Joseph Vacher 16 November — 31 December was a French serial killer , rapist, and necrophile. Vacher's scarred face and plain, white, handmade rabbit-fur hat composed his trademark appearance. He killed 11 to 27 people, many of whom were adolescent farm workers, between and Vacher was born as the second youngest of 16 children to illiterate farmer Pierre Vacher — , in Pierre's hometown of Beaufort , a commune 5 kilometers from Beaurepaire and kilometers from Grenoble.
Joseph's mother, Marie Rose "Rosalie" Ravit — from Lentiol , was Pierre's second wife after his first wife Virginie Didier, mother of four of Joseph's siblings, died in , aged Pierre and Rose became Joseph's parents at a relatively old age, being 59 and 44 years old respectively.
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. In the summer of , a ten year old boy named Joseph Amieux was raped and murdered inside a barn in a neighboring town.
Although the crime is blamed on vagabonds, thenyear-old Vacher would later be suspected as having been the true perpetrator.
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. He was meant to be educated there until he was 18, but expelled after only two years, as monks at the school noted Vacher for torturing animals and masturbation.
