Editing Henri Désiré Landru (section)

=== Financial motivation ===
Overwhelming evidence points to greed as Landru's primary motive. His monetary desire and avarice are noted characteristics. This is evident in his meticulous categorization of potential victims.{{sfn|Monesutie|1991|p=99}} For instance, after placing advertisements seeking a spouse and receiving a large number of replies, Landru carefully sorted them, recording classifications such as "reply by general delivery," "no money," "no reply," "reply by general delivery with initials," "probably has property," and "reserve, further investigation needed."{{sfn|Faidō|1997|p=148}}{{sfn|Shōshin Shobō|1997|pp=2830-2835}} He would then reply to women who seemed to have property to gather more information, selecting those who appeared as naive as possible, and explicitly eliminated applicants he marked as "no property".{{sfn|Monesutie|1991|p=99}}

His habit of buying single train tickets for victims when taking them to Gambais, while purchasing return tickets for himself, further underscores this; he did this to save even minuscule amounts of his own money, not wanting to waste a single franc while intending to steal theirs.{{sfn|Sairyakkusu|1996|pp=662-664}} Furthermore, his detailed accounting of even the smallest expenses, recorded in a notebook (which was among the evidence seized during the house search after his arrest), highlights his extreme avarice. This notebook included meticulous records of items like bus and subway fares,{{sfn|Monesutie|1991|pp=100-101}} and train fares for trips between Paris and Gambais, alongside the assets acquired from his victims.{{sfn|Shōshin Shobō|1997|pp=2818-2819}}