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Joseph Vacher
Joseph Vacher (16 November 1869 – 31 December 1898) was a French serial killer, rapist, and necrophile. He was contemporarily called "le tueur de bergers" ("the killer of sheperds"), but upon his capture became more commonly known as "The French Ripper"[1] or "L'éventreur du Sud-Est" ("The South-East Ripper"), owing to comparisons to the more famous Jack the Ripper murderer of London, England, in 1888. Vacher's scarred face and plain, white, handmade rabbit-fur hat composed his trademark appearance. He killed 11 to 27 people, many of whom were adolescent farm workers, between 1894 and 1897.[1][2] LifeEarly life and teenage yearsVacher was born as the second youngest of 16 children to illiterate farmer Pierre Vacher (1810–1889), in Pierre's hometown of Beaufort, a commune 5 kilometers from Beaurepaire and 100 kilometers from Grenoble. Joseph's mother, Marie Rose "Rosalie" Ravit (1825–1882) from Lentiol, was Pierre's second wife after his first wife Virginie Didier, mother of four of Joseph's siblings, died in 1849, aged 30. Pierre and Rose became Joseph's parents at a relatively old age, being 59 and 44 years old respectively. Vacher had a twin brother, Eugène, who died in infancy on 15 July 1870, after choking to death on a loaf of bread that had been placed in the shared cradle by one of Vacher's older brothers.[3] As a child, Vacher was already noted for his temper, having once shot at a group of other boys with his father's rifle for heckling him. Another incident occurred while working on the family farm, when he attempted to strangle his younger brother Louis because Vacher thought he was slacking off while helping him push a wheelbarrow.[4] In the summer of 1884, a ten year old boy named Joseph Amieux was raped and murdered inside a barn in a neighboring town. Although the crime is blamed on vagabonds, then-14-year-old Vacher would later be suspected as having been the true perpetrator. At age fifteen, Vacher was sent to his widowed half-sister in Saint-Genis-Laval, who, overwhelmed by the task of caring for the temperamental youth, sent him to a very strict Marist Brothers school, where he was taught to obey and to fear God. He was meant to be educated there until he was 18, but expelled after only two years, as monks at the school noted Vacher for torturing animals and masturbation. He found work as a restaurant worker and moved in with his sister and her husband in Marcollin. While living with them, Vacher contracted syphilis and had to have his left testicle surgically removed at Antiquaille Hospital six months following the diagnosis. At age 18, he was reported for the attempted rape of a 12-year-old boy on a farm in Beaufort on 29 June 1888. The victim, Marcelin Bourdon, was pushed down while baling hay in a barn, but managed to punch Vacher and alert fellow workers to the scene. Vacher avoided a charge of pederasty as he fled town and his employers were unaware of his residence. He was evicted in 1889 by his brother-in-law due to his aggressive behaviour and went to Geneva to ask to live with his brother Auguste, to whom he admitted to the attempted rape in Beaufort and possibly referenced other violent crimes he committed. After he was rejected by his brother, he lived in Lyon. In 1891, Vacher was briefly confined to an asylum for voicing persecutory delusions.[5][6] Army and attempted murder-suicideSeeking escape from the intense poverty of his peasant background, he joined the army in 1890, serving in the 60th infantry regiment[7] and reaching the rank of sergeant on 28 December 1892. Frustrated by slow promotion and no recognition, and infused with the grandiose belief that he was not receiving the attention he deserved, Vacher attempted to kill himself by slicing his throat. This was the first of two suicide attempts.[1] Although he served for under three years, Vacher would later claim to have been a non-commissioned officer with the Zouaves, which, while unsubstantiated and unlikely, was widely repeated in contemporary English-language media. Related to this, Vacher stated he had evaded arrest in 1897 by repeating this claim to a gendarme who was about to book him for running from law enforcement; said gendarme was looking for the perpetrator in a nearby murder committed by Vacher.[8] In the spring of 1893, while Vacher was stationed in Besançon, he fell in love with a young maidservant, Louise Barrand[9] (also spelled Barant).