Georges-Alexandre Sarret

Sarret was born in Trieste, of Greek descent, and emigrated to France in his youth. He studied medicine, chemistry and law at the University of Marseille.[4] He became a lawyer and then a swindler, beginning a life insurance scam, in which two of his lovers, German sisters Catherine and Philomène Schmidt, married unhealthy men. The scheme involved another accomplice, Louis Chambon-Duverger, who would go for a medical examination while posing as one of the unhealthy husbands in order to be approved for life insurance. The husband's death would then be hastened via poison or some other measure, and the life insurance shared among the conspirators. Sarret and the sisters lived together in the suburbs of Aix-en-Provence at a villa they dubbed L'Hermitage.[5]

However, at some point Sarret decided that Chambon-Duverger had become too greedy. In 1925, Sarret murdered him along with his mistress, Noémie Ballandraux. He then dumped their corpses in sulphuric acid to dispose of their bodies. This crime went unsolved for six years until Catherine Schmidt was arrested for another life insurance scheme, in which she faked her own death by obtaining the body of a woman her own age and general description who had died of tuberculosis. Catherine moved to Nice to hide out, but fell in love with a man there and followed him to Marseille, very close to Aix-en-Provence, where she was recognized. During police interrogation, she confessed to her crimes as well as to what Sarret had done.[5]

Sarret successfully delayed trial for two years, but was found guilty in October 1933 and sentenced to death. He was guillotined a few months later by Anatole Deibler. The Schmidt sisters each received 10 years in prison.[5]

The Sarret case was told by Solange Fasquelle in the book (Le Trio infernal) The Infernal Trio , which was adapted to the cinema in 1974 under the same title by Francis Girod, starring Michel Piccoli as Sarret, Romy Schneider as Philomène Schmidt and Mascha Gonska as Catherine Schmidt.[5]