precision. Aside from two that his colleague Jean Boyer conducted, all the procedures were carried out by doctors withvarying levels of expertise and took place in rough rural settings. The body of Vacher’s first victim, Eugénie Delhomme, was not examined until four days after the body was found. Rosine Rodier’s body was examined in a foggy pasture in the middle of the night, the area lit poorly with lanterns.
There were so many lapses in forensic technique. In Lacassagne’s
Handbook
he had stressed, for example, the importance of checking for anal rape, as pederasty was becoming more widely recognized as a crime motive. Since Vacher had a bottle of lubricating oil among his possessions, and doctors had found traces of oil on some of the bodies, it was particularly important in this case. Yet in only two instances had doctors checked for anal rape. Lacassagne showed the eleven crime-scene reports to a sketch artist, who drew the bodies in the positions they had been found. Using the drawings, autopsy reports, and Vacher’s confessions, Lacassagne started to list common elements.
All the victims had been killed in isolated areas without any witnesses. All were much smaller and weaker than Vacher—thus clearly not capable of effective self-defense. Ten of the victims’ bodies had massive cuts to the side of the throat, accompanied by other brutalities. (The body of the eleventh victim, recovered from the well, was nothing more than bones.) At ten of the crime scenes, investigators had found one or more huge puddles of blood, at a distance from where the body lay. The body itself was almost always hidden—either under a bush, as in the case of Vacher’s first victim, Eugénie Delhomme, or in a deserted shed, as with his second victim, Louise Marcel. Only two of the victims showed defensive wounds on the inner surfaces of their fingers or palms. None of the bodies had contusions on the back or the back of the head. In cases where the crime had taken place in enclosed areas, such as in shepherds’ huts, there were no traces of blood on the walls.
These forensic details gave Lacassagne enough information to recreate Vacher’s method of attack. “One can see in the circumstances of the killings that the victims were assaulted and murdered in almost identical conditions,” he wrote. 16 “Vacher did not improvise: He always follows the same method.”
According to Lacassagne’s reconstruction, Vacher would walk for miles along commonly traveled roads but leave for his “hunt” along paths that skirted the edge of forests. There, he would prowl for solitary adolescents, whose “young flesh fascinated and appealed to him.” (Lacassagne pointedout that with the exception of one victim, the sixty-eight-year-old widow Morand, all Vacher’s victims had been young.) Vacher would approach a shepherd and take a quick look to make sure there was no one around. (The young shepherd Alphonse Rodier was spared an attack by the last-minute appearance of some workers in the distance.) Then he would violently seize the victim’s throat. Vacher was strong and had unusually long fingernails, and his first victim displayed telltale scratches. Later, as he gained confidence and practice in stabbing, he made throat wounds so large that they obliterated the scratches. Autopsies revealing crushed larynxes nonetheless demonstrated that strangulation had taken place.
Vacher would seize his victims so quickly and powerfully that almost none had the chance to struggle or scream. Most blacked out or went limp, at which point he placed them on the ground and slit their throats. Lacassagne deduced that Vacher always proceeded in this manner because, as noted earlier, only one of the bodies displayed the kind of contusions on the back or the back of the head that a violent fall would have produced. Only one victim, the widow Morand, showed the kind of contusions that would have resulted from a fall, as Vacher seemed to have immediately
There were so many lapses in forensic technique. In Lacassagne’s
Handbook
he had stressed, for example, the importance of checking for anal rape, as pederasty was becoming more widely recognized as a crime motive. Since Vacher had a bottle of lubricating oil among his possessions, and doctors had found traces of oil on some of the bodies, it was particularly important in this case. Yet in only two instances had doctors checked for anal rape. Lacassagne showed the eleven crime-scene reports to a sketch artist, who drew the bodies in the positions they had been found. Using the drawings, autopsy reports, and Vacher’s confessions, Lacassagne started to list common elements.
All the victims had been killed in isolated areas without any witnesses. All were much smaller and weaker than Vacher—thus clearly not capable of effective self-defense. Ten of the victims’ bodies had massive cuts to the side of the throat, accompanied by other brutalities. (The body of the eleventh victim, recovered from the well, was nothing more than bones.) At ten of the crime scenes, investigators had found one or more huge puddles of blood, at a distance from where the body lay. The body itself was almost always hidden—either under a bush, as in the case of Vacher’s first victim, Eugénie Delhomme, or in a deserted shed, as with his second victim, Louise Marcel. Only two of the victims showed defensive wounds on the inner surfaces of their fingers or palms. None of the bodies had contusions on the back or the back of the head. In cases where the crime had taken place in enclosed areas, such as in shepherds’ huts, there were no traces of blood on the walls.
These forensic details gave Lacassagne enough information to recreate Vacher’s method of attack. “One can see in the circumstances of the killings that the victims were assaulted and murdered in almost identical conditions,” he wrote. 16 “Vacher did not improvise: He always follows the same method.”
According to Lacassagne’s reconstruction, Vacher would walk for miles along commonly traveled roads but leave for his “hunt” along paths that skirted the edge of forests. There, he would prowl for solitary adolescents, whose “young flesh fascinated and appealed to him.” (Lacassagne pointedout that with the exception of one victim, the sixty-eight-year-old widow Morand, all Vacher’s victims had been young.) Vacher would approach a shepherd and take a quick look to make sure there was no one around. (The young shepherd Alphonse Rodier was spared an attack by the last-minute appearance of some workers in the distance.) Then he would violently seize the victim’s throat. Vacher was strong and had unusually long fingernails, and his first victim displayed telltale scratches. Later, as he gained confidence and practice in stabbing, he made throat wounds so large that they obliterated the scratches. Autopsies revealing crushed larynxes nonetheless demonstrated that strangulation had taken place.
Vacher would seize his victims so quickly and powerfully that almost none had the chance to struggle or scream. Most blacked out or went limp, at which point he placed them on the ground and slit their throats. Lacassagne deduced that Vacher always proceeded in this manner because, as noted earlier, only one of the bodies displayed the kind of contusions on the back or the back of the head that a violent fall would have produced. Only one victim, the widow Morand, showed the kind of contusions that would have resulted from a fall, as Vacher seemed to have immediately
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