[6] After his attempted suicide led to a four-month dismissal from the military, he invited her to a meal and proposed to Barrand during this first rendezvous. She declined because Vacher said he would "kill [her] if she betrayed [him]" in the same breath, after which he stalked her for several weeks, often begging Barrand to give their relationship another chance. Barrand eventually accepted an invitation to go to a dance with him, but ran off when Vacher attacked a man who spoke to Barrand during the date. Barrand moved back to her mother in Baume-les-Dames, so Vacher instead began sending her love letters, again trying to court her, and repeating his marriage proposal. Privately, Vacher grew paranoid that Barrand had become involved with his best friend Louis Loyonnet, a fellow soldier. After leaving the letters unanswered for weeks, fed up with his advances and uninterested in his offer, she mocked him and his proposal. This second slight also motivated violence: on 25 June, Vacher entered Barrand's home and in a rage, shot her three times and then tried to commit suicide. Both attempts were unsuccessful— Barrand was badly injured from a shot through the mouth and grazes by both temples, but survived the shooting, and Vacher severely maimed himself. Shooting himself twice in the head, Vacher succeeded in paralyzing one side of his face, deforming him severely. One of the bullets remained lodged in his ear for the remainder of his life, and the damage to his brain likely exacerbated his existing mental illness. He felt that the shooting damaged him more than physically: he later claimed, after his arrest, that the reactions of strangers to this self-inflicted deformity drove him to hatred of society at large. On 2 August, Vacher was discharged from the army in relation to the attempted killing, but still received a certificate of good conduct.[3] This second suicide attempt led to his confinement to a mental institution, Saint-Ylle Psychiatric Hospital in Dole, Jura, where he often attacked staff, destroyed furniture, and wrote letters to officials, claiming he suffered abuse there. He briefly escaped the facility on 25 August 1893, but was caught a few weeks later, though once more fleeing by jumping out of a train window while he was being transported back to Dole. When he was found and brought back two days later, he tried to commit suicide by repeatedly bashing his head against a wall. On 21 December of the same year, a court found him not guilty of the attempted murder of Louise Barrand by reason of insanity, after which he was transferred to the state-run Saint-Robert Psychiatric Hospital outside of Grenoble. He stayed there for three months until his doctors pronounced him "completely cured," and released on 1 April, 1894. In total, Vacher spent less than ten months in treatment.[1][2] MurdersVacher began murdering his victims shortly after his release at the age of 25. During a three-year period beginning in 1894, Vacher murdered and mutilated at least 11 people (one woman, six teenage girls, and four teenage boys). Many of them were shepherds watching their flocks in isolated fields. The victims were stabbed repeatedly, often disemboweled, raped, and sodomized, the latter two occasionally post-mortem. Vacher became a drifter, travelling from town to town, from Normandy to Provence, staying mainly in the southeast of France and surviving by begging or working on farms as a day labourer. Most murders occurred in what is now the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region. By most accounts, Vacher was unkempt and frightening, wandering from town to town as a vagrant in filthy clothes, begging in the streets and surviving on the scraps he received from anyone who spared him kindness. The few times he took temporary work such as shepherding from farmers, Vacher would often quit midway and still demand full payment. During this time, he was twice arrested for vagrancy, but never suspected of the killings. He reportedly attributed being undetected by police to God's grace and would regularly pilgrimage to Lourdes to pray to the statue of the Virgin Mary.[6][10] Authorities did not make a connection between any of the killings until the summer of 1897, when newly-installed judge Émile Fourquet, who previously investigated the murder of Augustine Mortureux in 1895, had judicial offices in departements across Southern France collect records of unsolved murders, having concluded that a single individual was behind some of the gruesome murders reported to him due to their shared mutilation and/or victim group.