{"product_id":"the-killer-of-little-shepherds-isbn-9780307279088","title":"The Killer of Little Shepherds","description":"\u003cp\u003eWinner of the Gold Dagger Award\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA fascinating true crime story that details the rise of modern forensics and the development of modern criminal investigation.\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003eAt the end of the nineteenth century, serial murderer Joseph Vacher terrorized the French countryside, eluding authorities for years, and murdering twice as many victims as Jack The Ripper. Here, Douglas Starr revisits Vacher's infamous crime wave, interweaving the story of the two men who eventually stopped him—prosecutor Emile Fourquet and Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne, the era's most renowned criminologist. In dramatic detail, Starr shows how Lacassagne and his colleagues were developing forensic science as we know it. Building to a gripping courtroom denouement, \u003ci\u003eThe Killer of Little Shepherds \u003c\/i\u003eis a riveting contribution to the history of criminal justice.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“Chilling . . . An exemplar of historical true-crime nonfiction.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Mark Dunkelman, Favorite Books of 2010,\u003ci\u003e The Providence Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Absorbing . . . Starr’s thought-provoking journey, through the strange underbelly of a vividly rendered France, lingers in the reader’s memory.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Elyssa East,\u003ci\u003e The New York Times Book Review \u003c\/i\u003e(Editor’s Choice)\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Engrossing and carefully researched.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e            -The New Yorker\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A- . . . Gripping, almost novelistic . . . Like an episode of \u003ci\u003eCSI: 19th-Century France\u003c\/i\u003e.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Tina Jordan,\u003ci\u003e Entertainment Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Riveting.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Laura Spinney,\u003ci\u003e Nature\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Gripping . . . Starr’s description of the legal, medical and even philosophical questions around Vacher’s responsibility are strikingly current.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Drew DeSilver,\u003ci\u003e The Seattle Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“The perfect true-crime book to curl up with on an autumn night.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Doug Childers, \u003ci\u003eRichmond Times-Dispatch\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Riveting, yet cerebral . . .\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003eBesides focusing on Joseph Vacher, also known as the Killer of Little Shepherds, Starr explains and expands on the fascinating achievements of those studying the criminal world.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Elizabeth Humphrey, \u003ci\u003eSan Francisco Book Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“A gripping book that alternately appalls and fascinates.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Mark Dunkelman,\u003ci\u003e Providence Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Superior . . . This book is sensational and swift. But its real strength is the ability to show the history and progress of forensic science and its effect on the criminal justice system . . . This book reads like fiction and fascinates with fact.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Bethany Latham,\u003ci\u003e Historical Novel Review\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Lively . . . With drama and stunning detail, Starr documents one of the earliest examples of criminal profiling, Vacher’s murders, his arrest, and the twists and turns of the trial that followed.\u003ci\u003e The Killer of Little Shepherds \u003c\/i\u003eis an important contribution to the history of criminal justice. It is crisply written, meticulously researched, and rich in historical detail.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Larry Cox,\u003ci\u003e Tucson Citizen\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Douglas Starr’s riveting, sophisticated book provides the distance and perspective needed to facilitate systematic but critical thinking about forensic science.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Stanley J. Morse,\u003ci\u003e PsycCritiques\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Fascinating . . . Compelling . . . Written with the dramatic tension of a good novel and the impeccable detail of a well-researched history.”\u003cbr\u003e            -Erika Engelhaupt,\u003ci\u003e ScienceNews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Deft . . . Admirable . . . Riveting . .\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e.\u003ci\u003e The Killer of Little Shepherds \u003c\/i\u003eis deeply rooted in historical sources and subtle context, but Starr also has a journalist’s flair for the colorful detail.”\u003cbr\u003e            -John Williams, \u003ci\u003eThe Second Pass\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Graceful and accessible . . . The granddaddy of all true crime stories.”\u003cbr\u003e            -David Walton,\u003ci\u003e Louisville Courier-Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Expert . . . You’ll be richly rewarded . . . A good book that will keep you reading.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e            -The Crime Segments \u003c\/i\u003eblog\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e “Eloquent . . . Starr creates tension worthy of a thriller.