Murder in the Metro: Laetitia Toureaux and the Cagoule in 1930s France

On the evening of May 16, 1937, the train doors opened at the Porte Dore station in the Paris Mtro to reveal a dying woman slumped by a window, a nine-inch stiletto buried to its hilt in her neck. No one witnessed the crime, and the killer left behind little forensic evidence. This first-ever murder in the Paris Mtro dominated the headlines for weeks during the summer of 1937, as journalists and the police slowly uncovered the shocking truth about the victim: a twenty-nine-year-old Italian immigrant and spy, the beautiful and elusive Laetitia Toureaux. Murder in the Mtro unravels this still officially-unsolved murder as it details Toureaux's story within the popular culture and conflicted politics of 1930s France.