The ‘French Ripper’ Killed Dozens — So Why Don’t You Know His Name?

Few know the name Joseph Vacher — even though his crimes surpassed those of the world’s most infamous serial killers. Even Jack the Ripper — to whom Vacher is often compared — was linked to fewer than half the murders his French counterpart later confessed to before his execution in 1898.

But Vacher’s case — which left its mark not only on folklore but also on the field of forensic science — is rarely mentioned in conversations about history’s most notorious serial killers.

“I think the reason that he disappeared into obscurity, while the name of Jack the Ripper continues to live, is that Jack was never caught,” said author Douglas Starr, whose 2010 book on Vacher and the birth of forensic science, The Killer of Little Shepherds, once led him on a step-by-step tour of the killer’s life in France. 

Jack the Ripper “taunted the authorities in the course of his killing spree, but no closure was ever brought to his story,” Starr says.

“To this day, every few years, someone comes up with a theory about who Jack the Ripper may have been,” the author adds, yet, “the case of Vacher was open and shut — there was never any question of who committed the murders — although no one has ever been able to understand why.”

Many have struggled to comprehend Vacher’s killings. Upon his execution – via guillotine – in December 1898, The New York Times reported that Vacher’s defense attorneys claimed his “homicidal mania” was perhaps a result of having been bitten by a rabid dog when he was a child.

Others at the time pointed to a failed relationship, according to the Times. Lovelorn, Vacher shot himself twice in the head after attempting to kill the woman who turned down his entreaties. Both survived and Vacher’s face was permanently disfigured, Starr recounts in his book, which is based on an exhaustive review of historical documents, interviews, and research. 

Some texts suggest Vacher’s disfigurement from the shooting led to him being mocked or stared at in public, causing him to develop a hatred for others. “I am an Anarchist, and I am opposed to society,” Vacher admitted during his 1898 trial, according to the Times.

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The story of “The French Ripper,” as Vacher became known, made international headlines after he was caught attempting to kill a farm worker before her husband and a group of neighbors fought him off and held him captive until police arrived. Vacher was a serial rapist, who assaulted his victims before and after he mutilated them, according to Le Dauphine, which looked back at the 19th-century murder case in a 2022 Crimes & Mystéres podcast episode.

Vacher eventually confessed to killing at least 11 people throughout the French countryside, often stalking his victims in farm fields, leading to Starr’s description of him as “The Killer of Little Shepherds.” But French trial records show Vacher was accused of murdering more than 50 people throughout the course of his three-year spree. The victims he confessed to killing ranged between the ages of 12 and 68, while he was accused of attacking children as young as 7. His victims included men, women and children.

“Vacher was not simply evil,” says Starr, the author. “He was a man consumed by pain and self-pity, capable of soaring passions, but also unspeakable crimes.”