[3] Notable sightings and incidentsOn 2 September, 1895, a man matching Vacher's exact description was reported in Belley, having squatted for a night at the local washhouse and become aggressive with locals, including a ten-year old girl he tried to buy wine from with just ten centimes and farmers who had denied him work, but offered him alms.[3] On 31 July, 1896, while in Précy, Vacher went to the home of a ferryman named Abel Sandrin, with whom he had an unspecified dispute, and started a fistfight. Sandrin deflected each blow and retaliated with punches of his own, which left Vacher bloodied while Sandrin remained unharmed.[11] On 17 October 1896, Vacher passed through the commune of Job, where he knocked on the house of a woman surnamed Gouttebel and asked her for cheese. Gouttebel turned to the kitchen to bring him some food when Vacher threw himself on her when she returned. Gouttebel tore away from his grip and ran outside to alert her neighbours. He was arrested for the assault, but eventually let go after a short stay in jail. Through early-mid February, 1897, Vacher lodged in Couloubrac, a hamlet near Lacaune, first accompanied by another vagrant named Gautrais. He stayed with two families, the Farencs and the Moffres, who later identified him by photograph, wearing his old infantry fatigues. He often entertained the children of his lodgers by reading them books or showing off "souvenirs" from his past, including two large hiking sticks and a photo of a woman in miller's garb, who he claimed was his "mistress" Maria Lourdes, a name that was also engraved on a knife and leather shead he carried.[a] On 17 February, he knocked on the door of Suzanne Cabrol, who allowed him in to warm himself by the fireplace. Two talked amicably until Cabrol mentioned that she had received a 2500 francs inheritance from her sister in Castres. At this point, the previously tranquil Vacher stared at her "with bad air", at which point Cabrol shouted for her husband (who was actually away that night), causing Vacher to bolt out of the house. She was confirmed to be telling the truth as she independently noted the sergeant chevrons on Vacher's clothing. Most witnesses recalled that Vacher made frequent mention of the Virgin Mary, specifically in relation to the Lourdes apparitions. Also, on either 13 or 17 February, he passed through the hamlet of Carausse and rested at the house of 43-year old Virginie Bousquet, who let him rest by the hearth for the night. She left Vacher at the house for a while to go for a walk because he made her uncomfortable with stories of "crude, strange things that happened at the convents" he was raised in. When Bousquet returned, she found her youngest daughter, 6-year-old Germaine, sitting on Vacher's knees. Bousquet was able to get her guest to get leave by threatening to call for her neighbours and barred the door afterwards to be safe. She asked Germaine if anything happened and the girl revealed that Vacher had been clutching a knife behind her back in a hand hidden between his thighs. He was sighted again on 22 February in Lagarrigue, when he stayed with family of Paul Valette, whose 11 or 12 year old daughter he taught to write a sentence in "elegant English writing": "Among travelers there are often great minds and sometimes even great friends of God". Afterwards, he begged for food at the house of a miller, Mme Hue, who first gave him soup, but went back on her offer when he did not thank her. In the ensuing argument, he insulted Hue and ran off. Vacher went to the house of Mme Assimot to warm himself at the fireplace. While they talked, one of Vacher's canes fell to the ground, revealing a long blade inside and frightened by this, Assimot ordered Vacher to leave. Her account was substantiated due to the matching description of the swordstick, an item Vacher was known to own, having been catalogued during his arrest for the Barrand affair.[11] On 13 July, Vacher bought a small black-white dog from a cobbler named Joseph Passas in Colombier-le-Jeune, which he named Loulette. According to a family who let Vacher lodge with them for a few days in Dunières, they took him in on 14 July after seeing him beg outside of a pub, playing the accordion while Loulette pranced around with a tamed magpie perched on her back. Although Vacher had claimed to play the accordion to the families back in Couloubrac, onlooker Vital Vallonre said his tune was off-key and that he was unable to play la Marseillaise when asked. The family recalled that he was kind to the couple's four daughters and their friends, for whom he performed music and made funny faces. He