Victims 4+ | Name Emile Dubois Role Murderer | |
 | ||
Cause of death Executed by firing squad Other names Emilio DuboisEmilio MoralesEmile Murraley | ||
Criminal penalty Capital punishment | ||
Louis Brihier, alias Émile Dubois (born Étaples 29 April 1867; died Valparaíso, 26 March 1907) was a French-born criminal and multiple murderer known as a folk hero in Chile.
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Early life
Brihier killed the father of his girlfriend, a retired policeman, when he was fifteen. He then worked as miner for two years, until a foreman was found dead. After two months in prison for theft, he embarked for Venezuela at the age of twenty taking the name Émile Dubois. In 1903, aided by his two lovers Ursula Morales and her friend Catalina, he murdered a young Peruvian engineer in a trap laid in a brothel in Ouro, stealing the young man's savings.
In 1904 he murded a French trader, Ernest Lafontaine, in Santiago after losing his money gambling. Then in Valparaíso followed more murders; Gustave Titius, a German businessman, Isidore Challe, another French merchant, and Reinald Tillmans, a German trader.
On June 26, 1905 he attempted to murder an American dentist called Davies, the attack failed and he fled and was pursued and caught by crowds. It was in Valparaíso where Dubois was captured, tried and finally executed by four riflemen on March 26, 1907.
Popular legend
According to the chroniclers of the time, the victims of Dubois were usurers, so that the people termed him the Chilean Robin Hood, considering the murders as acts of justice of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie. Popular culture has since elevated him to the status of holy person, transforming his grave (located in the Playa Ancha in Valparaiso) into a revered one, full of innumerable gifts and dedications.