French rapists

François Vérove (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa veʁɔv]; 22 January 1962 – 29 September 2021), also known as Le Grêlé ([lə ɡʁɛle, ɡʁele], the "Pockmarked Man"), was a French serial killer, rapist and police officer who murdered at least three people between 1986 and 1994 in the Île-de-France region. He received his nickname from acne scars seen on his face by witnesses following his first murder. Vérove committed suicide in September 2021 upon realizing that he was about to be identified.
Vérove's first murder, that of 11-year-old Cécile Bloch, took place in the 19th arrondissement of Paris in 1986. The following year he murdered two adults in the 4th arrondissement. He was linked to two further murders in 1991 and 1994, as well as two rapes in 1987 and 1994. During his crime spree, Vérove belonged to various French police forces; he was a member of the National Gendarmerie between 1983 and 1988, serving as a motorcyclist in the Republican Guard, then became an officer in the National Police in Paris until his retirement in 2019. He briefly held elected office as a municipal councillor in Prades-le-Lez, Hérault, between 2019 and 2020.
On 24 September 2021, Vérove received a police summons to provide a DNA sample as part of an investigation into the Bloch killing. His wife reported him missing on 27 September. Two days later, Vérove killed himself by barbiturate overdose in a rented flat in Le Grau-du-Roi, Gard. He left behind a suicide note in which he confessed to his crimes.

Martin Dumollard (June 22, 1810 − March 8, 1862) was a French serial killer condemned to the guillotine after having been arrested and charged with the deaths of maids from 1855 to 1861. His victims were approached in Lyon by Dumollard, who offered them a nice house in Côtière. Convinced, they would eventually follow him and, during their wanderings on foot, he attacked them. All twelve assaults or attempted assaults occurred in the late 1850s and early 1860s until that of Marie Pichon on May 28, 1861. He was quickly arrested, along with his wife and accomplice, Marie-Anne Martinet, who stole the personal belongings and used them for resale. Their trial took place from January 29 to February 1, 1862: Dumollard was sentenced to death and his wife, twenty years of penal labour. This affair, which preceded that of Joseph Vacher by about thirty years, had a great repercussion in France; it is often considered one of the first cases of a serial killer in France. Dumollard is notably mentioned in Les Misérables by Victor Hugo.

Michel Paul Fourniret (4 April 1942 – 10 May 2021) was a French serial killer who confessed to killing 12 people in France and Belgium between 1987 and 2003. After he was arrested in June 2003 for the attempted kidnapping of a teenage girl in Ciney, Fourniret confessed in 2004 to killing nine people — eight females and one male — having been informed on by his then-wife, Monique Pierrette Olivier (born 31 October 1948). Fourniret was convicted of seven of these murders on 28 May 2008 and sentenced to life imprisonment without possibility of parole, while Olivier was given life with a minimum term of 28 years for complicity.In February 2018, Fourniret confessed to killing two more women. On 16 November 2018, Fourniret and Olivier were convicted of the murder of Farida Hammiche, the last of the eight women that Fourniret confessed to killing in 2004. Fourniret was given a second life sentence and Olivier was sentenced to a further 20 years of imprisonment. In March 2020, Fourniret confessed to killing Estelle Mouzin, who disappeared from Guermantes in 2003.

Pierre Chanal ([pjɛʁ ʃanal]; 18 November 1946 – 15 October 2003) was a French soldier and suspected serial killer. He was convicted of the rape and kidnapping of a young man, Balázs Falvay, whom he picked up hitchhiking in 1988. He received a ten-year sentence for the attack and was released in 1995 on probation. He was accused of murdering three of eight young men who disappeared in northeastern France between 1980 and 1987. One of his alleged victims was Trevor O'Keeffe. Chanal killed himself in prison in 2003 while on trial.

Guy Georges (born Guy Rampillon; 15 October 1962) is a French serial killer and serial rapist, dubbed le tueur de l'Est Parisien (the East Paris killer) or The Beast of the Bastille. He was convicted on 5 April 2001, of murdering seven women between 1991 and 1997. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 22 years.

Émile Louis (21 January 1934 – 20 October 2013) was a French bus driver and the prime suspect in the disappearance of seven young women in the Yonne department, Burgundy, in the late 1970s. He confessed to their murders in 2000 but retracted this confession one month later. Louis was sentenced to life in prison by the cour d'assises of Yonne in 2004. The sentence, which was upheld on appeal in 2006, was confirmed by the Court of Cassation in 2007.

Joseph Gleydson Vacher (16 November 1869 – 31 December 1898) was a French serial killer and necrophile, sometimes known as "The French Ripper" or "L'éventreur du Sud-Est" ("The South-East Ripper") owing to comparisons to the more famous Jack the Ripper murderer of London, England, in 1888. His 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 1894 and 1897.