The Chauffeurs de la Drôme (The Heaters of Drôme) was a gang of four French criminals who were responsible for a wave of theft, torture, and

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse, especially the unlawful killing of another human with malice aforethought. ("The killing of another person wit ...

in the

department Department may refer to: * Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility Government and military *Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...

of Drôme in southeast France during the early years of the twentieth century. Three were executed in September 1909; the fourth, captured later, was sentenced to

life imprisonment Life imprisonment is any sentence of imprisonment for a crime under which convicted people are to remain in prison for the rest of their natural lives or indefinitely until pardoned, paroled, or otherwise commuted to a fixed term. Crimes for ...

with hard labour at the penal colony on

Devil's Island The penal colony of Cayenne ( French: ''Bagne de Cayenne''), commonly known as Devil's Island (''Île du Diable''), was a French penal colony that operated for 100 years, from 1852 to 1952, and officially closed in 1953 in the Salvation Islands ...

, French Guiana, (tantamount to a death sentence, aka " Dry Guillotine"), and died there.

Criminal career

The four men were Octave-Louis David (b.1873), Pierre-Augustin-Louis Berruyer (b.1873), both shoemakers; Urban-Célestin Liottard (b.1863), a labourer, and Jean Lamarque. David had a long criminal career and was claimed to be the ringleader. He had met Lamarque in prison, and through him met Berruyer. Beurruyer's house in Romans-sur-Isère was where Lamarque and the fourth man, Liottard, lived as boarders. The gang typically carried out

home invasion A home invasion, also called a hot prowl burglary, is a sub-type of burglary (or in some jurisdictions, a separately defined crime) in which an offender unlawfully enters into a building residence while the occupants are inside. The overarching ...

s on remote, rural dwellings, where they tortured householders into revealing the locations of hidden valuables by burning their feet. This form of banditry was not unknown in France; criminals who did this were widely known as ''

chauffeurs A chauffeur is a person employed to drive a passenger motor vehicle, especially a luxury vehicle such as a large sedan or limousine. Originally, such drivers were often personal employees of the vehicle owner, but this has changed to speciali ...

'' (heaters). The ''Chauffeurs de la Drôme'' were responsible for as many as 18 murders between 1905 and 1908. They were able to avoid suspicion by maintaining their legitimate occupations during the day, carrying out attacks at night.

Arrest, trial and execution

Execution of Liottard and Berruyer and David in 1909 2

Berruyer was arrested on 22 October 1908 at his house; a search of the house revealed a large cache of stolen items. Liottard and David were arrested soon after but the fourth man, Lamarque, escaped. Their eight-day trial began at Valence, Drôme on 2 July 1909. All four men were convicted and sentenced to death. Armand Fallières, the President of France at the time, was personally opposed to the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, but the strength of public opinion made it impossible for him to accept their pleas for clemency. The executions by guillotine of David, Berruyer and Liottard took place at Valence, Drôme, on 22 September 1909 at 6 am, within the space of a few minutes and before a cheering crowd. A number of photographs were taken despite this being against the law; postcards were widely sold, and there were newspaper advertisements for public showings of motion pictures of the executions. Lamarque was captured in 1910. He had been sentenced to death '' in absentia'', but after his capture his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment with hard labour in the penal colony at

External links

References

{{Use dmy dates, date=December 2016 1909 deaths Executed French serial killers French people convicted of murder People executed by France by guillotine Criminal quartets