Another incident occurred while working on the family farm, when he attempted to strangle his younger brother Louis because Vacher thought he was slacking off while helping him push a wheelbarrow.

[4] In the summer of 1884, a ten year old boy named Joseph Amieux was raped and murdered inside a barn in a neighboring town.

At age fifteen, Vacher was sent to his widowed half-sister in Saint-Genis-Laval, who, overwhelmed by the task of caring for the temperamental youth, sent him to a very strict Marist Brothers school, where he was taught to obey and to fear God.

The victim, Marcelin Bourdon, was pushed down while baling hay in a barn, but managed to punch Vacher and alert fellow workers to the scene.

He was evicted in 1889 by his brother-in-law due to his aggressive behaviour and went to Geneva to ask to live with his brother Auguste, to whom he admitted to the attempted rape in Beaufort and possibly referenced other violent crimes he committed.

[5][6] Seeking escape from the intense poverty of his peasant background, he joined the army in 1890, serving in the 60th infantry regiment[7] and reaching the rank of sergeant on 28 December 1892.

Frustrated by slow promotion and no recognition, and infused with the grandiose belief that he was not receiving the attention he deserved, Vacher attempted to kill himself by slicing his throat.

[1] Although he served for under three years, Vacher would later claim to have been a non-commissioned officer with the Zouaves, which, while unsubstantiated and unlikely, was widely repeated in contemporary English-language media.

She declined because Vacher said he would "kill [her] if she betrayed [him]" in the same breath, after which he stalked her for several weeks, often begging Barrand to give their relationship another chance.

Barrand moved back to her mother in Baume-les-Dames, so Vacher instead began sending her love letters, again trying to court her, and repeating his marriage proposal.

This second slight also motivated violence: on 25 June, Vacher entered Barrand's home and in a rage, shot her three times and then tried to commit suicide.

Both attempts were unsuccessful— Barrand was badly injured from a shot through the mouth and grazes by both temples, but survived the shooting, and Vacher severely maimed himself.

He felt that the shooting damaged him more than physically: he later claimed, after his arrest, that the reactions of strangers to this self-inflicted deformity drove him to hatred of society at large.

[3] This second suicide attempt led to his confinement to a mental institution, Saint-Ylle Psychiatric Hospital in Dole, Jura, where he often attacked staff, destroyed furniture, and wrote letters to officials, claiming he suffered abuse there.

He briefly escaped the facility on 25 August 1893, but was caught a few weeks later, though once more fleeing by jumping out of a train window while he was being transported back to Dole.

On 21 December of the same year, a court found him not guilty of the attempted murder of Louise Barrand by reason of insanity, after which he was transferred to the state-run Saint-Robert Psychiatric Hospital outside of Grenoble.

He reportedly attributed being undetected by police to God's grace and would regularly pilgrimage to Lourdes to pray to the statue of the Virgin Mary.

He often entertained the children of his lodgers by reading them books or showing off "souvenirs" from his past, including two large hiking sticks and a photo of a woman in miller's garb, who he claimed was his "mistress" Maria Lourdes, a name that was also engraved on a knife and leather shead he carried.

She left Vacher at the house for a while to go for a walk because he made her uncomfortable with stories of "crude, strange things that happened at the convents" he was raised in.

According to a family who let Vacher lodge with them for a few days in Dunières, they took him in on 14 July after seeing him beg outside of a pub, playing the accordion while Loulette pranced around with a tamed magpie perched on her back.

[b] They locked him in a shed at a nearby inn, with Charlon, the homeowner, and the four neighbours keeping watch as Plantier left with his wife to get police from the station in Saint-Péray, leaving the men to guard Vacher for the next six hours.

This resulted in Vacher throwing the glass in Charlon's face, who reciprocated by hitting him with the metal water jug and kicking him to the ground.

Based on judge Fourquet's belief that the arrested tramp might be the killer he was looking for, Vacher was transported to Prison Saint-Paul by train via the Lyon-Saint-Paul to Montbrison Line [fr], where he briefly escaped at the exit of La Mulatière tunnel before he was recaptured at Perrache station.

[3][4] He was tried and convicted by judge Émile Fourquet of the Cour d'Assises of Ain, the departement where he had murdered two of his victims, and was sentenced to death on 28 October 1898.

Even after he was released due to lack of evidence, Grenier and his family were treated as outcasts, with suspicions still remaining after Vacher's confessions two years later.

A shop owner named Thalmann was briefly detained for the murder of Adrienne Reuillard and forced out of town by locals after he could not be tied to the scene.

In the murder of Jeanne Henrion a man surnamed Munier was incriminated by witness Montchablon for returning a day after the killing with scratches on his face.

It was found that Munier had, on the day following Henrion's death, attempted to rape a young Swiss girl, who "fell ill and died" after the act.

[s] One of the most widely shared, yet unconfirmed cases of this kind is the supposed murder of a French nobleman, named only as the "Marquis de Villeplaine", who had fallen victim to a fatal robbery during a park walk near the French-Spanish border.