himself to you. And so then the devil still didn't show himself, even though he got rid of some of these statues. So Prolate said, well, you know you have to kill. You
have to kill. You have to kill five people, and they should be babies, and that will be to the devil. Will know that, you know, then you really believe in the devil. So unfortunately I did. He killed a little baby and he took the parts with Prilate to show it to the devil, and the devil still didn't show up.
And I guess they both still being you know, there still had that Catholic religion had been ingrained in both of them, obviously, because everyone was ingrained that way in the Middle Ages, and they had such feelings of guilt that they did bury the body in sacred soil, and he never again, you know, sought the devil's help in that way with killing. But he always used that as a temporary thing. He never truly believed in the devil.
I mean, he was really a very devout Catholic, but he felt that the devil was necessary to bring back his gold. I mean, he was that crazy that this is his way of thinking. And of course Prilate and to Brickville, you know, I mean they were going to go along with this because they were getting money from him, just beside him spending all this money. You know, they were going to just bleed him, you know, to death
for money and no Alatti. Yeah, I'm not sure frankly, whether Prilate, as much as a scoundrel as he was, was involved in the murder of besides this one child. I think it was more to Brickville and another distant cousin who godd a day on to do all the mass murders of children. I think they were the ones. And whether Parlate was involved, that has never been known. I mean I never saw that in the trial. I never saw it in the trial transcript. He always, you know,
he kept on saying. He even told the judges he could bring Frost the devil to them, and that really just doomed him for saying that. But there was never anyone who said he was there when these murders went on of the children, that you know, the torture and murder of children.
But he didn't know.
Go ahead, no, no, I'm just gonna say. He definitely was a steamy lover and I mean just adored this man, adored him. He bamboozled die and just you know, knew how to as they all how to manipulate him.
Now you talk about Roger de Britville, and another person that moved in named Decil, and then a couple other women, Henriette and so tell us about the four people and what are some of the things that they were recruited to do, and then that they witness.
Right, Dbrickville and Dacilly were distant cousins, and they were Dacilly he knew from the last battle that he was in he must have been a very brave warrior too. But he saw, you know, he realized that was not totally well, and he said, sure, I'm going to come live with you with your castle. Why not? So you have Debriefil and Decilly were the first who helps do all these murders. Then you have Henriette was actually that
is not a female. He never did. He got rid of every female that was in his entourage and including his wife was know sent packing to another castle that she owned. These were two servants of his, Henriette and Coyote. They were two servants of his, and they I don't think they had all their wheels going forward. I think they were probably not half wits, but not full wits, if that makes sense to you. And so they just like a dog or like dogs, they adored their master.
They would do anything for him. And so when he started to kill these children, you know, they just went along with it. They just they all witnessed these killings and no one did anything to stop them. And that to me is the most amazing thing. You know, most serial killers today it's all alone that they do these kind of dreadful, uh you know, murders. But this was group group what do you call it? Group depravity, which
is on the pail in my opinion. And so you look at these, you look at the last two that you mentioned, Heliott and Corio, and I think they just they had They didn't know right from wrong. How you don't, I'm not sure, but I think they were just too craze, sort of not all there. They didn't know real right
from wrong. The other two, the brick Fiel and d Silly, certainly did and they led on deray and I think they enjoyed the killing as much as he did, but they knew when to stop, they could pull themselves away from it. It became it became absolutely he had to kill. He needed to kill, which is so terrible, and no one stopped him.
I don't know if I can give anybody any credit at all after some of this stuff, and I'll just read it because you didn't really talk about it. But he slipped their throats, dismembered, decapitated, sexually brutalized them. The groans and and suffering is what most excited him. He pulled out the eyes of one child, crushed his skull before he had an orgasm, smashed in another's chest, letting him bleed to that so he could wash his hands and beard in the child's body cavity. And sometimes the
victims didn't exhibit enough pain to stimulate his libido. I know I'm talking about the trial, but still we've got to wait to establish exactly what we're talking about here.
Yeah, you know that's not very different from what you have enough serial killer. You know, you have talked to so many people about serial killers. That seems to be a pattern with serial killers. You know, they want more and more and they're not said, the more they kill, the more they need more stimulation. And that's I think what is seen with him the same way. You know, what first started to satisfy him was no by the end of his killings, I mean, just gruesome, ghastly gasoline.
