The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-12-31
A MONSTER
CUILLOTINED.
Joseph Vacher, French "Jack
the Ripper Executed.
23 AssassinatiOns Had Been
Traced to His Hand.
WOMEN AND CHILDREN
We're His FavOrite Victims
Though He Killed Men
When in Need of Money, Food
or Clothes.
CUT THEIR THROATS.
After Which He Mutilated the
Bodies With a Razor.
Was an Anarchist and Killed
For the Love of It.

Paris, Dec. 31.-Joseph Vacher, the
French ''Jack-the-Ripper, was guillo-
tined at Bourghon-Bresse, capital of the
department of the Ain, this morning
He protested his innocence and siunu-
lated insanity to the last. Vacher, who
was % years of age, was condemned at
the October assizes at Ain. Early in
life he is known to have brutally muir
dered four boys, six women and girls,
and an old widow. Most of the victims
were tending herds, when Vacher came
behind them and cut their thrOats.
The crimes of Joseph Vacher have
surpassed in number and atrocity those
of the White chapel murderer known as
"Jack-the- Ripper" His homicidal mania
first broke out in 1894.
He claimed after his arrest, that as
every action has an object, and his mo-
tive was neither theft nor vengeance,
his responsibility was established.
Physiologicaly, physicians have re
garded the case as interesting. 1t was
shown that Vacher had been confined
in an asylum for the insane and that
while doing military duty a love affair
caused him to attempt self destruction
by shooting.
The victims of Vacher were shepherds
and shepherdesses, and his mania was
particularly directed against young
girls. He first cut the thrOats of his
victims with a knife and afterward
nutilated them with razor. ESe was
arrested last year, after the police had
searched for him for long time in
vain.
In defense of Vacher, it was pointed
out that when a youth he was bitten by
a dog and that the village herbalist
gave him some medicine, after drinking
which he became irritable and brutal,
whereas he had previously been quiet
and inoffensive. It also appears from
these statements that from that time he
had developed a passion for human
blood. Referring to his crimes, -Vacher
is quoted as saying: My victims never
suffered for while l throttled them with
one hand, l simply took their lives with
a sharp instrument in the other.
Il am an anarchist and am opposed
to society, no matter what the form of
government may be.
This desperate criminal was motor
iousIy vain and fancied himself a hero.
He refused to speak about his crimes
except on two conditions: One, that the
full story of his murders be published
in the leading French papers, and the
other that he should be tried separately
for each crime in the district where it
was committed.
The exact number of Vacher's victims
will never be known, but it is said that
% assa ssinationS had been brought home
to him in October last, and the number
was added to as time wore on. In fact.
it is doubtful whether the murderer
himself knew the real number of his
y
of some fresh tragedy from time to time
to the examining magistrate as the de-
tails came back to his mind, and in each
case the investigation has furnished full
confederation of Vacher's narrative. The
bodies in each case were found in the
places he indicated-in lonely thickets,
or in unused wells. He seems to have
killed merely for the sake of killing.
Porn near Lyons, Vacher served his mil
showed himself to be a good soldier, so
mace
stoned officer. although there We're com
we're to recruits.
abused him so terribly on the drill grounds
that he lost his temper and sprang at
seized by his companions before he sue
ceeded in striking Vacher; otherwise the
young man would most likely have 6een
sentenced to death by a court martial;
1t was shortly after .Xacher left the
appointment in love affair, and attempt
ed to blow out his brains with a revolver.
The bullet was never extracted from his
skull and. according to one report, the
wound produced fits OF insanity and caus-
asylum for the. insane.
Vacher appears to have wandered through
the country districts of France, commit
was caught almost red-handed near Lyons
at the beginning of october.
In every case Vacher seems to have been
seized with a frenzy after attacking his
ribly and often dismembered them.
one day Vacher told the magistrate that
he considered himself a scOurge sent by
Providence to affiict humanity.
Vacher killed of his victims, he
claimed because he wore a clean shirt
which the murderer coveted and ne ad-
mitted that he sometimes murdered peo-
pie because he needed money and food.
One of the remarkable features of this
extraordinary case was the clever manner
in which Vacher succeeded in shifting sus-
picion from himself. About two years
ago he murdered a shepherd boy on a
country road a few miles from Lyons.
hacked the body almost to pieces and then
continued on his way The murder was
discovered within few minutes after
wrad, and search for the murderer was
promptly Instituted. A gendarme mount
ed on bicycle overlook Vacher and called
upon him to produce his Identification pa,
pers, Whereupon Vacher quietly handed
over to the officer his discharge as a non
commissioned officer from a regiment of
zouaves.
why, that is my old regiment ex-
for a man who has just cut a boys throat.
for man who has just cut aboy's throat.
Have, you seen any suspicious charac-
''oh. yes" answered the murderer. ser
enely, Il saw man running across the