The Killer of Little Shepherds

The Killer of Little Shepherds: A True Crime Story and the Birth of Forensic Science (2010) by Douglas Starr tells the story of the rise of modern forensics and criminal investigation. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, Joseph Vacher, a serial murderer, eluded French authorities for several years, murdering twice as many people as Jack the Ripper. Interwoven into Vacher’s crime wave is the story of the two men who finally stopped him: Prosecutor Emile Fourquet and Dr. Alexandre Lacassagne, the most renowned criminologist of the era. Looking at the true crime story, Starr details how Lacassagne and his colleagues worked to develop forensic science as we know it.

In alternating chapters, Starr tells the stories of former soldier Joseph Vacher and criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne. Vacher, he says, donned a white rabbit fur toque as a symbol of purity and carried in a hobo sack various weapons, including wooden clubs and a knife. He also carried an accordion and had a pet dog and magpie that he eventually beat to death while witnesses looked on in horror. He had been committed to an asylum in 1893 after attempting to murder a woman and shooting himself in the head in an unsuccessful suicide attempt.

Starr spells out the brutality of Vacher’s crimes, asserting that Vacher stabbed and stomped a twenty-one-year-old woman before carving out the areola of one of her breasts. He also tells how Vacher gutted a boy “like a hunter gutting an animal.”



Lacassagne, meanwhile, was the head of the Institute of Legal Medicine at the University of Lyon, where he analyzed putrefaction in order to determine the time of death. He also determined how to match a bullet with a gun and studied knife wound patterns to figure out attackers’ handedness. Additionally, he conducted blood-spatter analysis and body reconstruction from cadavers. Lacassagne was so compelled to study criminals that he analyzed their tattoos to better understand the various criminal subcultures.

The established forensic procedures of the time were crude. Sometimes autopsies would occur on the kitchen table in a victim’s home. Police officers often trusted rumor and innuendo in their investigations. The court system was a means of settling grudges. No systematic way existed for police to communicate between towns or departments. These circumstances were perfect for Vacher, who traveled up to 20 miles a day to elude capture and was under the belief that God would protect him. Eventually, several people managed to overtake him after an attempted rape.

During his publicized confession, Vacher admitted to eleven murders, largely of teenagers, in cities over 600 miles apart in what he termed a “rage” of insanity. He pushed his unstable mental state in an attempt to manipulate his defense. He was brought to trial on October 26, 1898.



Increasing numbers of victims poured in from across the country. However, when Lacassagne and investigating magistrate Emile Fourquet were called in to examine Vacher, they were forced to question the extent to which he was mad and, thus, how responsible he was for his actions. Vacher claimed he could not be held guilty because he was possessed by a mania he felt had been caused by being bitten as a child by a rabid dog. However, he demonstrated a clear pattern in his crimes and hiding the bodies while purposefully evading capture. During the trial, Vacher shouted, debated with lawyers, and held up placards that proclaimed his innocence. However, all believed this was merely an act, and he was sent to the guillotine.

One element that accompanied Vacher’s capture and the trial was the media’s new realization that horrible crimes sell papers; their reporting become both sensational and irresponsible, says Starr. They named innocent people as culprits, some of whom were forced to flee their homes to escape from vengeful mobs.

Starr compares Lacassagne to his fictional contemporary Sherlock Holmes. He believed in careful observation and the systematic compilation of evidence. He thought that every case should be approached using a logical plan and felt strongly about the necessity of preserving an untrampled crime scene. Even the tiniest piece of evidence, thought Lacassagne, could point to a solution.



Unlike his Italian rival Cesare Lombroso, who believed criminals could be identified by the way they look and that euthanasia should be used to prevent criminality, Lacassagne believed in the rehabilitation of prisoners while also accepting the need for capital punishment, as in cases such as Vacher’s.

After his execution, Vacher’s brain was dissected, and besides being infected with tertiary syphilis, no physical signs of abnormality could be found. Starr quotes anarchist Emile Gautier, who said, “The most sophisticated science is still powerless to penetrate the mysteries of the human mind.” Lacassagne, however, can be considered to have taken great steps forward in the field of forensic science as he developed many of the techniques still in use today.