But you read you know, I mean there are like six traits of serial killers and that is one of them. And they do know right from wrong. So he knew right from wrong. And after one thing with with Dorey. And I think this goes back to his upbringing as a Catholic, you know, in a very devout Catholic after the murder of a child, you know, when he was not drunk anymore, because I think he did a lot of these when he had a lot of a drink in him, he would wake up and he would just
have terrible guilt sillings. But of course then by the end of the day that would pass and he would do it all over again. You know, it's like a habit. I mean, you know, I think people that like to drink, you know, they can be fine until suddenly, you know, it comes back and they have to drink again. And it's the same thing. It's he was sick. He was very, very sick.
You talk in the book about a macabre beauty contest with severed heads. Tell us just a little bit about that demonstrates.
I mean, so you know, after the murder, he would have the heads, the ones that he liked the most, put on his mantlepiece, like you know, decoration, and then he would get into one of his very spotless, beautiful robes and he would have his henchmen decide which was the most beautiful, and he would take the head off the mantle and he would kiss the head and tell that the head to you know, go go pray to God for me. Was what he would say all the time.
And it just I mean, you know, these children who must have gone through such suffering, who did look probably like little angels. They were probably fixed so that their faces were just beautiful again. And he always picked as his victims the most beautiful, the most beautiful child, you know, it would have done. The child that was very ugly would have done very well in those days, they wouldn't
have been hit one of his victims. He loved beautiful children, and that again goes back to his probably loving everything that is beautiful, you know, with silks and tapestries to gold and everything, and the fact that that's the same thing. Yes, no, no, go on please.
At the same time, what you talk about is that he had these beautiful boys that would come into the castle and I think sing for him. Yet he wouldn't kill those.
He would be yeah, family. And this is the thing that are saying about serial killers. They usually kill those people that they have no relationship with. So the children that came in and were his lovely little you know, his choir. He loved these children. He lavished them with gifts, and they would have sex with him when he couldn't
find anyone else. But he wouldn't kill them because they were his family, whereas these others urchins for the most part, you know, he had no relation with him, so they were chattel. They were like, you know, just your sheep, your goats, your chickens.
Now you talk about this, you talk about them being chattel. What kind of numbers are we talking about? So that we can just demonstrate how prolific a killer he was and talk about how many years are we talking about this debauchery and debasement continued. What time frame were we talking about and what kind of numbers?
About eight years? He left the military in fourteen thirty two. He was apprehended and tried in fourteen forty. So it went on for eight years. And in the trials, in this secular trial, they mentioned a certain number in the ecclesiastical in the Yeah, in the ecclesiastical trial, I think they say it could be three hundred, four hundred more. And the thought is it could have been up to one thousand, could have been up to a thousand children, So and yeah, go ahead, no, and and so there's
no definite number. But you're not just talking about, you know, one hundred, two hundred and three hundred children. And they were mainly boys of course.
Unfortunately, now very much like serial killers that we all know and are very aware of this, Jill and his his co conspirators and collaborators went after the poor, not after, the rich not after? And what were some of the ruses, and how could this have continued for so long? Tell us how this could have continued, and some of the ruses and some of the explanations for all these children that were gone.
Well, when anyone would confront him because they could see that the child wasn't there anymore, if it was a family member, he would say, oh, well, you know they he's probably using them as his valet in some other town, you know, So they wouldn't obviously in those days, you couldn't travel to another town and you didn't have connections in another town to find out he would have. Even this woman, her name was really Bird of Prey. She would pray upon these children, just say, I'm taking you
to this castle. You deserve your so lovely, you deserve a better life. Come with me, and this noble is going to give you a wonderful life. And so little urchins, would you know. She'd hold their hand and probably give them a candy or something, and they would go to his castle. He told he had his henchmen go into villages and they would stop someone with the family and they'd say, you know, your child deserves a better life,
and we can give it to him. And then they would just take this child to Gendervet and he would perform his horrible acts upon them, and then they would murder him. And the families did not get that upset at first, because they truly believed, you know, they honestly believed that their child was living in the life of luxury and would be home to see them at some point, you know, would come home. But then it became overwhelming, and I guess there was still talk. Oh along the border,
you know, people still did talk. I mean, you do get used from the next town and they would say, you know, twenty of our boys are missing. Well, did you know twenty of our boys are missing? You know? And I think this was beginning of the end for him, that people really began to realize whenever a child disappeared, either he was there or his henchmen were there, and it probably would have gone on forever, except he then
very stupidly. It's a long complicated story, but one of his castles, he thought that the Duke of Brittany had bought, you know, and had gotten it at a really good price, and he was furious because he had sold it, you know, he thought to someone other than the Duke of Brittany.
