crimesandcuriosities: Joseph Vacher: ‘The French Ripper’Pictured here is the severed hea
crimesandcuriosities: Joseph Vacher: ‘The French Ripper’Pictured here is the severed head of Joseph Vacher - aka ‘The French Ripper’ - a French serial killer executed by guillotine in December, 1898. His killing spree from 1894 to 1897 took the lives of 11 people, including 1 woman, 5 teenage girls and 5 teenage boys.As the 15th child of a very poor family, Joseph sought escape from his impoverished life and joined the army in 1892. However, at just 22 years old, traits of mental illness began to show. Quickly exasperated by the lack of recognition and promotion he had received from his military superiors, he unsuccessfully attemped suicide by slashing his throat, and was resultantly discharged from the army.In 1893, Vacher’s violent behaviour towards other began to manifest. He had fallen in love with a maid named Louise, but when she rejected his advances, Joseph shot her four times in a furious rage before attempting suicide by turning the gun on himself and firing twice. Both he and Louise survived, although they were both severely injured. One of the two bullets that Vacher aimed at his own head remained embedded in his skull until his eventual execution. Despite being admitted to a psychiatric hospital, Vacher was released just one year later when doctors deemed him fully cured. It was at this point he embarked on a murderous rampage at the age of 25. He became a drifter moving from town to town and would target isolated individuals - mostly those who worked on farms and could therefore be approached alone and in rural surroundings. When discovered, each body was found to have been brutally stabbed and sometimes disembowelled, raped and sodomised. Vacher also often engaged in necrophilic acts by sexually assaulting his victims after they were dead. His reign of terror came to an end after attempting to overpower a seventh female, but she was able to fight back and shout enough to attract the attention of her husband and son. Vacher was subsequently restrained until the authorities arrived to arrest him. Although police had no evidence that linked Vacher to the string of murders which had taken place, he confessed to them all anyway. A plea of insanity was submitted by Vacher, in which he claimed his mental health had been affected by a quack cure given to him after suffering a dog bite during childhood. His story later changed and he instead told authorities that God had sent him to earth as a messenger. This fluctuation in Vacher’s reasoning for why he committed such heinous crimes meant that his insanity claim was rejected, and as a result he received the death penalty.Joseph Vacher’s execution was not so straightforward. On 31st December, 1898 - two months after his sentencing - Vacher refused to walk to the guillotine, and instead had to be forcibly dragged to his death by the executioner. -- source link