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Show 3 .TIIE RIPPER IS DEAD. 'NOTORIOUS FRENCH MURDER-nn MURDER-nn QUILLOTINED. A Itanla for IHmxl tomfn, cllrla and Khrohtnl ll,t Are Ilrutallr Slain Tanly.Tlir Ilratbs Tracnl la lllm ' IIU 11U, Joseph Vacher. the French "Jack the. Hipper." was guillotined nt Ilourghon-" Ilourghon-" Urcsao, capital or the department of the Aln, the other morning He pro tested his Innocence and simulated In-sanity In-sanity to the last. Vnclier, who was 19 J ears old, was condemned at tho October assizes nt Aln He la known to hnvo brutally murdered Jour boy., six joung women and glrli and nn aged widow, Tho crimes of Joseph Vacher havo urpassed In number and atrocity thoso ' ' of tho Whltcchapcl murder known as '.. -.: . "Jtk tho Hipper." Ills homicidal v . mania first broko out In 1831 He "7 ' claimed after his nrrist that n every ' ' action has an object and ns (its motlvo . . . .' " neither theft nor vengeance, his Irresponsibility was establlihcd l'hys- lologlcally physicians have regarded tho case ns Interesting .tdjt was shown) m , that Vacher had been ctTnffncd In an asylum for the Insano and that while doing military duty a lovo affair caus. ed him to attempt self-destruction by- shooting. Tho victims of Vacher were shepherds shep-herds nnd shepherdesses, and Ills rago was particularly directed against girls, illo first cut lis throts of his victims with n knlfo ami afterward mutilated them with a razor. Ho was arrested last year after the police had searched Ifor him a loot, time In vain. In defenii of Vacher It was pointed out that when a jouth bo was bitten by a mad dog and, that the village herbalist gave him 'somo medicine, nftcr drinking which ha became Irrlta-bio Irrlta-bio and brutal whereas ho bad previously pre-viously been quiet and Inoffensive. It , also appears from theso statements ' that from that tlmo be had developed a passion for human blood. Itcfcrrlng to his crimes, Vacher Is quoted as say- l. " ,DB! I ' My victims never suffered, for.whlle I throttled them with one hnnd, I aim-i aim-i ply took their lives with a sharp In- i strument In tho other. I am an an- nrchlst, and I am opposed to society. , so matter what the form of govern- ( m tnent may be." This despernto criminal was notorl-' notorl-' ouily vain and fancied himself a hero. Ille refused to speak about bis crimes, except on two conditions. One was that tho full story of his murders be published In the leading French papers pa-pers and tho other that ha should be y tried separately for each crime In tho district whero It was committed, m . ". Th9 e,ct number f Vachor's rlc-I rlc-I v tlms will never be known, but It Is said 9 that twenty-thrco assassinations bad 1 been brought homo to him In, October H l last and the number was added to as V time woro on In fact, It-Is doubtful i whether tho murderer himself knew i tho real number of his victims. Ho h nonchalantly told the story of some , fresh tragedy from tlmo to tlmo to the examining magistrate as tho de-' de-' ' tails come back to his mind, and In each caso the Investigation has fur- 7 Dished full corroboration of Vachor's narrative Tho bodies In each caso . were found In the places ho Indicated i, . , - In lonely thickets or In unused wells. Ho seems to limo" killed merely for the sako of killing Horn near Lyons, Vacher served his military term In a regiment of xouaves : and showed hlmiclf to bo n good aol-? aol-? dler, so that ho was made n noncom- , J missioned oilier, olthough'thcra wero I complaints against him of being brut- ally sevcro to ricrults. j It was shortly after Vacher left the A service that ho becamo 111, owing to disappointment In a love affair, and - attempted to blow out his brains with a revolver, Tho bullet was never ex- traded from bis skull, and, according to ono report, tho wound produced re-f re-f current fits of Insanity, and caused him j to be confined for a tlmo In an asylum (or tho Insane nt Dole, Since, that tlmo and until his arrest ? Vacher appears to have wandered I through tho country districts at Franco s. ' commltlng murders, lie was unde- ' MARQUIS DE VILLEPLAINE. tected and unsuspected until by mere accident be was caught almost red-handed red-handed near Lyons at tho beginning of October, In every case Vacher seems to have' ' been selxcd with a frensy after attack ing bis victims, as he cut and slashed them horribly and often dismembered tbem. One day Vacher told the magistrate magis-trate that he considered himself to be a scourge nt y l'rovldence to afflict af-flict humanity. Vacher kilted one man, he claimed, because the victim wore a clean shirt, i which the murderer coveted, and he .admitted that be sometimes murdered people because ho needed money aad rood. One of the remarkable features of this 'extraordinary enso was tho clever manner In which Vacher succeeded In shitting suspicion from himself About two years ago ho murdered a shepherd boy on a country road a few miles from Lyons hacked tho boy almost to pieces and then continued on his way. The murder was discovered within a few minutes and search for tho murderer mur-derer was promptly Instituted A gen-darme, gen-darme, mounted on n blcclo, overtook Vacher and oiled upon him to pro-duco pro-duco his Identification papers, whereupon where-upon Vacher quietly handed over to tho police officer his dlschargo as n non-con-mlssloned officer of a regiment of touaves "Why, tint Is my old regiment!" exclaimed ex-claimed tho gendarme ' I am hunting hunt-ing for n mnn who has Just cut a boy's throat, Havo you seen any suspicious sus-picious characters? , ' Oh, yes," answered the murderer, serenely, I saw a man running across the fields to tho north about a mile back from here " , The gendarmo then hurried off aftcj the Imaginary murdirer, and Oio real sceno of his crime Tho most prominent victim of Vacher Vach-er vas tlw Marquis de- ltlcplalncho was kllled-whllo walking In'hts park In tho southwestern part of France, not far from tho Spanish frontier. .Archer crept up behind blm, fclloJ JOSEPH VACIIEIL him with a stick and then cut bit throat The murderer carried off tho coat of the marquis ami his pocket-book, pocket-book, containing somo bank notes. Ho then sought refuge In Spain. Tho boasting of tho murderer led to the detection of a number of his crimes after his arrest. For Instance, he killed a boy 10 years old near Lyons In June, 1837. Tho crime would never havo been discovered but for tbe boasting boast-ing of Vacher, as the boy was a notorious notor-ious poicbcr and chicken thief and his disappearance created no stir at all. In January of the year past Vacher made n furious assault on a warden of tho prison at Lyons, whero ho was confined, and almost bent him to death beforo tho prison guards could overpower over-power him. |