So he went into this castle and threw a tonsured priest into the dungeon along with one of the Duke's people, and that was enough for the Catholic Church to really start to investigate all about him what he had been doing. And they went to different villages and people would come forward and say, my child has disappeared. The last place he was seen is there was a henchman of Judea that was there, or he took him to the castle saying that he would be his valet. We've never seen
him again. And there were hundreds of these people that came forward, so they were able to make a case against him, and they a lot of.
Yeah, and there was poor people that had pleaded to a certain bishop as well that at that same time there was so many reports and that even the bishop that wasn't really concerned about these people being who they were yet until I had heard so many stories that it seemed to add up to something.
It had added up. And then there was another bishop who thought nothing of it either until his own nephew disappeared from the castle where he'd gone to learn how to sing and he went to the high bishop, the Bishop of Nant, and told him this, and then they began to you know, really began to question the saying. And you know, of course, this man, you have to understand too, Jinda was the richest, even though he was losing all his land. You know, it was the richest
baron in France. So of course to have a trial against him would be wonderful because then you know, the rest of the nobility could take over his properties. So's the combination of everything. And I mean, I think that the French were outraged. I think if he'd committed three or four murders, you wonder how many of them had done the same thing. To be honest, when you're committing three hundred, four hundred, five hundred, that's a different story.
The French, even at that time, were civilized enough, even though there was such barbarity that went on that that isn't outrage. I mean it is an outrage to outrage against their civilization. And it made them weep, made France weep.
Now, he went from castle to castle. He didn't confine this horror, and the chamber of horrors was these castles, and there was literally, as you described bodies. There was nowhere to hide all of these bodies and these corpses, these castles, and there was so many victims of so many people coming forward. So tell us about the actual prosecution of him, the investigation. Tell us more about the investigation of A. Gille Deray and his cohorts.
Well, I think they, you know, as I was saying that, first of all, the Bishop of Nant took down all these you know, took down everybody's testimony. And not only did he do it, but the Duke of Brittany had his own inquiry into all the same wrongdoings, and they both came to the conclusion that there really was a case against this man. And so they brought him into Nant in handcuffs, which you know, absolutely startled everyone because they had him walk. They didn't let him on horseback.
He walked for miles handcuffed. Here is the Marshal of France, the richest baron, Charles, the King of France's friend, Joan of ARC's protector, being handcuffed. So it's a wild trial that went on. The ecclesiastical trial took place and it lasted over thirty days. The secular trial lasted twenty four hours. And the reason being is that they used all the testimony the secular trial from the ecclesiastical trial because they'd had so many witnesses come forward and testify, and they
used all that as evidence against him. And the secular trial was the more really serious trial because it was for murder. The secular trial the excuse me, the ecclesiastical trial was at that time it was not considered light. He was a heretic, you know, he sodomized children, he communed, he tried to commune with the devil, and all that was.
You know, obviously he was found guilty of all of that as well, but he just, you know, he thought that he was going to be able to pay off the jurors as they were called, they were really the judges, and that he took this very lightly when he first was arrested, because they kept him in this beautiful chamber and he thought, you know, he'd probably be for heresy and he could pay them off for you know, doing
heretical things. And then it wasn't until he got into the trial where he realized the judges had hoodwigged him because because of heresy, he couldn't have a lawyer. I think because of heresy, he couldn't have written statements, and he finally decided he was going to you know, just prolonged the trial and hoped that the King of France was going to disband it because he had been such a hero. Well, of course, the King of France wasn't
going to do anything of the kind. And finally, when they threatened him with excommunication, which in those days was just almost a death sentence in itself, because if you were excommunicated, no one could talk to you, no one could do anything but you. You were literally an outlaw. He finally came back and confessed to all his crimes, and not only did he confess, but he embellrassed them. So he absolutely talked about everything that he could remember
that he did. And there is whether it is true or not, it's I put it in there as in my book because I just thought it was so dramatic and it made sense that the Bishop of Nant, after j Deray confesses that and Christ on the Cross was behind them all the judges, he goes to the Christ on the Cross and covers him with a robe because he didn't want him to have to hear all this horrible testimony by jugra, which is just I mean incredible.
