Michel Peiry (born 28 February 1959), known as The Sadist of Romont, is a Swiss serial killer who killed at least 5 people between 1981 and 1987.
[1] Described as the worst serial killer known in Switzerland since the Second World War, 11 murders were attributed to him, all of them carried out in the same way: he would take young teenage hitchhikers, tie them up, violate or sexually abuse them, then finally kill them and burn the corpses afterwards.
These crimes upset all of Switzerland for many months and even after that, in 2004, more than 15 years after the events, Peiry returned to the debate when the people had to decide on a popular initiative concerning the treatment of violent offenders in the country.
On 7 May 1986, Peiry killed his first Swiss victim, a young man named Cédric, whose decomposing corpse was found in Albinen, an isolated region of Valais.
He admitted to the murder of a man named Silvio in the region in Rijeka (present-day Croatia), before retracting his confession.
In November of the same year, Peiry attacked a man named Yves Ath in Neuchâtel, who miraculously survived, despite suffering sexual abuse and almost dying.
Michel Peiry was arrested on 1 May 1987 while doing his military service in the canton of Bern, and was subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment by the court.