Born in Grand-Coeur, in the municipality of Aigueblanche, Albert Pel was the son of a watchmaker and a merchant; his parents separated shortly after his birth, apparently because of adulterous acts committed by his mother.
[1] In 1859, an uncle who was interested in Albert Pel, Master Flandin, a lawyer at Moûtiers, proposed to send him to Paris to finish his education and make his apprenticeship.
The neighbours supposed that the strange noises that they heard that day were the work of Pel, seeking to discover hidden valuables in the house.
The investigation noted that for the occasion, Pel wore a red ribbon at his buttonhole, which intrigued the people attending the funeral.
From 1872 to 1874, he lived in different neighbourhoods where he variably presented himself as a mathematics teacher at Lycée Saint-Louis, a professor of rhetoric, or an organist of the Sainte-Trinité, all of which were false.
His excellent behaviour, his seriousness, and his assiduousness of the pusher had won him public attention, when, in October 1877, an unfortunate event occurred.
Returning to Paris, he successively opened a pastry shop, and an advertising agency, then became a director and a sponsor of the Théâtre des Délassements-Comiques.
With him lived two women: Marie Mahoin, his servant, and Eugénie Meyer, his mistress, a seamstress in her fifties, who used to mend costumes at the Odéon-Théâtre de l'Europe.
Pel was the main suspect of the investigation, but due to lack of serious evidence, he benefited from a non-suit order.
On 21 October, Bufferau's mother visited her with a beautiful girl, following a note she received from her own daughter, saying: "Come quickly if you want to see me again alive!"
In 1884, when the watchmaker was arrested, Bufferau's corpse was exhumed, and her remains were examined by the experts: there was a significant quantity of arsenic.
Pel, fiercely opposed, consented after the ceremony to establish a will under which, in case of death, he bequeathed his property to his widow, but only if his wife and his mother did the same for his benefit.
Frightened by the large amount of dangerous substances in the house to which she attributed her indisposition, she eventually moved to Paris, leaving the young couple alone.
In April, Pel's wife, pregnant (she would give birth a few weeks before the trial), abandoned him for the nascent relationship he had with Élise Boehmer, a servant of forty years who repaired watches.
During the night, several witnesses reported that Pel had masked the windows with black fabrics and carpets; others complained of the terrible smell that came from the kitchen and attested to having seen the watchmaker light large fires in an oven, which only went out at sunrise.
Pel defended himself: according to him, Élise Boehmer, feeling much better, left him on 13 July, with a coachman that he would have gone himself to look for more than five kilometres, Faubourg Saint-Antoine.
All the victims had the same symptoms: epigastric pain, choking, nausea, burning sensation in the digestive system, bowel problems, diarrhea, rapid debilitation, spasms, slow agony: the various characters, very clearly marked, of the intoxication with arsenic.
No less than fifty witnesses, including experts, explained how he could have dismembered and destroyed the remains of Élise Boehmer, according to them, in the back shop of Montreuil.
With regard to the prosecution evidence, one retained ashes, found in quantity in Pel; a saw, stained with blood and greasy matter; a hatchet and a kitchen knife covered with suspicious stains; a cast iron stove suspected of being used to cremate the dead bodies; a book of chemicals, and another one dealing with poisons, as well as a staggering amount of chemicals of all kinds.
However, following a defect of form (one of the jurors was bankrupt and not rehabilitated) brought the cassation of the judgment and the return to the cour d'assises of Melun.