It's interesting they have such a sophisticated legal system, but very interesting. How do we employ torture to really get in a confession. They really have this one up on these people and that they will torture you to get the confession. But in that torture it is very I guess as opposed to other torture that might net you negligible results. This torture gets the truth from these people. And even the pilate who who is determined at court,
is not as involved as these other people. He has to make an appearance and has to answer in court as well as these other coolhorts that are tortured and then make full confessions.
Right, And whether they were tortured or not, I don't think they were. I think honestly that the threat of torture threats, yeah, was so great to these people. I mean, can you imagine what they used, just even you know the strap pedal, We can just go into the everts and where they put your two hands behind you and then they strapped you up with a rope and started jiggling you until you've just lost all control. I mean, that is bad enough besides the rack, you know, pinions and everything else.
Yeah, you know, I think it's very I mean, yeah, there was a threat and also what was important too despite his stature, and I think he found this. I think it sounds that he found this surprising too, that he was also threatened with torture as well, wasn't he Yes?
Yes, yes, and he could not. I mean, you know, they knew enough, all of them about torture that they just didn't want to have to go through that. So better to confess and actually be hung than be tortured.
Now he has, you talk about he had a different approach when he went to court, and first he defied the court. It was very interesting how he he tries to dismiss it and he's so arrogant and that no one has any authority. And then when he realizes the predicament he's in, he changes his tune. Now that he's in this trial and there's no hope, what is his sentiment then, how does he counter this? What is his strategy?
I think his strategy totally and how clever was you know, as I say, he was crazy, but he wasn't crazy. He used remorse because that in the fifteenth century, if you could show total remorse for a crime people, really, you know, you were with God then. And I think he used such remorse. I mean, he cried, he you know, he said he just felt so badly for everything he did that the people truly believed him, and everybody got down on their knees after he confessed and prayed to
God that his soul wouldn't be with God. So he he, you know, confessed so that the Duke would would favor him, Christ would favor him, the people would, you know, look upon him with you know that he was he really was going to be with God.
At the same time, he knows that his fate is it's not something again, he's not he's not in a court where it isn't a foregone conclusion that he's going to be killed. So tell us he has a strategy to play on the sympathies of people, and you know, so that he goes out in terms of the way he believed he really was, which was a hero. Tell us about this a little bit more about the strategy and how does it work. Well.
There two differences with the ecclesiastical you know, he wouldn't have been he would not have been hung, you know, with them finding him guilty, which they did, but with the secular he because it was murder, he would be hung or he would be whatever. And well we can talk about that because it's very interesting. He was not at his secular trial. They brought in a lawyer for him because this is a secular trial. This wasn't where he's being tried for heresy, so he could have a lawyer.
And the man made an incredible, you know defense because he said he is not in control of his faculties. He cannot really you cannot judge him that there is the devil is working on him. But in those days, it was very interesting to read about this. You know that everyone looked at those who were insane, almost like
it was the plague itself. And before there were asylums to take care of people who were insane, anyone who could afford it put their people on boats, and they were called ships of fools, and they sailed around the Mediterranean for years, and then they dump off these fools, as they called them, in towns where they weren't known, because then they let them just wander around the streets. So there was great prejudice against anyone who was called insane.
So they didn't think Gendre was insane. They thought that the devil had you know, had touched him instead. And the only thing that I think was a foregrown conclusion, that the foregone conclusion that they were going to find him guilty. But what they deliberated, which is fascinating, was whether to decapitate him or to burn him or hang him you know where he was. And of course decapitation would have been very quick and it would have been over.
So I think what they wanted to do was show that he really needed to be made an example of, and he had to be hung.
Now he goes on to again ironically and almost ridiculously almost lecture children and a habit place for people coming up to avoid some of his pitfalls. So tell us a little bit about this.
