Whoever fights monsters...

Psychological Linkage Analysis: Joseph Vacher, “The French Ripper”

An important aspect of profiling is that the profiler can often use the behavioral-psychological clues an offender leaves behind at a crime scene to link crimes together that are committed by the same offender. Sometimes it’s fairly obvious, and sometimes the clues are much more discreet.

A series of sexual homicides began in France in 1894. They were not immediately connected to one offender because of the distance between the incidents. Some people have offered that the offender was Jack the Ripper, having fled England to continue his crimes in France.

Most of these assaults occurred in rural areas. The victims were young men or women who were walking alone or tending to their sheep.

After the murder of a 17-year old girl in his district, a French magistrate, Louis-Albert Fonfrede began gathering information about reports of similar murders throughout France. He postulated that it was not a single offender responsible for the crimes (because of distance between the murders), but rather, it was a new crime epidemic.

Another French magistrate, Emile Fourquet, was passionately interested in police work. Fourquet heard about one of the murders, and then learned that Fonfrede had gathered information on multiple murders. Fourquet saw a connection between the crimes: the victims had been young shepherds, and all had been mutilated with a razor or knife and sodomized antemortem. A series of “hacking” type neck wounds was present on the victims, indicating that the killer had blitz-attacked the victim from behind. Witnesses from two scenes reported a vagrant with a twisted lip and droopy eye, but this man eluded police.

Fourquet organized the files, dividing them into two charts; one keeping track of information about victimology and Modus Operandi. He analyzed autopsy reports and police reports. Using this method, he determined that there were 8 connected murders, with the bodies being disposed of in the same way, the same type of weapon being used, the same wound patterns on the victims, and the presence of mutilation and a sexual attack. To him, the distance between crime scenes did not matter, the similarities were too many for there to be more than one killer.

Fourquet’s second chart contained his ‘profile’ of the killer. He based this information on eyewitness reports after interviewing as many witnesses as he could find. He extracted the common elements from the accounts to make a list of behavioral patterns, which he called the killer’s signature.

The attacks continued until one potential victim, a young woman, fought off the attacker and her husband was able to detain him until police arrived. The man’s name was Joseph Vacher. He was 29 years old and he apparently fit Fourquet’s profile, who arrived to interview Vacher  - and who was able to obtain a confession.

Vacher was apparently a former soldier who was discharged from the military due to “psychic disturbances.’ He admitted to all the crimes that Fourquet attributed to him - as well as a few more. Vacher reported that he had experienced these homicidal urges since he was a young teenager. He offered an excuse - that his blood was poisoned by a rapid dog bite he received as a child.

Vacher became known as the French Ripper, and was executed.

The Vacher crimes also prompted criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne to advance the field of forensic science by using evidence gathered at the crime scenes (such as molds of foot prints, using bone growth and teeth to determine the age of victims, and blood spatter analysis) to help convict Vacher.

I know people will accuse me of being self-serving, but through God’s help, I have been able to come to the point, much too late, where I can feel the hurt and the pain I am responsible for. Yes. Absolutely! During the past few days, myself and a number of investigators have been talking about unsolved cases – murders I was involved in. It’s hard to talk about all these years later, because it revives all the terrible feelings and thoughts that I have steadfastly and diligently dealt with – I think successfully. It has been reopened and I have felt the pain and the horror of that. I hope that those who I have caused so much grief, even if they don’t believe my expression of sorrow, will believe what I’m saying now; there are those loose in their towns and communities, like me, whose dangerous impulses are being fueled, day in and day out, by violence in the media in its various forms – particularly sexualized violence.

Ted Bundy - the day before his execution

John Wayne Gacy - Doing Time

While in prison, Gacy claimed to be a quiet and kind person. He blamed some of the parents for the deaths of their own children because their sons were prostitutes. He said he was incapable of violence and allegedly received letters every day from “kind people”, most of them women. “90% of the writers are women, and I have 41 people on my visiting list. I’m allowed 3 visits a month”, explained Gacy. Although the prosecution portrayed Gacy as a skillful, competent torturer and killer who enjoyed the “God-like power” of life and death, Gacy said it was a lie: “How could I live on top of those bodies?” Yet, in a 1986 interview with author Tim Cahill, he remarked that if he could spend 15 minutes in a room with the parents of the people he killed, “they would understand”.

Gacy spent much of his prison time painting pictures and having them sold to the public. He loved the attention.

On May 10, 1994, John Wayne Gacy was put to death by lethal injection. Shortly after his death, several of his paintings were purchased at an auction for $20,000. The buyer, wanting to send a clear message to the public, burned Gacy’s artwork.

