The Killer of Little Shepherds

The Killer of Little Shepherds A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science, Douglas Starr (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2010)

You want to read a really good book? Try this one. As the subtitle says, it is a true account of a serial killer in France during the 1880’s and 90’s. Joseph Vacher terrorized the French countryside for several years, killing mostly young shepherds, mutilating their bodies horribly, and sexually assaulting them as well. This is not a murder mystery as the reader knows from the beginning who is committing these horrible crimes, the truly fascinating element is how he was eventually apprehended, tried, and guillotined.

The late 1800’s was a period when science was becoming more and more to the forefront in criminal investigations and the first forensic techniques were being developed. This was essentially a new marriage between criminal investigators and scientists, perhaps made more famous to the public by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle through his famous character, Sherlock Holmes. While the new forensics were not as quick or dramatic as the work of Doyle’s fabulous creation, they shared much in common with his approach to crime, especially the new scientific procedures.

The most famous criminologist of his time was a Frenchman, Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne, who, during his heyday was almost as famous as Pasteur and other scientists. It was Lacassagne who, working with his students, developed new techniques for ascertaining the size of victims from their bones, how long they had been dead by the condition of the body, precisely how they died, what their assassins were most probably like and many other things that subsequently have been greatly improved and have become standard procedures for criminologists. Above all, Lacassagne stressed the importance of allowing nothing, no matter how small or apparently insignificant, to be overlooked.

The book is nicely written and organized, moving from one chapter on the travels and murders of Vacher, to another on the new developments in forensics. On the way you learn a great deal about the conditions of life in 19th century France, how the lack of communications allowed Vacher to kill in one village and move on to another where the residents were completely unaware of his latest crime. Although there were no witnesses to his actual crimes, he was often seen in the vicinity and described in some detail, but this information was simply not widely available at the time. Police in those days were not highly trained and not always available. They often had to perform crude autopsies that were basically useless, procedures that were greatly improved by Lacassagne. Even on a couple of occasions when Vacher was actually caught in the act of trying to molest a woman or child, he either ran or was merely chased away. During the course of his murderous career Vacher traveled hundreds of miles on foot, going from one isolated village to another, sometimes begging, sometimes stealing, always remembered as he was such an awful looking brute who smelled from the pus that ran from one of his ears, and traveled with a large bag containing a club. But as there was no communication in these areas, not even telegraph, what people knew and observed was simply not shared. The fact that Vacher had been honorably discharged from the military and carried his papers often allowed him to succeed in duping innocent people into helping him.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about this case is that the “Insanity Defense” had only recently come into being. Vacher had a story about his life and hard times that he used to argue, after he was more or less accidentally captured, that he was insane. He did not deny his crimes but clung desperately to his claim of irresponsibility because of his mental condition. It was up to Lacassagne and a gifted prosecutor, Emile Fourquet, to prove Vacher was not insane and deserved to go to the guillotine. This is one of those books, sometimes described as a “page-turner,” that once you start reading it, it becomes difficult to put down. If you are a fan of Sherlock Holmes, or the TV series CSI, you will not want to miss this fine book.

Forensic science has come a very long way indeed since its beginnings with Dr. LacassagneI and others, and made it possible for the authorities to eventually capture, prosecute, and send Vacher to the guillotine, but the basic underlying mystery of why he killed, what drove him to such insane lengths, could never be truly understood, just as the same holds true today for such twisted individuals.