Vacher l'éventreur et les crimes sadiques (Vacher the ripper and sadistic crimes)

[SirJohnFalstaff]

This is a thesis written in 1899 by Alexandre Lacassagne (a famous French physician and criminologist).

You can download the book from this link:

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k77016g.pdf

Joseph Vacher is a French serial killer executed by guillotine in 1899. He confessed of 11 murders, but was suspected of several more.

He killed, disemboweled, raped and sodomized his victim.
He was nicknamed the French Ripper.

While the thesis is only remotely related to JtR, some allusions and theories could prove interesting, especially about how criminology was approached at that time.

You can message me if you need any help with translation. The book is in French.

[Phil Carter]

Thank you SJF ☺

I will have a struggle through...lol



Phil

[Joshua Rogan]

Is this the one with the first known publication of the MJK pic?

Edit: apparently yes, although not very good quality. Page 272

[drstrange169]

Thanks for posting this link, much appreciated.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Is this the one with the first known publication of the MJK pic?

Edit: apparently yes, although not very good quality. Page 272

Yeah, nothing you haven't seen before, when it comes to picture.


The second half of the book is about sadistic murders in general.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Jack The Ripper

the section of the book about Jack The Ripper is translated from a book published by a Washington criminologist named Arthur MacDonald in 1893. They share the same mentor.

I can't download the book, but it's available on google play

https://books.google.ca/books/about/Criminology.html?id=UyoDAAAAMAAJ

The book is 416 pages.

What I will do is translate back into English the few paragraphs about JtR. Just give me a couple of days.

Interestingly, being published in 1893, Dr MacDonald speak of 11 murders done by Jack. His conclusions on the assassin's behaviour are interesting. (sorry for the suspens, but it's late and I need to sleep)

[SirJohnFalstaff]

The translation

I apologize in advance, I'm not a professional translator, and the writing style was a bit outdated in French. If there is part that aren't clear, I'm sure there are, let me know, I'll try again.

Arthur MacDonald's conclusions about JtR from a criminologist point of view. This is from 1893. (Like I said, he believed Jack killed 11, including torso murders).

"The particularity of Jack’s crimes is the fact that sexuality takes a bloody and deadly form. In all the cases, except ____ (the name is not there) the death of the victim wasn’t the point. It is probable that Jack cut the throat of his victims because it was a turn on, or because by killing them, it allowed him to explore cruelties that would excite him, like sectioning the abdomen, manipulating the intestine or disfiguring, mutilating the sexual organs. A more perverse form of sexuality was presented before with the confessions of criminals who exhumed corpses to perpetrate similar outrages.
In some cases, Jack took away sexual organs, probably for later sexual gratification, by looking at them, or using them while masturbating. A similar case, related by Krafft-Ebing, was about a man who punctured little girls with a knife, and got sexual gratification by looking at the bloody blade which he kept in his room for that very purpose. He always looked at his blade with ferocity while cutting his victims.
There are very few reasons for believing Jack was insane, since he would have probably confessed if he was. The insane is not only proud of his crimes, but also much more honest than the criminal and ends up confessing his crime. The fact that he managed to avoid detection for so long doesn’t point in the direction of insanity.
Like in similar cases, proofs tell us that such a murdering act includes a sexual pleasure so powerful that all repulsion against the cruelty is counterbalanced, at least in the moment, or too weak to be of any influence. The sole concept of cruelty cannot explain the abdominal wounds and organ mutilations, but the fact that he put, in one case, the intestine on the victim’s shoulder, and cut another’s breasts to display them on a table, this fact, I’m saying, tells us that the murderer took his time and wanted to make his crime as horrible as possible for publicity. This behaviour can only exist after sexual appeasement.
One reason that might have prevented the capture of Jack, was the fact that he was proceeding deliberatly and wasn’t agitated after leaving his victims, failing to attract attention on himself. The police knows very well that most criminals can be detected simply by their agitated behaviour after their crimes.
Finally, the elements of information do not point automatically to the fact that the murderer had anatomical knowledge, but instead that practice made him more skillful."

there you go.

I know there isn't much in there we didn't already know, but it could be interesting to look at what early criminology looked like.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

[SirJohnFalstaff]

[Phil Carter]

Thank you SJF,

If insanity isn't a cause..as explained, above, for various reasons, then Aaron Kosminski, Druitt (to a certain degree at least), and anyone else deemed insane and bolted up in an asylum after the murders, are ruled out of the equation.

The question I ask therefore, is how and when this person stopped his onslaught if the purpose was serial gratification?

The form of serial gratification shown had nothing to do with Druitts condition, so the taking of his own life has nothing to do with the above.

When looking for such a person. .If the writer above is correct, would seemingly fit more the description of the "French Ripper" of a few years later than any form of Kosminski.



Phil

[GUT]

Thanks Surgeon.

[GUT]

Darn Auto correct.

Thanks Sir John

[Barnaby]

Thanks, Sir John.

I found the point made about arranging the body for display only after sexual "appeasement" interesting. At first take it made sense. But given time pressures I wonder if he had time to climax at the the scene.

[GUT]

Thanks, Sir John.

I found the point made about arranging the body for display only after sexual "appeasement" interesting. At first take it made sense. But given time pressures I wonder if he had time to climax at the the scene.

Especially given that there was no evidence he did so.

[SirJohnFalstaff]

Darn Auto correct.

Thanks Sir John