Serial Killers with Morbid Death Fascinations

• John Wayne Gacy - worked in a mortuary, sleeping in the embalming room, alone with corpses, but was fired after corpses were found partially undressed
• Dennis Nilsen - pretended he was a corpse and masturbated in the mirror to his own dead image
• Jeffrey Dahmer - loved the dissection in biology class, told a classmate that he sliced open the fish he caught because “I want to see what it looks like inside, I like to see how things work.”
• Ed Gein - grave robbing, lamp shades made from human skin, seat covers, and skulls used for drinking cups. He also made clothing and bracelets out of body parts

Jack the Ripper - Modus Operandi

Jack would typically slash the throats of his victims from left to right, then dissect them as they were dying. He would often take an organ or two as a trophy and once sent a kidney to the authorities as proof of his identity. It is reported that the body of Mary Jane Kelly was so grotesquely slaughtered that she was unrecognizable, leading some to believe that the body was not actually of Mary’s, but an unknown surrogate. Her body was also posed with the legs parted.

Psychopathic Behavior and Juvenile Delinquency:

Born Bad; Early Warning Signs of the Child Psychopath

In Robert Hare’s book Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopath Among Us, he cites the real-life example of twin girls, Ariel and Alice. Both came from the same environment and had the same opportunities. But the parents noticed “something different” early on with one of the twins, Alice. While Ariel got a went on to law school and got her degree and a good job, Alice was in and out of trouble with the law, got involved in drugs, and repeatedly asked her parents for help and bail money.

Are Psychopaths Born or is Bad Behavior the Result of Environment?

There are differing opinions on whether children are born with psychopathic tendencies or whether the syndrome is brought about by social influences and early experience. Psychologists who believe social and early experiences are the cause often use the term sociopath to describe such youths. Other experts, such as Robert D. Hare, who feel psychological, biological and genetic causes are the underlying factors are more likely to use the term psychopath.

Opinions also differ on treatment of the psychopath, whether treatment should fall to the mental health profession or the correctional system.

The Juvenile Psychopath: Cruelty Toward Other Children and Siblings

Many psychopaths show signs of disturbing behavior early in life. This can be exhibited as cruelty toward siblings and other children or extreme cruelty toward animals. Because psychopaths feel no empathy toward others, they may inflict abuse on their siblings. In extreme cases, like the little girl in The Bad Seed, they may seek ways to coldly erase any competition for affection by smothering an infant in its crib or other acts of violence.

Juvenile Psychopathy and Cruelty Toward Animals

Cruelty toward animals is one of the most obvious signs of emotional unbalance in children and young adults. The psychopath either treats the cruelty as an ordinary event or derives some pleasure from animal torture.

Jeffery Dahmer showed such cruelty at a young age by impaling the head of a dog and staking cats to trees.

Early Warning Signs of Psychopathic Behavior

There are a number of symptoms that can suggest mental illness. However it should be understood isolated traits, such as lying or petty theft, can be caused by many other factors. A cluster of related symptoms must be present before a diagnosis can be made of any psychopathic mental disorder, and a diagnosis must be provided by a qualified expert.

Below is a list of signs that may indicate serious behavioral problems in a child or young adult:

• repetitive, casual lying
• apparent indifference to the feelings, expectations or pain of others
• defiance of parents, teachers and rules
• continually in trouble and unresponsive to threats of punishment
• petty theft
• persistent aggression, bullying and fighting
• truancy
• hurting or killing animals
• early experimentation with sex
• vandalism and setting fire

(Photo: Kemper, who first killed at age 15)

“My motto is: Rob ‘em all, rape ‘em all, and kill ‘em all.”

- Carl Panzram

Gerard John Schaefer, “The Sex Beast”

(as described by FBI profiler, Roy Hazelwood)

“We believe that he would arrest his victims and then take them out to the swamps. We think he fed them Ex-lax and made them drink beer, because he liked to watch them defecate and urinate. Then he would have them mount a ladder and he’d hang them. When they were dead, he’d bury them, and then he would come back and have sex with the bodies.

Here’s the frightening part. When he couldn’t get a victim, he would play the role of a victim himself. He’d cross-dress and hang himself, and he took pictures of it.”

Schaefer had been a Florida police officer and was suspected of 29 murders.

“After a little while I just couldn’t tell whether she was stabbed or I was ripping her coat. I wasn’t going to rape her or take her money. I was only going to kill her. That’s all.”

- David Berkowitz

Peter Kurten claimed that his first victim was a 10-year old girl. He states that when he stabbed her in the throat and blood sprayed out, he orgasmed.

Kurten’s crimes confused the police, and investigators were unsure if the victims were all connected. He stabbed a series of victims with scissors. He then changed his weapon to what investigators believed was a small dagger. These victims he stabbed once in the temple. This method of killing baffled investigators. After his arrest, Kurten explained that he liked to stab them there because the blood would spray out, which is what excited him.

Peter Stubbe “The Werewolf of Bedburg”

In the 1580’s, Stubbe raped, sexually tortured, cannibalized, and killed at least 15 people. One of his victims was his own son. Stubbe was dubbed a “werewolf”. Lycanthropy was considered an actual medical phenomenon at the time. Just a decade earlier, cannibal killer Gilles Garnier claimed to be a werewolf. This was taken seriously in the courts. Lycanthropy was often cited in cases of serial homicide (and it was not uncommon for a werewolf to be executed alongside a witch in those times). 

People were apparently afraid Stubbe would come back to prey on them after his execution. To try and prevent this, he was tied to a wheel, his limbs were broken, he was beheaded, and his body was burned. His head was displayed on pole.