had reportedly asked their neighbors if there were any open shepherd jobs. One of them, Mme Ranc in nearby Vernoux turned him away when she asked where he was from and he replied, with a glare, "from a mental asylum". On 2 August, Vacher was ousted from the area by locals following an incident at the farm of Régis Bac near Alboussière. Bac had given Vacher some stew, which Vacher then tried to share with his dog Loulette. When the animal did not eat, Vacher said "If you don't want to eat this, I will kill you" before grabbing Loulette and throwing her to the ground until the dog's head caved in, doing the same to his pet bird. Bac gave Vacher a shovel to bury the animals before telling him to leave.[6] Final attacks and captureIn the morning hours of 4 August 1897 Vacher tried to assault Marie Héraud gathering wood and pinecones in a field in Champis. She fought back and her screams soon alerted two of her children, as well as her husband, 31-year-old Séraphin Plantier, who came rushing to her aid. Although Plantier was of slight build and shorter than Vacher, he fought off the attacker and pelted him with two stones. The commotion was heard by four neighbours, also collecting cinder, who rushed to Plantier's aid and restrained Vacher. As the men escorted him to the residential area, Vacher told a different tramp as they passed, "Look, I wanted to have a quickie, they wouldn't let me".[b] They locked him in a shed at a nearby inn, with Charlon, the homeowner, and the four neighbours keeping watch as Plantier left with his wife to get police from the station in Saint-Péray, leaving the men to guard Vacher for the next six hours. Charlon would later recall that Vacher spouted all manner of obscenities at them and ranted about how he had "rights" and wanted to exercise them on "all women". When Charlon joked that Vacher should "pay for the personnel, get married", Vacher took the statement serious, saying "No, I have as many rights as anyone over all women and I want to use them".[c] When Vacher noticed Charlon's wife and children were in the house, he exclaimed "La garce!" ("The bitch!") and continued to scream vulgar insults for the next hours, refusing to interact further with Charlon outside of spitting at him when he got close. Vacher would attempt twice to escape the shed, being prevented by Charlon, who would kick him back. At one point, Vacher asked for a drink. Charlon gave him a glass and while in the process of filling it with fresh water, a few drops landed on Vacher's shoe. This resulted in Vacher throwing the glass in Charlon's face, who reciprocated by hitting him with the metal water jug and kicking him to the ground. While Vacher proceeded to threaten Charlon and his family with death and torture once he got out of prison, Charlon asked why he didn't just hire prostitutes instead of attacking random women, to which Vacher replied "No, no, I respect myself more than you do. I don't want the ones you talk about. I need young girls, shepherdesses or cowgirls".[d] Charlon then asked why he attacked Héraud, a mother of three, if he wanted "young girls", with Vacher stating "Oh, I would have much preferred to have the other one, the young girl from Gravil [a nearby farm]. That's the one I had wanted".[e] When Plantier returned with two officers, Vacher was sitting near a tree, playing his accordion, and upon seeing the gendarmerie, he simply said, "If you were in my place, you would do like me, but you have women and I have none".[f] Vacher was first charged with public indecency for attempted rape, receiving a three month and one day prison sentence. Based on judge Fourquet's belief that the arrested tramp might be the killer he was looking for, Vacher was transported to Prison Saint-Paul by train via the Lyon-Saint-Paul to Montbrison Line, where he briefly escaped at the exit of La Mulatière tunnel before he was recaptured at Perrache station. Fifteen residents of Bénonces, where a murder linked to Vacher had taken place, were called in and all identified Vacher as having been in town at the time of the murder. Despite their belief that they had apprehended the man responsible, the authorities had little physical evidence that Vacher was responsible for the series of murders, and Vacher adamantly denied involvement during questioning. However, on 7 October, with little apparent prompting, Vacher confessed to committing the some of murders brought against him, first only to eight, but later eleven, saying, "I have come to tell you the whole truth. Yes, I am the one who committed all the crimes you have accused me of... and that in a moment of rage".