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e            -\u003c\/i\u003eStarred review,\u003ci\u003e Publishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Starr’s heavy immersion into forensics and investigative procedure makes interesting reading . . . [A] well-documented mix of forensic science, narrative nonfiction, and criminal psychology.”\u003cbr\u003e            -\u003ci\u003eKirkus\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e \u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eDouglas Starr is codirector of the Center for Science and Medical Journalism and a professor of journalism at Boston University. His book \u003ci\u003eBlood: An Epic History of Medicine and Commerce\u003c\/i\u003e won the 1998 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and became a PBS-TV documentary special. A veteran science, medical, and environmental reporter, Starr has contributed to many national publications, including \u003ci\u003eSmithsonian, Audubon, National Wildlife, Sports Illustrated, \u003c\/i\u003ethe \u003ci\u003eLos Angeles Times, The Christian Science Monitor,\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eTime,\u003c\/i\u003e and has served as a science editor for PBS-TV. He lives near Boston.One\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Beast\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn a drizzly spring evening in 1893, in the  French provincial city of Besançon, nineteen-year-old Louise Barant was  walking along the riverside promenade when she crossed paths with a man  wearing the dress uniform of the French army. His name was Joseph Vacher  (pronounced Vashay). “Ugly weather, isn’t it?” he said, and  automatically she responded, “For sure.” Normally Barant, tall and  wholesome-looking, with curly blond hair, would not have spoken to a  stranger, especially one as brutish-looking as he; but Vacher projected a  kind of disarming innocence, and the sergeant’s chevrons on his sleeve  reassured her.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo they chatted and walked and shared dinner in a  café. They learned that they both came from small towns: she from  Baume-les-Dames, a pretty village near the Swiss border, and he from  Beaufort, a nondescript hilltown southeast of Lyon. As they lingered  over shared stories about their pasts, he told her he had never felt  this comfortable with anyone, and she, too, sensed she could speak  freely and easily. Yet she felt a shiver of doubt when she looked up  from her meal and saw his eyes burning into her. Later that evening, he  ardently proposed marriage. When he vowed that he would kill her if she  ever betrayed him, she realized she had made a terrible mistake.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn  the weeks that followed, he pursued her relentlessly. Like other men  who live easily with violence, Vacher knew how to interweave threat,  regret, self-pity, and charm in an attempt to prolong the relationship.  Louise, who was a stranger to the town and worked as a housemaid, tried  desperately to avoid him, inventing endless excuses for not being  available. Once, taking pity as victims sometimes do, she agreed to meet  him at a dance. They were standing awkwardly among the merrymakers when  a soldier approached to talk to Louise. Vacher lunged at the man with  such fury that the soldier and Louise ran from the dance hall.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNow  she knew that she would never be safe in the same town as Vacher. Too  afraid to reject him directly, she made up a story that her mother had  forbidden their marriage and had ordered her home. The distance did  nothing to quell his obsession. He kept mailing her love letters.  Finally, she responded in the clearest possible way: “It would be best  if you stopped writing to me . . . Everything is finished between us; I  do not want to go against the wishes of my mother. Furthermore, I do not  love you. Adieu, Louise.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe hoped that would finally end  things between them. Besides, she knew that if he left his unit to find  her, he would face charges of desertion. But her departure and final  letter had sent him into such a series of rages that the regimental  doctor diagnosed him as having “nervous exhaustion” and gave him a  four-month medical leave. He immediately headed to Baume-les-Dames,  stopping to buy a revolver along the way.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAny of the soldiers in  Vacher’s barracks would have told Louise not to get involved with the  twenty-three-year-old sergeant in the first place, for something wild  and violent dwelled within him. They had witnessed his manias and  explosive temper: How once, when a soldier lagged in formation, Vacher  swiftly and without warning kicked him in the groin; or how, during  alcohol-induced tantrums, he would hurl heavy wooden bureaus across the  room, roar like an animal, and rip handfuls of hair out of his forearms.  Once, when he was passed over for promotion, he drank himself  senseless, tore apart the barracks, and slashed with a razor at anyone  who came near. He ended the episode by taking the blade to his own  throat. After that incident, he was hospitalized and transferred to  another company.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet at times, Vacher could appear deferential,  and, when necessary, even charming. Undoubtedly, he behaved that way  when he first met Louise, although under the stress of rejection the  beast had reemerged.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eArriving in her village, he spent days  trying to persuade her mother and family to accept him, only to succeed  in frightening them as well. On the morning of June 25, 1893, he went to  the house of Louise’s employer for a final confrontation before taking  the train back to Besançon. Louise opened the door, recoiling when she  saw him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Why are you afraid, Louise?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“I’m not afraid,” she said unconvincingly.