La Belle Epoque France was shocked and titillated by what had at first seemed to be a run-of-the-mill murder on a beach. It turned out to be anything but: the star detective assigned to investigate the case discovered that the killer was … himself. He did not end up guillotined or even imprisoned for murder, however, because it emerged that he had committed the crime while sleepwalking. Below are eighteen fascinating facts about that and other sleepwalking murder cases.
18. A Star Detective and a Murder on the Beach
In 1887, things were going great for Robert Ledru, a 35-year-old Paris police officer considered to be one of France’s best detectives. So when the authorities in Le Havre asked Paris for help with a mysterious case of missing sailors, Ledru was sent to lend them a hand. He arrived in the Normandy port in the evening and went to bed early. When he awoke the next morning, he was surprised to discover that his shoes and socks were wet. When he got to Le Havre’s police station, Ledru was informed that the missing sailors had been eclipsed by a higher priority case. There had been a murder during the night at the beach. The victim was a prominent businessman named Andre Monet, who had been discovered face down in the sand, shot through with a bullet.