[g][1][2][12] Insanity pleaAfter his arrest, Vacher claimed he was insane and attempted to prove it in a variety of ways. He claimed that a rabid dog's bite had poisoned his blood, causing madness, but later blamed the quack cure he received for the bite. He also claimed he was sent by God, comparing himself to Joan of Arc. Despite his protestations, he was pronounced sane after lengthy investigations by a team of doctors that included the eminent professor Alexandre Lacassagne. Court documents say that investigators were able to confirm that Vacher kept close contact with sheep dogs as a child, but believed that Vacher's insistence on their responsibility for his condition actually ties back to their owner, the commune's garde champêtre, who may have raped Vacher when he was six years old.[3][4] He was tried and convicted by judge Émile Fourquet of the Cour d'Assises of Ain, the departement where he had murdered two of his victims, and was sentenced to death on 28 October 1898. On 26 January 1898, Vacher broke out of his cell and seriously injured the on-duty guard by battering him with a chair before he was subdued by other staff.[13] Vacher was executed by guillotine at 7:03 a.m. on 31 December 1898, in front of a crowd of 3,500 people. He refused to walk to the scaffold under his own power and was dragged to the guillotine by the executioners.[14] VictimsConfirmedA list of Vacher's known victims.[6][15][11][16]
In some of the murders, false accusations were made by local residents and the press. Not long after the discovery of Eugénie Delhomme's body, farmer Louis François was arrested by police as a suspect. Eugène Grenier, a land owner in Daix who employed victim Augustine Mortureux and one of the men who found her, was detained for 45 days after being publicly accused by Le Bourguignon Salé and Le Bien Public, with the locals outside the jail calling for him to be lynched. Even after he was released due to lack of evidence, Grenier and his family were treated as outcasts, with suspicions still remaining after Vacher's confessions two years later.[3][19][20][21][22] Additionally, Vacher is suspected to have committed serial rapes in the departements of Drôme, Puy-de-Dôme, and Isère. A rape against a female juvenile in Brioude during December 1896 was linked to Vacher. SuspectedDuring his trial, Vacher was also accused of the following murders:[2][11][23][24]
False arrests were made in at least two of the murders. A shop owner named Thalmann was briefly detained for the murder of Adrienne Reuillard and forced out of town by locals after he could not be tied to the scene. In the murder of Jeanne Henrion a man surnamed Munier was incriminated by witness Montchablon for returning a day after the killing with scratches on his face. It was found that Munier had, on the day following Henrion's death, attempted to rape a young Swiss girl, who "fell ill and died" after the act. The judicial error accusing him of the Henrion murder led to his exoneration on both charges, after which locals shunned him and his family.[11] A public poster published titled "52 Crimes: Attributed to Vacher or confessed by him"[q] listed his tentative offenses as 46 murders, three attempted murders, two attempted rapes and connection to one disappearance, though with several misspelled names and other mistakes, such as placing the murder of Joseph Amieux, who was killed in 1884, in 1894. In addition to Louise Barrand, Vacher was alleged to have made the following murder attempts:[2]
American newspapers would somewhat exaggerate Vacher's killings, reporting the high end estimation of 38 possible victims as fact.[26] The newspapers also named victims that are not mentioned in surviving French newspapers nor alleged by court or investigators.[s] One of the most widely shared, yet unconfirmed cases of this kind is the supposed murder of a French nobleman, named only as the "Marquis de Villeplaine", who had fallen victim to a fatal robbery during a park walk near the French-Spanish border. After his execution, it was widely reported by the same sources that Vacher was a self-admitted anarchist, after proclaiming during a prison transport that he was "the anarchist of God" and his murders related to his "oppos[ition] to society, no matter what form of government may be [sic]".[8][13][28] LegacyVacher's place in French social history is similar to Jack the Ripper's place in British social history.[1][2] In popular culture
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