#papin

January 13, 2021

Christine and Lea Papin have what most sisters have: an unbreakable bond. But can that bond be so unbreakable even murder can’t get in the way of it? I often have a fascination with siblings who commit crimes for the simple fact of how two people who are blood related have both become so evil? I guess it goes along with the nature vs nurture argument that is quite prevalent in psychology and criminology. To me, this shows evidence that both nature and nurture can be at fault here -- were the Papin sisters just born evil? Or did their life experiences shape them into who they became? 

Again, this is an older case aka my favourite kind of cases to research. A lot of fucked up shit happened during the Great Depression. I hope you enjoy.

Christine Papin was born on March 8, 1905 making her 6 years older than her sister Lea Papin, born on September 15 1911. The sisters were born in Le Mans, France to parents Clemence Derre and Gustave Papin. The Papin parents seemed to have issues of their own before their children were even born however. It was rumoured that Clemence was having an affair with her employer while she was dating Gustave. 

Gustave married Clemence in October 1901 after finding out she was pregnant. Five months later a daughter named Emilia was born in March 1902. So I wonder if Emilia was really Gustave’s child… or if Clemence had been impregnated by her employer. 

Problems after this seemed to worsen for the Papins. Their marriage seemed anything but happy, and Gustave still suspected that his wife was having an affair. In an attempt to stop this he decided they would move to a different city. Clemence was not interested in moving (probably due to her still having an affair with her employer) and told Gustave that she would rather take her own life than move. The marriage really began to fall apart after this and Gustave became a very heavy drinker. 

When Christine was born in 1905 she was actually given to her paternal aunt and uncle as a baby where she lived until the age of 7. When Lea was born in 1911 she was given to her maternal uncle. I couldn’t find much information as to why this happened but I assume it has something to do with Gustave and Clemences’ deteriorating marriage. 

Allegedly Gustave raped Emilia in 1912 when she was around 9 or 10 years old. Clemence sent Emilia to an orphanage after this, with Christine and Lea following their sister to the orphanage soon after. Clemence wanted the sisters to stay there until they were 15 because by then they could find employment. However, I do want to point out again I find with older cases there’s a lot of different information and various sources say various things. 

A different source claimed that Christine and Lea were sent to a mental institution to deal with their parents divorce. 

So you can already see the wheels starting to turn on this disastrous story. The Papin sisters do not appear to have any real love from their parents throughout their childhood and I can only imagine this played a huge role in the development of the monsters they turned out to be… 

Clemence and Gustave divorced in 1913, so Christine would have been 8 and Lea 2. As for Emilia she ended up moving to a convent in 1918 and as far as research goes they believe she lived the rest of her life there, never contacting her family again. 

When Christine and Lea were old enough to work they became maids for several households however they always requested to work together. It seemed that they had to be near each other and some people even commented that as close as they were they never seemed to actually verbally speak to one another leaving some to believe that they could communicate telepathically. 

Christine was described as a hard worker and good cook, while Lea was described as less intelligent than her sister, but quiet and obedient. 

In 1926 the sisters became live-in servants at the mansion of Rene Lancelin, a retired solicitor living in Le Mans. Rene, his wife Leonie, and their daughter Genevieve all lived there. Apparently the girls did their work without much complaint, were fairly silent and only spent time together, though they worked long 14 hour days with only half a day off every week. It was said that Leonie had developed depression over the years and that the Papin sisters often became her target. Apparently Leonie would abuse the sisters by slamming their heads against the wall.

On the night of February 2nd, 1933 Rene was supposed to meet his wife Leonie and daughter Genevieve at a friends house for dinner. Leonie and Genevieve had been out shopping that day and supposedly when they came back home they found all the lights in the house off. Christine and Lea explained to them that the reason the lights in the house were off was because Christine had urinated on the electrical socket causing no power. 

Apparently when hearing this news Leonie lost it and began to attack the Papin sisters on the first floor landing. At this point Christine attacked Genevieve by gouging her eyes out, while ordering Lea to gouge out Leonie’s eyes. Christine retrieved a knife and a hammer at some point during the attack to use. The sister’s also used a heavy pewter pitcher to hit both women in the head. 

It is suspected that the attack lasted a total of 2 hours which is absolutely fucking insane to me and honestly seems like an intense case of overkill. 

At some point Rene came home to find the house completely dark, which is an automatic no from me. Like the house is completely dark and your wife and daughter haven’t shown up to the dinner they were supposed to show up to? Sketchy. 

At that point Rene assumed his wife and daughter left for the party, so he also left to go to the party without checking the house… which to me is also kind of sketchy. But I guess at the same time you wouldn’t suspect anything was wrong so it wouldn’t be that big of a deal to just leave and go back to the dinner/party. 