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Look, I don’t want to harm you. I’ve come here peacefully to demand the things that you owe me.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe  had become obsessed with reclaiming the letters and trinkets he had  given her, and money he had spent taking her to dinner. She gave him all  that he demanded, but still he kept talking about needing more. As he  rattled on about his various resentments, she furtively backed her way  up the marble stairway. The more he spoke, the more agitated he became.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“When  I think that you don’t want me, Louise . . . We would have been so  happy! Listen, you don’t know what I am capable of doing. I have already  told you and I repeat: I’m crazy about you! Come away with me.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShe  told him that if he did not leave immediately, she would wake her boss,  who would eject him. Vacher slipped his right hand into his pocket.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“So you do not want to come with me, then?”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“No!”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe  pulled out the revolver and began firing. The first bullet entered her  mouth, shattered two teeth, ripped through her tongue, and exited her  cheek. She screamed and collapsed. Two more shots grazed the top of her  head as she fell and another smashed into the wall. Then Vacher turned  the gun on himself, firing two bullets into his face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe  explosions echoed so loudly in the hallway that her employer’s family  rushed down from their bedrooms and passersby ran in from the street.  They found Louise crumpled on the stairs, Vacher staggering blindly, his  face covered with blood. He lurched four or five steps out the door  before collapsing in the street.*\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAnd so began  the public life of Joseph Vacher, one of the most notorious serial  killers of his century, who slaughtered more people than the infamous  Jack the Ripper. Although the incident with Louise Barant was the first  of Vacher’s legal encounters, he had perplexed and discomfited the  people around him for years. Neighbors in Beaufort remembered him as a  child who was quick to pick an argument, and unusually violent in  schoolyard scuffles. Once, when asked to guard the family’s livestock,  he took the animals to a meadow and broke some of their legs. He\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003espent  a couple of his teenage years in a monastery but was expelled for  unspecified indiscretions. He was drafted and stationed with the  Sixtieth\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e*Both survived, because the dealer who had sold Vacher  the revolver loaded the cartridges only with half charges—just enough  powder to stop an aggressor but not necessarily to kill him.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRegiment  in Besançon. Although he thrived under the army’s strict discipline, he  showed violent outbursts there, as well. All along, people found him  strange, but as he himself had said to Louise, they had no idea of what  he was capable.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eCrimes of passion were notoriously common at the  time, leniently punished, and often blamed on the victim. After he shot  Louise, Vacher spent a couple of weeks in a hospital. He was then sent  for observation to the public asylum in the nearby city of Dole, where  doctors were to determine if he was sane enough to stand trial. The  “Certificate of 24 Hours,” documenting the patient’s first day in the  asylum, reported he was “calm, responds meekly to questions and regrets  the act he has committed.” It described in detail how the shooting had  disfigured him—a scarlet furrow ran the length of his right jaw;  yellowish pus oozed from the right ear—stigmata that would mark him for  life. With each breath, his right cheek fluttered like an unfettered  sail, for one of the bullets had severed a facial nerve. When he spoke,  he could barely open his mouth, and the voice that emerged was nasal and  slurred.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHe seemed a defeated man, rather than a menacing one.  Yet over the weeks, as Vacher healed and became stronger, a more  paranoid and violent character emerged. Quietly at first, and then more  stridently, he accused the doctors at Dole of plotting against him. Day  after day, he demanded to see a surgeon to remove the bullet from his  ear. When medical personnel arrived for the procedure, Vacher accused  them of trying to kill him and bolted from the operating room.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn  July 20, according to hospital records, he experienced a “crisis of  agitation.” He screamed at doctors and fought with his roommates.  Sometimes he sat rocking on the side of his bed. “At certain moments he  raises his head and focuses his eyes as if listening to invisible  voices,” wrote Dr. Léon Guillemin, adjunct doctor at the facility.  “During such times he has the facial expression of a madman.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eInwardly,  Vacher seethed. He hated the institution and everyone in it. According  to him, the doctors were heartless and the patients were swine. Later,  in a long, embittered letter to the authorities (Vacher would prove to  be a prolific letter writer), he would write that the asylum was  “everything that is dirty and abominable,” where he was forced to sleep  “on a grubby flea-infested mattress.” The food was barely edible, he  said, and the guards often stole it. Unsupervised patients often abused  one another and took special delight in tormenting the blind. “They  pushed them and spit in their faces. Some even pushed them outside naked  in the snow.” At times, he thought of killing himself. “And I was not  the only one . . . some people could not take this treatment, and  committed suicide.