Yes, that's in his confession during the ecclesiastical trial, and he tells all of those who have children not to you know, not to pamper them, and not let them be brought up as he was, that he was just indulged in everything and he could do whatever. Don't let them eat nice sweets and keep them you know, dressed very simply, not like he was. And he goes on and on like that, and then he says that it was hippocrust, which was the drink of the princes and
kings in the fifteenth century. It was a wine, and it was spiced with ginger and all sorts of other probably was delicious. And he said, you know that that's what kicked him, kept him in his state that he could kill as he did. And he said, you cannot let anyone drink that. Well, of course, I think he was just conforming to you know, what the court expected him to say nothing about, like he was on the you know, the the knight's knife's edge between sanity and insanity.
But this is what caused him to do all this, which, of course it wasn't you know, he was insane. He was insane that he was very clever.
After trial to his admission for why he did the things he did, he said was for his own carnal delights from a curse of the blackest of stars. And right from the very beginning you point out in the book that he really did think, because of his parents dying, that he was cursed, didn't he.
But you know, all the Europeans in those days believed in the stars, and they, honestly farmers up to kings looked at the sky to see where their star was. And I think he just felt that he was born under a black star, a black planet that and that's what caused all his misfortune. And when he says in his out of court confession, he said that, you know he had no control, it was this black planet that controlled what he did. Well, you're talking about your inner psyche,
you know when you say that. But that's what they all believed. They believed in this stars. I mean, I think in Shakespeare you see that a lot, isn't it where that comes out too, that they all believed that.
Sure, what was the fate of his cohorts? And tell us about Jill Day's execution fourteen forty the two.
As I call them, the ones that weren't all there, you know, his loyal servants, who were like dogs really to him. They were not totally I think equipped with a brain. They were found guilty as well, and they were all frought to be hung and burned. They both hung and burned at the same time. And they were hung, and he wanted to go first because he wanted them to see that it wasn't a ruse. You know, he wasn't going to say please, I'm the Lord. You know
I can't be burned to death. That wasn't the case. He went. They hung him first, and then the other two were hung and burned. But he was taken out of the ashes because of his remorse, and he was placed in a cart and he was brought to a beautiful church, and his remains were there until the French Revolution with all the other sort of the nobility of Brittany. But the other two were just there there ashes were
because they were called reprobates. They were thrown to the wind, but they have you know what plays all through this too, which is incredible with the book or the bells, because he's when he was christened. They're these beautiful bells in the church that are ringing. When he dies, they're these very doleful bells ringing, you know, the death of all these these people. So it's quite incredible. But back to the other two. Dussini disappeared and no one ever knows
what happened to him. De Brickville was such a conniver. He went to work for Jilliereis was his daughter. At age twelve, they married to someone fifty years old, because there was still such property. They didn't want her land taken away. And he went to Dubritzville, went to work for this husband, and he so persuaded the husband that he was innocent, that he was able to get letters to the king, and he was pardoned. He said, because
he was so young, it was all Gidegra's fault. And he made him go pick up all these people for him, and the king believed him. And so it's really, as I say, the sinister part of the whole book is that there is this Jidai who is just criminal. I mean, excuse me, the Brickville Roger de Buckfel that was able to get away with all of this, get away with it.
Yeah. See, it was incredible to me as a reader of more current murder books written about or the trials, as the sophistication of the trial in the defense that he had at you call it a secular trial or civil trial, right, that defense of insanity at that time we're talking about six hundred years ago, that sophistication in that kind of defense. And then again in the defense like you say, he was a wily character that the Brickville could mount that oh, I was oppressed, I was dominated,
I was bullied, and I was forced. So six hundred years later these defenses, I guess, are not so new.
Yes, no, no, and not as clever as six hundred years later, are they?
No, But just then and there are some major parallels. Like you had mentioned to you alluded to that that seemed to be that even though at six hundred years ago, that there are some parallels with what is happening now and what we seem to be moving towards. I would say in society.
I think just the brutality that was shown in that era and what you see which is going on with ISIS now is so very similar. But with Deray and what he did, of course I think it was because he was mentally insane. I think Isis. On the other hand, their slaughter is simpler. They really they just you know, they're out to turn the world back almost to medieval times.
