John Baptiste Troppmann, Killer of Many

Good evening. This is Crime Classics. I am Thomas Highland with another true story of crime. Listen. Crowd. Swarming over a field in France. Crowd. All ages. They've come to see this crowd. They've come to look.

And the field, their trampoline, will be packed so hard that the soil cannot be plowed for two years after. Closer now to see if it were true, to see if the story were true, the story of horror about a mass grave, victims, murder victims buried together.

Closer now, and finally, a man reaches a pit in the earth. Tonight, in my report to you on Jean Baptiste Troopman, killer of many. Crime classics. A series of true crime stories taken from the records and newspapers of every land from every time. Your host each week, Mr. Thomas Highland, Colosseur of Crime, student

of violence, and teller of murders. Now once again, Mr. Thomas Highland. Adolescence is a trying time, a time when imagined sorrow is a constant companion, and loneliness and mystery, and joy so great it bursts the heart, sometimes all in a couple of hours.

Youth reacts to it veryingly, mostly by writing poems, talking to the moon, rejecting, accepting, dancing, fleeing, getting caught, falling in love, and generally being miserable. Well, Jean Baptiste Troopman had the more difficult time with adolescence than most.

For example, on the morning of April 3, 1865, when Jean was 16 years old, he had an argument with his brother in his father's factory. Brother, stupid brother, don't bother. Why am I cursed with such a brother as you?

With a hammer against his brother's face, while the factory hands watched in amazement that such a temper since Jean's brother had only accidentally spilled a small can of oil, After which his brother never looked quite the same.