The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science [Hardcover]

From 1894 until 1897, the quiet French countryside became the hunting ground of Joseph Vacher, a murderous psychopath known as "The Killer of Little Shepherds" who, like Ted Bundy a century later, would begin his life's work after being rejected by the woman with whom he was obsessed. Author Douglas Starr has written a riveting book of enormous scope, masterfully detailing both Vacher's case and the concurrent first "golden age of forensic discovery." He focuses primarily on Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne, France's leading expert in the field of legal medicine and professor at the University of Lyon, who played a crucial role in bringing Vacher to justice, and who mentored and inspired countless other scientists and students to pursue a wide variety of disciplines in the burgeoning field of forensics. Many important investigative techniques emerged during this time--the use of body measurements to identify and track captured criminals and suspects, the identification of bullets through the unique rifling marks made by individual firearms, the microscopic examination of hairs, fibers, and blood types, the analysis of wound and blood-spatter patterns--all of which form the basis of modern forensics. In addition to such purely scientific advances, the nature, cause, and appropriate treatment of insane persons in general and insane criminals in particular was being passionately debated all over Europe and in the United States. What to do about, and with, a violent offender who was deemed insane was at the forefront of jurisprudence, as was the question of what determines legal insanity--the court's answer to which would ultimately decide Vacher's fate. In alternating chapters, Mr. Starr reveals the life histories of his two main protagonists, illuminating the horrific crimes of the one and the crime-solving genius of the other, until Vacher is caught and the two men's careers intersect, impacting the lives of both.

This comprehensive, elegantly written book covers not just Vacher's crimes, but other interesting cases which challenged the expertise, talent, and instincts of Laccasagne. It sets the scene with plenty of background, from the explosion of crime rates in France (and elsewhere in Europe) as Industrial Revolution technologies displaced laborers, creating a wave of vagabonds who migrated from one area to another in search of work and charity, to the difficulties created by the lack of an organized rural police force to meet the challenges of this onslaught of "undesirables." As rural France tried to cope with these huge numbers of "wild men," those who tended to criminality often evaded capture or prosecution--Vacher was able to evade detection for three years, despite often daily interaction with the citizenry. During those years he walked nearly from one end of France to the other, killing as he went. Rural doctors, too, were fighting an uphill battle--often inadequately educated and working in conditions that made even a high degree of competence moot, the probability of getting reliable information about the state of a body from either the crime scene or the postmortem was regularly compromised. In an attempt to combat this problem Lacassagne prepared and distributed a step-by-step protocol for forensic autopsy, but the ability to follow these steps was often destroyed by those very conditions his protocol was meant to counteract (one important autopsy done on one of Vacher's victims was performed at night, by lamplight, in the middle of a misty field).

Mr. Starr traveled to the remote areas where Vacher's crimes were committed, saw many of the exhibits he describes, spoke with descendants of Dr. Lacassagne, and observed many, rather grim, forensic autopsies. His prose is so rich with detail that the reader is immersed in the experiences of the protagonists--this is not a book researched from the author's computer or armchair. There are many interesting sidebars, including an amusing debate about a skull allegedly belonging to guillotined assassin Charlotte Corday and the significance of its physical characteristics, as well as a lively discussion by the scientists of the day about the methods of the fictional, and wildly popular detective, Sherlock Holmes. A detailed description of of Lacassagne's Criminal Museum is illuminated by several pages of photos and drawings of its exhibits, and pages from the newly emerging penny press (the start of the "yellow journalism" that continues to wreak havoc with investigations and trials today) are reproduced. All of this attention to the mise-en-scène in which Laccasagne and his colleagues worked brings events, as well as time and place, vividly to life. Throughout, Mr. Starr evinces real feeling for his subjects, even the violent and self-aggrandizing Vacher. This is a book filled with strongly drawn characters--criminals and investigators alike--whom Mr. Starr never forgets were real people, especially those whom Vacher killed. In many such accounts the victims of such violent deaths remain mere ciphers, but in "The Killer of Little Shepherds," those little shepherds are clothed in real flesh, and their dignity remains intact.

The Killer of Little Shepherds is a very engaging blend of early forensics methodology and the story of one of the worst serial killers in history. Although admitting to eleven gruesome and grisly murders, nearly twenty-five murders were attributed to Joseph Vacher of France. The governmental establishment, due to idiosyncrasies and communication breakdowns, allowed Vacher to be released from an asylum and even from a jail cell because they had no idea who (or maybe what) they had captured. Vacher thanked God (as he believed that God was watching over him) and went out and killed again and again.

