ILLUSTRATES George Schall
1) Born in Beaufort, France, the 15th child of a poor peasant family, Vacher demonstrated explosive and sometimes violent behavior. In an episode of cruelty, Vacher drove the family herd to an isolated pasture and broke the legs of some animals.
two) Upon being expelled from a monastery for obscure reasons, Vacher enlisted in the army. It was there that his temper joined episodes of drunkenness and frenzy. In one of these outbursts, he attacked colleagues and tore tents apart wielding a razor, with which he finally attempted suicide, slitting his throat, without success.
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3) In 1893, aged 23, he met nurse Louise Barant. He fell in love and proposed marriage on the same day. Frightened by the boy’s «intensity», Louise tried to pull away, but Vacher didn’t react well. On one date, he pulled out a revolver, shot the girl, then shot himself twice in the head. Both survived!
4) The bullets used by Vacher they were only half full of gunpowder. As a result, the projectiles deformed his face and may have contributed to his development of mental illness. The former soldier was committed to an overcrowded, precarious asylum, where he became more paranoid and aggressive.
5) After ten months of transfers and attempted escapes and suicides,Vacher he was considered cured and discharged from the Saint-Robert asylum, near Grenoble. Since then, he has wandered as a hermit, a lifestyle that, at the time, was despised and associated with violence and degeneracy.
6) Between 1894 and 1897, he murdered five young men and five young women between the ages of 11 and 21, mostly shepherds, as well as a 58-year-old widow. The method was to strangle, slit the throat, mutilate and violate the body. He chose his time to attack well and carefully hid his body.
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7) The route of terror only ended when a peasant woman from the Champis region resisted an attack and screamed for help. Husband and children listened to her and subdued the executioner. Captured, the serial killer was interviewed by judge Emile Fourquet, and claimed, among other crazy things, that the treatment for a dog bite in childhood had driven him crazy.
8) The trial turned into a battle between criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne (“father” of criminal expertise) and defense attorney Charbonnier. The latter pleaded insanity, while the former asserted that Vacher was sane. In the end, the brutality of the crimes and society’s repudiation of wanderers weighed against Vacher.
WHAT END DID IT TAKE?
joseph Vacher was guillotined on December 31, 1898 in Ain, France, for the murder of the 11 people he confessed to killing
SOURCES Article Vacherthe Ripper of the Southwest, by Susan A. Ashley; and book The Killer of Little Shepherdsby Douglas Starr