A riveting true crime story that vividly recounts the birth of
modern forensics.
At the end of the nineteenth century, serial murderer Joseph
Vacher, known and feared as “The Killer of Little Shepherds,”
terrorized the French countryside. He eluded authorities for
years—until he ran up against prosecutor Emile Fourquet and Dr.
Alexandre Lacassagne, the era’s most renowned criminologist. The
two men—intelligent and bold—typified the Belle ?poque, a period of
immense scientific achievement and fascination with science’s
promise to reveal the secrets of the human condition.
With high drama and stunning detail, Douglas Starr revisits
Vacher’s infamous crime wave, interweaving the story of how
Lacassagne and his colleagues were developing forensic science as
we know it. We see one of the earliest uses of criminal profiling,
as Fourquet painstakingly collects eyewitness accounts and
constructs a map of Vacher’s crimes. We follow the tense and
exciting events leading to the murderer’s arrest. And we witness
the twists and turns of the trial, celebrated in its day. In an
attempt to disprove Vacher’s defense by reason of insanity,
Fourquet recruits Lacassagne, who in the previous decades had
revolutionized criminal science by refining the use of
blood-spatter evidence, systematizing the autopsy, and doing
groundbreaking research in psychology. Lacassagne’s efforts lead to
a gripping courtroom denouement.
The Killer of Little Shepherds is an important contribution to
the history of criminal justice, impressively researched and
thrillingly told.
關於作者：
Douglas Starr is codirector of the Center for Science and
Medical Journalism and a professor of journalism at Boston
University. His book Blood: An Epic History of Medicine and
Commerce won the 1998 Los Angeles Times Book Prize and became a
PBS-TV documentary special. A veteran science, medical, and
environmental reporter, Starr has contributed to many national
publications, including Smithsonian, Audubon, National Wildlife,
Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, The Christian
Science Monitor, and Time, and has served as a science
editor for PBS-TV. He lives near Boston.
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