On the night of 18 June 1897, 13-year-old shepherd Pierre Laurent was returning home from the local fruit market to his village, which was near Lyon, when he was murdered and sexually assaulted. His mutilated body was discovered by local residents the following day. The case was investigated by the local magistrate, Émile Fourquet, who would uncover the heinous crimes of one of the most notorious serial killers in history, known as ‘L’Éventreur’, the French Ripper.
Fourquet was an investigating magistrate, working in the market town of Belley, near Aix-les-Bains in the foothills of the Alps. When he read about the murder of the shepherd boy in the local press, it reminded him of the killing of Victor Portlier, two years earlier in Bénonces, some 30 km away. (The case had been closed unsolved.) Fourquet immediately sent for the file and soon discovered some striking similarities: both shepherd boys had been stalked by their assailant, who might have been a vagabond. They were both killed by a deep cut to their throat and their bodies were defiled after death. He also found a letter from another magistrate suggesting a connection between the Portalier case and the murder of 17-year-old woodcutter’s daughter Augustine Mortureux, also in 1895. Although there had been similarities with other cases, it was not thought that all these crimes could have been committed by a single hand. However, in Fourquet’s mind a pattern began to form. After receiving the details of seven cases, Émile Fourquet began his meticulous research that would prove the links. The newspapers began referring to the potential murderer as the ‘new’ Jack the Ripper.
The French police was famous for its paperwork in the 19th century, which far surpassed that of their British counterparts. The first ever official police detective, former criminal Eugène Vidocq, began collecting data when he established the Sûreté de Police in Paris, in 1812. In 1880, Alphonse Bertillon had developed his own method of measuring suspects. Using his anthropomorphic technique of taking 11 different measurements, he recorded all the details on cards, eventually amassing vital information on tens of thousands of individuals. By 1897, record keeping was well established and Émile Fourquet used this practice to help his own investigation. After reading through the dossiers, he created two charts, one for the method of the crimes, and the second to compile the characteristics of the as-yet-unknown killer. Through his studies, he became convinced that one man had committed all murders, as the pattern of the crimes pointed to a single modus operandi.
On 10 July 1897, Fourquet sent an arresting warrant to all 250 investigating magistrates throughout France, which included a description of the wanted man. He received many replies and more files on possible culprits. He re-investigated some of the earlier cases, by interviewing witnesses and even interrogating suspects. Less than a month later, a man arrested for public indecency fell right into his trap.
On 4 August, Marie-Eugenie Héraud was out in the woods collecting pinecones for fuel with her children when she was viciously attacked by a man. Putting up a fierce fight whilst screaming for help, the assailant was overpowered by Marie’s husband and some neighbours. They imprisoned him in a stable. Joseph Vacher was tried and sentenced to three months for ‘outrage to public decency’ but when the magistrate remembered Fourquet’s warrant, he contacted him with a description of the prisoner, who was transferred to Belley.
Joseph Vacher was 29 years old. Born in Beaufort, between Lyon and Grenoble, in 1869, he was the 15th of 16 children. His twin sister had been killed in an accident when both were infants, which he had survived. Aged 15, Vacher joined a monastery but was expelled two years later after committing sexual acts on his fellow monks. He then joined the French Army and while he was stationed in Besançon he met Louise Barant and fell in love with her. When she spurned him, Vacher shot her in the mouth and then turned the gun on himself firing two bullets into his head. Both survived as the cartridges had not been fully loaded. The bullets were never removed from Vacher’s skull.
During the next three years Vacher spent short periods in asylums and prison but most of the time he wandered around the French countryside leading the life of a vagrant. After his arrest in 1897, he confessed to 10 murders, mostly of teenage shepherds, over a 600 kilometre area. The remains of an eleventh victim was discovered while he was being interrogated.
Dressed in velour and wearing his trade-mark white rabbit fur hat, Joseph Vacher stood trial for the murder of Victor Portalier in Bénonces, on 26 October 1898. His other alleged crimes, which could have amounted to as many as 27 murders, were mentioned in court. His plea of insanity was overruled by the careful forensic examination of the cases by expert criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne. Vacher was found guilty and sentenced to death. He was executed by guillotine on 31 December and his dissected brain remains in the Faculty of Medicine in Paris to this day.
In the aftermath of this sensational and historic case, Lacassagne recognised the importance of Fourquet’s research and he called on the government to create a national database for unsolved crimes. This extended to the police forces in 20 countries with the formation of the International Police Commission in 1923. It is now known simply as Interpol.