When he got to the party and his wife and daughter were not there he decided to go back to the house again, this time with his son in law. They arrived between 6:30 and 7:00 pm. The house was still completely dark except for a light coming from the room of the Papin sisters. Rene and his son in law could not enter the house because the door was locked from the inside. At this point Rene’s intuition must've kicked into high gear because they immediately went to the police station to get a police officer to come back to the home with them. 

The police officer eventually was able to enter the house and that is where they came across the almost unrecognizable bodies of Leonie and her daughter Genevieve. The two women had been completely bludgeoned and stabbed to death. 

So remember when I said the Papin sisters gouged out the eyes of Leonie and Genevieve? Guess where they found them? Leonie’s eyes were placed in the folds of the scarf she was wearing around her neck, while one of Genevieve’s eyes were found underneath her body, the other found near the staircase. Super fucked up. 

Naturally, the police assumed that there had been an attack on the house, and the Papin sisters instead of being automatic suspects it was assumed they had been murdered as well. When they went to the Papin sisters room they found their door locked. The police officer got no response from the room so they had to get a locksmith to come unlock the door. When the door was finally unlocked the Papin sisters were found in bed together, naked, and nearby was a bloody hammer with hair still present on it. The Papin sisters immediately confessed to the killing. 

The Papin sisters were sent to separate prisons, and not being able to see Lea really depressed Christine. At one point they sisters were allowed to see each other and upon seeing Lea, Christine threw herself at her sister, unbuttoning her shirt and saying “Please, say yes!” This has led many to believe that the sisters were involved in a sexual relationship with each other. This would also explain why they were found naked in bed together after the murders. However, it has also been said that Christine’s relationship with Lea was simply based off of “family ties” and not incest, though there is zero information on this or what it means. 

In July 1933, Christine experienced a "fit", or episode. During this she tried gouging her own eyes out. Christine later confessed that on the day of the murders she had experienced this same “fit” or episode and that’s why the murders had occurred. This kind of reminds me of serial killers such as Son of Sam, who claimed that voices were telling him to commit murder. Is it possible that Christine Papin was just extremely mentally ill and needed help? Again, you have to remember this is the 1930’s aka mental illness was not taken seriously, you were actually considered fucking insane and a looney if you suffered from mental health troubles. 

Christine and Lea Papin had psychological evaluations done on them by various doctors to determine their mental state and it was found that neither sister had any kind of mental disorder. Both sisters were deemed fit to stand trial. 

The trial started in September of 1933 and the testimony noted that the Papin family did indeed have a history of mental illness. One of the Papin’s cousins were living in an asylum, while their uncle had taken his own life. After a lot of debate it was deemed that the Papin sisters suffered from “Shared Paranoid Disorder.” This is a mental disorder in which a pair of people develop paranoia and are isolated from the world, with one person dominating the other. 

This makes a lot of sense considering the Papin sisters suffered a horrible childhood, pretty much only had each other, and Christine was clearly the dominant one over Lea. This also may be what the “family ties” explanation I mentioned earlier meant, that because of the life the sisters experienced and only having each other in life, they really had an unbreakable strong deep connection as sisters and they just loved each other immensely due to this. Who knows? 

The jurors took around 40 minutes to deliberate (which is like no time in juror deliberation time), and found the Papin sisters guilty of murder. Because it was assumed that Christine ran the show and Lea was just following her older sister's orders, Lea was only given a 10 year sentence. Which I also think is kind of fucking insane… like you bludgeoned and gouged out someone’s eyeballs and you're getting 10 years? Rip off. 

Christine was originally going to be hanged at the guillotine, but her sentence was later reduced to life in prison. Christine being separated from Lea really affected her and her mental health started to deteriorate rapidly. She suffered from depression and “madness” and stopped eating. She was then transferred to a mental institution in Rennes to get professional help, which honestly I’m surprised they appeared to be taking her mental illnesses seriously though there is no way of knowing if the help was beneficial or if she was even getting any kind of decent professional help. She continued to starve herself and eventually died from it on May 18, 1937. Her official cause of death is known as cachexia which literally refers to “wasting away.” 

Lea however served 8 years out of her 10 for her crimes and was released in 1941. She then lived in a town called Nantes and lived with her mother (yeah, what the fuck?) She went by a false identity and continued to live as a hotel maid which sends shivers down my spine. No one really knows for sure when Lea died. Some believe she died in 1982, however there are reports from a French film producer named Claude Ventura that claimed he knew Lea was living in a hospice center in France during the year 2000. This woman suffered from a stroke which left her partially paralyzed and unable to speak. This woman died in 2001. If this woman was Lea Papin then she died at the age of 90.