The Killer of Little Shepherds by Douglas Starr Read Free Book Online Page B

characteristics of the criminal across the top, such as age, height, hair color, and scars or any other “particular signs.”
    Having filled both tables with rows and columns of information, Fourquet underlined in blue all the common elements. Under this spiderweb of blue lines, certain patterns emerged. For example, almost all the bodies showed huge gashes across the throat: “The placement of the wounds was essentially the same.” Several bodies showed a “vast wound” from the sternum to the pubis and an “evisceration” of the abdomen.
    It became clear to Fourquet that this pattern of crimes represented a single methodology. The murderer would kill his victims by slashing the throat with a very sharp knife or razor. He would kill victims in one place and drag them to another, often behind a hedge. Then he would mutilate the corpses.
    There was a similar confluence of facts about the suspect. Witnesses described a vagabond of about thirty years old with black hair and eyebrows, a black beard, and dark eyes. Several described a grimacing mouth, a big sack on his shoulder, and a menacing air.
    Fourquet next moved to create a more precise profile. From the dossier about the Portalier case, he chose a dozen witnesses who had given fairly clear descriptions, summoned them to his office, and led them back through their testimony. He grilled them about particulars: age, height, physical description. He asked in what manner the suspect had presented himself, how they would describe his language and attitude, and if there were any particularities about his face, such as wounds.
    The work was painstaking and took weeks. Finally, on July 10, he sent out a warrant called a “rogatory letter” to 250 magistrates throughoutFrance. 12 Under the heading very important he put his colleagues on alert for a vagabond about thirty years old, of medium height, with black hair and beard, black eyes, and a bony face. They should be aware of “particular signs,” including “a twisted upper lip that contorts into a grimace whenever he speaks.… He expresses himself with some difficulty because of the deformity of his mouth.… His right eye is bloodshot and the lower lid of that eye is slightly scarred.… He carries a big hobo’s sack and a large club.…
    “This may be the man the newspapers are calling ‘Jack the Ripper of the Southeast,’ ” Fourquet concluded. “Telegraph me in case he is discovered.”
    By the time Fourquet had sent out the arrest warrant, Vacher had made his way to the Ardèche, a rugged area about eighty miles south of where he had killed the Laurent boy. In July, a cobbler sold a small black-and-white dog to Vacher for four francs. Vacher named her Loulette. 13 He also acquired a tamed magpie, which he kept tethered on a string. The next day, several people saw him begging in front of a tavern, with his animals and an accordion.
    “It occurred to me to test if he really could play,” a teacher named Vital Vallonre recalled. 14 “I said, ‘Play “the Marseillaise,” ’ but he didn’t really know how.”
    A few days later, Vacher slept in the attic of a farming couple and their four daughters. He repaid their kindness by playing the accordion and making funny faces for the girls and other neighborhood children.
    An elderly widow whom he met shortly thereafter, Madame Ranc, asked what he did for a living. “I’m looking for a position as a shepherd,” he said. “You’re out of luck, monsieur,” she replied, “because there are no flocks around here.” 15
    She recalled: “He lowered his head and gave me a slightly vicious look and then took up his accordion and again began to play. ‘Where do you come from?’ I asked. ‘From a mental asylum,’ he replied. He seemed menacing.”
    On August 2, Vacher approached the farm of a man named Régis Bac and begged for some stew. He ate some and offered the rest to his dog. When the dog turned away, he said, “If you don’t want to eat it,