In 1964, 11-year-old Luc Tarron was tragically murdered near his suburban Paris home. After the discovery of Luc’s body, the killer, who became known as “The Strangler,” tormented the police and the boy’s family with numerous letters for almost two months. Despite the taunting, authorities could not link the killer to any additional murders, leading them to believe he had falsely claimed responsibility for more crimes.
Eventually, 27-year-old Lucien Léger was arrested and charged with Luc’s murder after boasting about the killings in phone calls. Léger confessed during police interrogation and was found in possession of incriminating evidence in his apartment. However, he later retracted his confession, claiming he had only written a few of the messages to police.
Léger was convicted of the murder in 1966 but continued to assert his innocence throughout his nearly 40-year prison sentence. Despite filing appeals for a retrial and resentencing, he was released from prison in October 2005.
According to the European Court of Human Rights’ case, Lucien Leger lived for three years before being found dead in his home in 2008. The investigation into Leger by AFP/Getty revealed a surprising portrait of the convicted murderer. Despite being previously depicted as a criminal mastermind, Leger was described as a disappointingly normal man with a hobby of banal writing. Reports from Le Monde had once heralded him for haunting Paris with his boastful letters about Luc’s murder. When questioned by the police about his motive for targeting Luc, the killer explained that he chose the 11-year-old boy to abduct and murder because he saw a reflection of his own childhood unhappiness in him.
