46 Facts About Joseph Vacher

Joseph Vacher was a French serial killer, rapist, and necrophile.

Joseph Vacher killed 11 to 27 people, many of whom were adolescent farm workers, between 1894 and 1897.

Joseph Vacher was born as the second youngest of 16 children to illiterate farmer Pierre Joseph Vacher, in Pierre's hometown of Beaufort, a commune 5 kilometers from Beaurepaire and 100 kilometers from Grenoble.

Joseph Vacher had a twin brother, Eugene, 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 Joseph Vacher's older brothers.

At age fifteen, Joseph 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.

Joseph Vacher 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.

Joseph Vacher found work as a restaurant worker and moved in with his sister and her husband in Marcollin.

Joseph Vacher avoided a charge of pederasty as he fled town and his employers were unaware of his residence.

In 1891, Joseph Vacher was briefly confined to an asylum for voicing persecutory delusions.

Frustrated by slow promotion and no recognition, and infused with the grandiose belief that he was not receiving the attention he deserved, Joseph Vacher attempted to kill himself by slicing his throat.

Joseph Vacher 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 Joseph Vacher attacked a man who spoke to Barrand during the date.

Barrand moved back to her mother in Baume-les-Dames, so Joseph Vacher instead began sending her love letters, again trying to court her, and repeating his marriage proposal.

Privately, Joseph Vacher grew paranoid that Barrand had become involved with his best friend Louis Loyonnet, a fellow soldier.

Joseph Vacher 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.

Joseph Vacher 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.

Joseph Vacher stayed there for three months until his doctors pronounced him "completely cured," and released on 1 April, 1894.

In total, Joseph Vacher spent less than ten months in treatment.

Joseph Vacher began murdering his victims shortly after his release at the age of 25.

Joseph 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.

Joseph Vacher 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.

On 31 July, 1896, while in Precy, Joseph Vacher went to the home of a ferryman named Abel Sandrin, with whom he had an unspecified dispute, and started a fistfight.

On 17 October 1896, Joseph 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 Joseph Vacher threw himself on her when she returned.

Joseph Vacher was arrested for the assault, but eventually let go after a short stay in jail.

Joseph Vacher stayed with two families, the Farencs and the Moffres, who later identified him by photograph, wearing his old infantry fatigues.

Joseph Vacher 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 engraved on a knife and leather shead he carried.

At this point, the previously tranquil Joseph Vacher stared at her "with bad air", at which point Cabrol shouted for her husband, causing Joseph Vacher to bolt out of the house.

Joseph Vacher was confirmed to be telling the truth as she independently noted the sergeant chevrons on Vacher's clothing.

Joseph Vacher 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.

Joseph Vacher 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.

Joseph Vacher went to the house of Mme Assimot to warm himself at the fireplace.

Joseph Vacher's 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.

Joseph Vacher had reportedly asked their neighbors if there were any open shepherd jobs.

Joseph Vacher fought back and her screams soon alerted two of her children, as well as her husband, 31-year-old Seraphin Plantier, who came rushing to her aid.

Charlon would later recall that Joseph 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 Joseph Vacher should "pay for the personnel, get married", Joseph Vacher took the statement serious, saying "No, I have as many rights as anyone over all women and I want to use them".

When Plantier returned with two officers, Joseph 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".

Fifteen residents of Benonces, where a murder linked to Joseph Vacher had taken place, were called in and all identified Joseph Vacher as having been in town at the time of the murder.

Joseph Vacher claimed that a rabid dog's bite had poisoned his blood, causing madness, but later blamed the quack cure he received for the bite.

Joseph Vacher claimed he was sent by God, comparing himself to Joan of Arc.

Joseph Vacher was tried and convicted by judge Emile 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, Joseph 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.

Joseph Vacher was executed by guillotine at 7:03 am on 31 December 1898, in front of a crowd of 3,500 people.

Joseph Vacher refused to walk to the scaffold under his own power and was dragged to the guillotine by the executioners.

American newspapers would somewhat exaggerate Joseph Vacher's killings, reporting the high end estimation of 38 possible victims as fact.