And if you don't believe in what they're saying, you know, just like with the Catholic Church with the torture that they used with the inquisitions, you know, then we'll chop off your head and we'll torture you to do it.
Well, the thing is it doesn't give credit to all the people though that were abused, sexually assaulted, raped again, brutalized that do not become brutalizers. Is very valid. But if one, one small, minute, minute amount of women who turned vengeful, we would have an epidemic of revenge and we would have a legacy of misery that would would rival what we have right now. So you know, again
I see that there is an effect. But then again, somebody could say that about Isola as well, that they were raised in a war zone for their whole life and given a machine gun at ten years old. You know there has to be there has to be a little bit more. When he really did sit on the bellies of these little children, hundreds of them, and said again, like a psychopath. Again, you call the book a psychopath, call him a psychopath. He really laughed. And these other cohorts,
of course, didn't do anything. They continued procuring victims for this madman. Again. But when you start practicing, you know, communing with the devil, and you want to conjure up Satan himself again, it's hard to justify what happens later as PTSD when you are practicing Satanism, and trying to evoke the devil and meanwhile doing what you're doing with children again like a party, like some bizarre horror evil party.
No, I'm with you. I think it was more what the PTSD, if it was PTSD, if it was some other illness. What I think it did was it provoked his latent psychopathy. You know, from the time as a child he was, he had that problem. I mean, you see when he was left alone, you know, no one paid attention to him, and he had all those sort
of feelings that I think were brought out. And no, it wouldn't be the PTSD, it be that the other you know, problems that he had that would have let him go on like that, and.
How there certainly seems to be a mental break though you say he had a relationship but nothing untoward with Joan of Arc and he was this honorable soldier warrior. Again, he exhibited some things when he was a kid with his grandfather that was encouraging of that sort of thing. It didn't seem that unusual. But what he became and what he devolved into is is unbelievable. So there there seems to be a break after from war, and certainly I'm not going to diminish the effect PTSD of war itself.
I'm not here to say that, you know, there definitely was something that triggered this incredible detour from where he was going in his life to where he ended up.
Yes, no, and I think we all feel that, and no one can be sure. No, it's so many centuries for one, you know, you just can't be sure.
So that's incredible.
Well, this was must have been an go ahead.
Now, I was just going to say. The extraordinary thing to which I think with this book is that the people you know, that they could forgive, that the parents of victims could honestly pray for his soul and fast, which was the custom of that time, for three days so that his soul would go to heaven, is just amazing. I mean, I think today you do not find I think you still do find some, but not as much as people you know, being able to forgive like that.
It was masterful on his part, and I think that he really believed and felt it important that he had this legacy. Obviously it was in his best interest to believe that he, if he did, truly was sorry for his sin of murdering all these children that he would
be forgiven by God. And it was testament to the power of the faith of these people that after hearing about their own children and their co their fellow poor, the slaughter, and the delight in reveling in the murders that he did, and yet, like you say, incredible transformation too, then forgive him. It was incredible, incredible story to be able to go from one emotion to ready to lynch this evil demon Frankenstein, to forgiveness.
Yes, just incredible, I think. I mean, if nothing else, that to me is almost the most powerful part of the story. It's very hard at.
It's quite strange as well too. Yes, I want to thank you for coming on and talking about Bluebird. A blue Beard pardon me, brave warrior, brutal psychopath. I knew I was going to do that, blue Beard. For those that we might like to know about anything else that you've written. And if you have a Facebook page, or if you are willing to be contacted by people, how might they do.
That they can? I do have a Facebook page. It's probably the best to do it on the blue Beard page. I also my website is bluebearddebook dot com and my email address is there, and I'd love to hear from people.
That would be great. I want to thank you again for coming on and talking about this incredible story contained blue Beard and again an incredible read. And thank you for this interview. Blue Beard, brave warrior, brutal psychopath.
Thank you very much, Valerie, thank you, thank you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Good night night. So now the program is over, and that means it's time to get free snacks at your door from nature Box, with over one hundred options to choose from. Get the bold flavors you crave and feel smarter about snacking. Go to naturebox dot com slash true murder to start your free trial today. That's naturebox dot com slash true murder.
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