Douglas Starr nicely mixes in the advances in the field of forensics (called Criminal Anthropology at the time) as it pertained to the investigation of Joseph Vacher and other murderers at that time. Doctor Alexandre Lacassangne was Vacher's arch enemy and continued to advance forensics from a police department of bullies beating and torturing their captives into a confession to a more scientific based discovery. There are explanations and examples of how the police would accuse a suspect of a crime with absolutely no evidence at all. Dr. Lacassagne's efforts were to find the scientific methods that would allow a non-emotional examination of the facts leading to a suspect. The case of Joseph Vacher was Dr. Lacassagne's showcase.

I was impressed with the author's ability to carry the story of Vacher as he interwove the science and psychological breakthroughs in that era. It was amazing to learn about the French leaders in forensic science. This book brings a look at just how many stellar performers in that era were French.

The last sections of the book concentrate on the discussion of when a person is actually responsible for his/her actions - criminally insane. Joseph Vacher insisted that he was insane and that he was not responsible for his crimes. Again, the Vacher case was perfect for this discussion and Starr presents the case without any agenda.

I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that is interested in history of forensic science and how it related to one of the greatest trials of one of the worst serial killers of all time. Starr is extremely well researched and writes with absolutely no preconceived conclusions or any agenda. The concepts in this book are controversial (death penalty, criminally insane, preconditioned criminal dispositions, etc.) and were handled with expert skill.

Set in 1890s France, The Killer of Little Shepherds contains two simultaneously-told stories. First, there's the account of Joseph Vacher, who roamed the countryside of France and left only gruesome death in his wake. The second story is that of Alexandre Lacassagne, head of the department of legal medicine at the University of Lyon, who pioneered many forensic techniques in the areas of crime-scene and post-mortem analysis, and was what we would now call a criminal profiler.

Starr begins his story with army Sergeant Joseph Vacher's full-on obsession with a young woman named Louise Barant, a housemaid. After only one dinner, Vacher proposed marriage, and then later told her that if she ever betrayed him, he would kill her. She tried to avoid him and put up every reasonable excuse for not seeing him, but it didn't help. On a four-month leave from the army, Vacher came after her, she refused him, and he shot both Louise and himself. Both survived, and Vacher was put into two different asylums for a total of ten months, then released. With really nowhere to go, Vacher became a vagabond. As he wandered the countryside, he committed the most heinous crimes, with young shepherd boys and young women favorite targets. Because he would wander from department to department, by the time the crimes were discovered, he would have been long gone, thus avoiding detection.

Starr then interweaves his account of Vacher with the story of Alexandre Lacassagne, who was a pioneer in the study of forensic methodologies, including criminal profiling. He also discusses others in the field of criminology including Alphonse Bertillon and Cesare Lombroso, and explains developments in science and psychology that aided in the advancements of legal medicine and crime detection. He also examines the phenomenon of "vagabondage," noting the correlation between unemployment, the increase of people on the move, and the correlating upswing in crime.

Both strands of this book come together when Vacher is caught, imprisoned, and sent to trial, leading to some pretty major questions. For example, was Vacher insane at the time he killed, or was he perfectly rational? And what exactly legally constituted insanity? Is there any way to know if insanity is based on physical causes? What type of punishment is suitable if a murderer is found to be insane? Many of these questions sparked international debates, but they also led to further developments in the field of psychology, which was growing rapidly, as was the gap between medical science and legal codes. And when a person is known to be a "monster," even if he is insane, how can the legal system justify putting him in an asylum where, if he's crafty enough, he'd fake being well and be let out to kill all over again?

Starr expertly catches the era surrounding the crimes of Vacher and the work of Lacassagne and others. He acknowledges work being done in other countries around the same time period, such as Italy, the United States and Great Britain so as to broaden the scope of developments in the science of criminology. He also examines other crimes as well as the limitations of the local rural police departments in the capture of criminals.

I got very caught up in Vacher's story, and I liked the book. The early efforts focused on forensics and criminal profiling are really interesting, and if you're into this kind of thing, you'll be rewarded. It's quite obvious that Starr contributed immense amounts of original research to the production of this work. The stories of Vacher's victims are also lurid enough so that if you're not interested in the field of forensic study, you'll still find something in the book that will interest you. I do think he could have done without the "postscript" chapter and gone right to the epilogue, but that's nit picky on my part. Overall, it's a good book that will keep you reading.

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