15. The Sleepwalking Killer Cop
Ballistics testing proved beyond a doubt that the bullet recovered at the crime scene had, indeed, been fired from Ledru’s revolver. That solved the crime, but it did not explain why Ledru did it. He was jailed for his own good, and kept under constant watch. While in prison, the authorities, acted upon medical advice to test a theory that might explain how and why Ledru murdered the unfortunate Andre Monet. They gave the distraught detective a revolver loaded with blanks. One night, Ledru got up and fired it at a guard. That convinced the authorities that he was a homicidal sleepwalker. From that day until his death fifty years later in 1937, Ledru was kept in a secluded farm outside Paris, where he was watched over by doctors and armed personnel.
