Murderers Headless Ghost Haunts
Saint Auvent, France.
 |
This scene takes place on the sidewalk in front of the
Maison d'Arret in Limoges on March 3rd, 1937. Henri Dardillac, a 27-year-old
farmer, has been executed about an hour ago and Deibler's team is preparing to
load the guillotine back into the fourgon which has just returned from the
cemetery. Henri Sabin is dipping a sponge in a water bucket to wash blood off a
part, while André Obrecht is preparing to load another into the carriage. |
December 1st, 1936, 27-year-old Henri Dardillac was driven home by a wine merchant named Martial Fredon, with another passenger in the car. They had attended a Cognac Fair, and the wine merchant had made a huge sum of money. Dardillac witnessed the wine merchant’s wallet and decided he wanted it for himself. He brutally murdered the wine merchant and the other passenger, an old man. Dardillac was eventually captured for the murders, but the wallet of money was never recovered.
On 3 March 1937, Henri Dardillac heard
Mass at the Maison d'Arret in Limoges (located today at 17 Winston Churchill
Place.) His lawyer came to see him, and the executioner. The guillotine was
waiting on the street outside the prison, with 10, 000 spectators waiting to
witness the beheading of Dardillac. He was marched through the gates of the
prison, placed into the device, and within minutes, the blade dropped and ended
his life. The crowd cheered and whistled at the sight. Henri Dardillac becomes
the 385th client of the Limoges executioner. He was the last to be guillotined
in a public square.[1]
In 1937, cable news in Australia reported that a French
village was being haunted by an executed murderer. The convicted murderer was
guillotined at the beginning of 1937 at Saint-Auvent, near Limoges in
west-central France.
The family of the murderer, his wife and two children reported a haunting in their home. They heard eerie noises, knocking, loud
stamping, the rattle of chains and the chinking sound of broken glass from the
garret (attic or loft) between 9pm and midnight, every night.
Fearing that local people were
terrorising the family, armed police began to guard the home, and they too heard
the unusual noises. When the police went to investigate the sounds, they
suddenly ceased. A priest was called into the home. He went into the garret and
blessed it with holy water. It was afterwards reported that the noises
continued but were much more subdued.[2]
[1]
‘80 years ago, the guillotine cut off its
last head in a public square in Limoges,’ Le Populaire, Du Centre,
(2017),
https://www.lepopulaire.fr/limoges-87000/politique/il-y-a-80-ans-la-guillotine-tranchait-sa-derniere-tete-en-place-publique-a-limoges_12305432/.
[2]
'Headless Ghost of Murderer', Northern Standard, (16 April 1937),
p. 12.
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