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eContrary to Vacher’s accusations, the  alienists at Dole considered themselves sympathetic and attentive.  (Alienist was the era’s term for a psychologist, as mental patients were  seen to be “alienated” from themselves.) Printed materials from the  asylum described their treatments as “gentle, tolerable, humane, and  more in agreement with modern ideas.” Unlike in the past, inmates were  not shackled to the walls or beaten for offenses they unwittingly  committed. “All the coercive methods that tortured the sick patients  have been abandoned . . . the fate of the sick [who come to the asylum]  is nothing other than completely humane.”\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen Vacher was  admitted, the asylum’s director was preparing to move the patients to a  new facility, a cluster of pavilions in a pastoral setting just outside  of town, a notable improvement on the present fortresslike edifice.  Scores of such facilities were being built throughout Europe.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill,  conditions at Dole were not what they should have been. A  late-nineteenth-century visitor to the asylum noted that many patients  still lived behind bars in dank cells and received inadequate personal  care. In truth, this asylum, like many others, had far too many inmates.  The population of insane people had exploded in France (and throughout  Europe and in the Americas, as well) due to the epidemics of alcoholism  and syphilis, and to the increasingly common diagnosis of mental  disease. In time, insanity became a catchall diagnosis for all sorts of  deficiencies, including dementia, homelessness, and criminal behavior.  As a result, asylums became dumping grounds for the overflow from  prisons, almshouses, workhouses, and the streets. By the time Vacher  entered the asylum, the state-run system was housing more than twice the  capacity it was designed for. Dole, built for five hundred patients,  was bursting with more than nine hundred—at least 15 percent of whom  were criminals. (Faced with such impossible conditions, even the most  dedicated alienist could lose heart. When the director of the Villejuif  asylum in Paris was asked what he found most effective for patients, he  replied, “We wait for them to die.”)\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDoctors had put Vacher in a  special high-security wing, but, as in many asylums at the time,  oversight was lax. On the night of August 25, 1893, Vacher sneaked out  of his room, found a long wooden beam, leaned it against the wall, and  shimmied over it to freedom. He was heading to Baume-les-Dames to find  Louise. An all-points bulletin went out over the telegraph, with a  special notification to the police in Louise’s village. It would not be  hard to identify the fugitive: He wore the asylum’s standard-issue gray  cotton shirt and trousers and there was no mistaking his disfigured  face.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA couple of weeks later, some soldiers in Besançon caught  sight of him. Local policemen jailed him. A few days later, he was put  on a train, headed back to the asylum. His guards had instructions to  handcuff him and to keep him in view at all times. As the train rumbled  on, Vacher asked the guards if he could get off at the next stop to go  to the bathroom. “You’ll have to wait,” they said. They had no intention  of letting him off the train, even if manacled, for a minute. He  persisted. Finally he offered to stand right in front of the guards and  urinate out the door. They paused; the train was flying along at top  speed, and it seemed there was no way he could even think of making that  leap and surviving. He shuffled to the door, opened his pants, and,  before they could react, heaved himself out. He hit the talus, then  rolled and scampered off like a jackrabbit as the train roared away.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTwo  days later, police, alerted by some village children, found him eating  dinner at a farmer’s house. They took him to the Dole asylum in chains.  His condition grew worse. Increasingly “in the grip of melancholic  ideas,” he tried to commit suicide by slamming his head against the  corner of a wall. “We frequently have to take energetic measures to  prevent him from harming himself,” wrote the doctors in a “situation  report” of October 26, 1893.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMeanwhile, Dr. Guillemin had arrived  to make an official assessment of the inmate’s sanity. He interviewed  Vacher, physically examined him, spoke to his minders, and pored over  his records. Guillemin diagnosed Vacher as “a deliriant with a  persecution complex of the first order.” He had suffered this condition  for most of his life. The symptoms, not always evident, would  occasionally and dramatically appear. The rejection by Louise aggravated  the condition as never before, the doctor said, and triggered the  homicidal behavior. At the asylum, Vacher continued to suffer severe  paranoia, aggravated by auditory hallucinations. He imagined the “entire  world is in league against him,” wrote Guillemin. “From the moment he  arrived at Dole, [Vacher felt] his doctors neglected him, ignored him,  did not want to care for him, and wanted him to die. We have done our  best for him, but he accuses us of trying to kill him, and shows no  signs of being cured.”","brand":"Vintage","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46303384535269,"sku":"NP9780307279088","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780307279088.jpg?v=1767740045","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-killer-of-little-shepherds-isbn-9780307279088","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}