Felt safe

Serial killer appeared on quiz show in France

The serial rapist and murderer apparently wanted to supplement his salary as a police officer by appearing on the quiz show.

(Bild: Screenshot France 2)

While the French police were feverishly searching for a serial killer and serial rapist, the perpetrator apparently felt so safe that he even appeared in public on a quiz show. Francois Verove also talked about his career in the police force on the show. 

For decades, Verove was up to mischief in the greater Paris area - his crime spree began in the 1980s. As a police officer, he was very familiar with the procedures of the executive, but his crimes went unpunished for a long time. He is also unlikely to have felt the need to hide: A journalist who wrote a book about the felon has now discovered a television appearance by the serial killer from May 2019.

Colleagues search for killer - he appears on TV
In it, the serial killer appears like a normal quiz guest: an older gentleman, not very conspicuous, but not unlikeable either. In it, the then 57-year-old also talks about his work in the police force - during a time when his colleagues were feverishly searching for the still unknown perpetrator who had raped several girls and young women and subsequently murdered some of his victims.

In this building in Paris, an eleven-year-old girl was raped and murdered by Francois Verove.

(Bild: AFP )

The crimes took place between 1980 and 1994 - witnesses recalled seeing a man with pockmarks on his face in the apartment building after the murder of eleven-year-old Cécile Bloch. The wanted man was then nicknamed the "pockmarked man". The police were in the dark for a long time. In 2021, another attempt was finally made to track down the perpetrator.

The mugshot that the police used to search for the "pockmarked man" is shown here:

Hundreds of police officers had to give DNA samples
The investigators had suspected early on that the wanted man could be one of their own ranks. Verove was also summoned and, like hundreds of other police officers who were working in Paris at the time of the series of murders, was asked to provide a DNA sample. The 59-year-old knew that the police would now be on to him - and eventually took his own life in a rented apartment.

Francois Verove on a quiz show.

(Bild: Screenshot France 2)

After marriage, he stopped killing
Verove left his wife a suicide note in which he justified his actions with his "difficult childhood" and "sudden impulses". However, it was only after his marriage and the birth of his children that peace returned to his life - which is why he "did nothing more after 1997". A DNA sample finally confirmed that the 59 police officer was the "pockmarked man".

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