“Lesimple crushed the heads of his victims with logs or pestles”, headline in 1948, the newspaper This evening. Roger Lesimple, 31 years old at the time of the events, killed two people a few days apart for a few thousand francs… Guillotined in 1951, he was one of those sentenced to death selected for kidney transplant trials in France.
Roger Lesimple was 31 years old when he was arrested in La Villette by the chief inspector, Arnal and his colleagues, Godot and Deplanque. During a long interrogation, he confessed to two crimes, for a gain of 6,900 francs. The first dates back to December 22, 1947. “At the time, Lesimple was a farm boy in Jumeauville, near Montfort (Seine-et-Oise), reports the newspaper This evening. He had an amazing racing tip. He wanted to play, but he had no money. His comrade Blanchard had a wallet full of “thousand” bills. In the evening, Lesimple grabbed Blanchard by the throat with his two big hands and finished off his victim by crushing his head with the beet pestle. This crime earned him 6,000 francs. » Two days later, he was in Egly, near Arpajon. “There, in a wooden hut, an old lady, Mme Lécureuil, 65 years old, raised chickens and rabbits. Lesimple entered the premises at night by breaking a window pane. At the sound, the sixty-year-old woke up and stood up on her bed. » She began to scream. To silence her, he shoots her in the chest. “But she continued to moan,” said the bandit. I finished her off with a log! His body was discovered four days later, devoured by rats and chickens. The gain for Lesimple: 900 francs. Thinking of a natural death, the body is buried. It was only with Lesimple's confession during his arrest that the assassination could be recognized.
Nicknamed “suburban skimmer”, in January he also tried to rob a farmer in Trilport and a café on the banks of the Ourcq canal in Aulnay. Then “some money and money in the Rosny and Bondy region”, with burglaries in uninhabited houses.
Master Tiercin in defense
March 1950, Roger Lesimple was tried before the Assizes of Seine-et-Oise, in Versailles. He is defended by Maître Tiercin, of the Versailles bar. There is little information about this lawyer in the press archives. His name appears in a second case from the same period, alongside Maître Genty, to defend André Félix in 1949. During what the newspaper The Fight called “the trial of the satyr of Rueil”, André Félix is accused of having raped several women. Nicknamed “the vampire”, he confesses before retracting, “explaining that a complete athlete, he had nonetheless been seized with panic terror in front of the justice system” (This eveningApril 14, 1949). He is acquitted with the benefit of the doubt.
Maître Tiercin then appears in the “castelain-gangster” affair in 1952, with Maître Aubert and Maître Raoult. All three defend Daniel Touche and his accomplices for numerous acts of assault and burglary in Saint-Cloud. Or again for the defense of a man accused of involuntary homicide: “An unfortunate stroke of luck, which he delivered, on September 24, 1950, around 9:45 p.m., to a young drunk, who was clinging to him, the brought today before the jurors of Versailles. »
March 1950, the trial at Versailles
The March 10, 1950 edition of This evening gives an account of the first day of Roger Lesimple's trial: “At the very beginning of the interrogation, the killer tried to explain in a weak voice his unhappy childhood. In fact, these explanations were provided to the jury by President Pihier, the accused responding only in monosyllables. ” In Humanity on the same day, there was a report of “late remorse”, according to the journalist. “I made a confession because I wanted to free my conscience,” he still told the audience. Lesimple is “a wreck”. “His father, gassed in war, died when he was 6 years old. Then he lost his mother. Rejected by everyone, he stole several times. » Several times in the press, journalists focus on his hands: “Huge hands, the hands of a strangler. »
The context of his childhood changes nothing in the verdict: Roger Lesimple is sentenced to death for the assassination of Mme Lécureuil, and to forced labor for life for that of Aimé Blanchard. However, Attorney General Furter had “asked the jury for a new sentence of the supreme punishment. » (DawnMarch 11, 1950). “This does not prevent M.e Tiercin, his defender, attempts to turn the tide by arguing that, despite the opinion of psychiatrists, his client is not, cannot, be normal. And his appeal for mercy is not in vain since, this time, the jury grants extenuating circumstances to Lesimple. » For the assassination attempt against Mr. Corbrion de Trilport, he was sentenced to forced labor by the Seine-et-Marne assizes in November 1950.
The execution, and an attempted organ transplant
Without obtaining a presidential pardon, Roger Lesimple did not escape his first conviction. He was guillotined in the courtyard of La Santé prison, under the ax of Henri Desfourneaux, chief executioner of criminal sentences.
Kidney transplant trials were then carried out by the pioneers of medicine, René Küss, Charles Dubost and Marceau Servelle, after taking samples from the bodies of several death row prisoners in 1951, a first in Europe. Roger Lesimple is one of them, without having given his prior consent. “Unfortunately,” writes the newspaper Paris-Presse on January 24, 1951, during the preparatory operations it was discovered that the victim was suffering from a blood disease which prevented the attempt from being pursued any further”…
