The Most Interesting Case of the 19th Century. Robert Ledru’s Unique Investigation
Inspector Robert Ledru was one of the most famous detectives of the 19th century. During his career, he solved many complicated cases, including the case of a certain sect of fanatics who were planning to overthrow the French government. But this story is about something else, about the incredibly difficult choice of detective Robert Ledru and the case that turned out to be fateful for him.
Robert Ledru was a real workaholic. By the age of 35, he was already considered one of the best detectives in Europe of his time. He was so deeply immersed in the cases under investigation that he literally did not have time to sleep. It was not uncommon for him to stay awake for more than 24 hours, working on some of his cases. Of course, such a work schedule made itself felt. His colleagues noticed that Robert was very often nervous and irritable due to sleepless nights.
In the summer of 1887, Robert Ledru was sent to Le Havre, a port and resort city at the same time. By this time, a series of strange murders had been committed in Le Havre, which included the death of six sailors near the port. The local police did not cope with the investigation of these crimes. As a result, the master of criminology of that time was allocated to help them.
Upon arrival in Havard, the detective immediately joined the investigation, but he managed to work on this case for only a few days, as Robert’s superiors changed priorities and ordered him to take up another murder, which was committed on the beach of St. Ardress. Just three kilometers from the hotel where the detective is staying. The new assignment upset Robert, as he was not accustomed to leaving cases unsolved. But he also understood that if management changed the task so urgently, then it means that it really matters.
The victim of the crime was a man named Andre Mone. He was killed at night on the beach. In those years, Le Havre was one of the main spa towns in France. Therefore, the authorities could not allow the killing of tourists to spoil the reputation of the resort town. In this connection, Robert Ledru was invited to investigate on an emergency basis. However, even for a detective, there were too many black holes in this case.
The victim’s wife said that they had come to Le Havre from Paris for a few days for a summer holiday. Her husband was very tormented by the local stuffiness at night, so at night he sometimes went to the beach to freshen up a little. A cursory interrogation of the next of kin showed that the victim had no enemies who wanted him dead, or heirs who could benefit from his death. In addition, the version with the attack for the purpose of the attack was also not viewed, since the clothes and purse of the murdered man lay untouched by the shore. Also, there were no injuries on the body of the victim that could indicate a fight before the murder. The crime scene looked like it was a completely random murder. As if some completely unfamiliar person for the victim came to the beach, fired a bullet at a man and calmly left.
The police did not have any suspects, so it remained only to work further with the evidence found. But, unfortunately, there were not so many of them. One of the pieces of evidence was a bullet pulled from the victim’s body. Such bullets were used to fire from the German Luger pistol. And this gave absolutely no impetus to the investigation, since this pistol model was the most common in France. Almost any person who was spinning in criminal circles had such a gun. All hope was for a second piece of evidence found at the crime scene.
Traces of the alleged killer were found in the sand next to the body of the murdered man. The strange thing was that, judging by the footprints, the killer did not come to the beach barefoot or in shoes, he came to the beach in socks. For the local police, the traces left by the killer seemed to be as useless evidence as the found bullet. But to Robert Ledru, they told almost everything that happened that night on the beach.
The detective very carefully examined the traces left, and at some point his expression changed from thoughtful to frightened. Without saying a word, he left the scene of the crime and locked himself in his room. He spent the whole night there and went to Paris in the morning.
When he reached Paris, he went to the main police headquarters and reported to his superior that the case had been solved. Ledru took out a plaster cast of a footprint on the beach sand. Judging by the cast, the killer was missing a big toe on his right foot. In front of everyone present, Ledru took off his shoe, pulled off his toe, and demonstrated the absence of a big toe on his right foot.
This was the result of an injury the Inspector received as a child. Ledru also said that he felt very strange the day he arrived at Havard, and therefore he went to bed earlier that day. He slept for 12 hours, which was uncharacteristic for him. In the morning, he found that his socks were full of coastal sand, and that someone had opened his bag. Then he had no explanation for this, so he did not tell anyone about this case. Later, when the puzzle of the picture of what had happened began to take shape in his head, he checked his gun. And as he expected, it was missing one bullet.
The authorities did not accept Ledru’s version, but he insisted on an investigative experiment. Robert pulled out all the bullets from his pistol and placed it on the nightstand next to his bed. At night, two guards were on duty near his room, who were supposed to witness that the detective’s version was correct. Right in the middle of the night, the door to Robert Ledru’s room suddenly opened. Then Robert’s pistol appeared, from which two blank shots were fired at the people guarding his room.
Alas, as it turned out, Robert suffered from sleepwalking. This is a state in which a person, being in a state of sleep, unconsciously performs some actions. Often these are simple and safe actions, getting up in bed, walking, cleaning. But in rare cases, these actions can be more dangerous. Which eventually happened to Robert Ledru. He had recently been tormented by nightmares in which he himself committed murder. Doctors had repeatedly advised him to rest, but he did not listen to their advice. This eventually led to the fact that he, while in Le Havre, fired a bullet in the chest of Andre Monet.
Soon the court took place. At the trial, the lawyer proved that Ledru is a danger only at night. When awake, he is completely normal. The detective was sentenced to life imprisonment, but given his merits, he was allowed to be free during the day. However, every evening he had to return to prison. He never changed his principles and the last criminal that Robert caught was himself. He lived the rest of his life that way. During the day, being at large, and at night — in prison. And he died in 1939, at the age of 77.
There is a lot of information about this case on the Internet. All of them say that the detective was unconscious and unintentionally killed a man. However, there are too many questions that do not just let you believe in it.
First, as far as we know today, sleepwalking does not allow a person to take a gun, leave the house, walk to the beach and fire a shot there, and subsequently return home. Sleepwalking represents the fact that in a state of sleep a person performs ordinary actions that he is used to doing. Of course, if it was common for a detective to go out to the beach in the middle of the night and kill people there, then there is no question.
Because in the same way the killers tried to escape, who attributed their offense to the fact that it was not them. One man tried to prove to the court that, in a state of sleepwalking, he got into a car, arrived at the house of his ex-wife, killed her, and then returned and did not remember anything. Naturally, there was no unconscious murder there, he was simply trying to save himself from prison in this way and go unpunished.
However, another question arises. In this case, why did the detective tell his superiors about it. After all, hardly a person wants to be put in jail. Maybe it’s talking about Robert’s mental breakdown. Someone might say that the man thus defended his image of an excellent detective, because the failure of the case could greatly affect his reputation.
In any case, this happened more than a century ago, all reliable information was rewritten and changed several times. Therefore, to say that this really happened is rather naive. Whether that was true or not, we will never know. However, it is quite interesting to assume that this really happened, and in this case we can see an example of how the detective unraveled his own murder. Like a movie, but in real life.
