On 15th September, 1440 AD, Gilles de Rais, one of the earliest accused serial killers, was taken into custody upon an accusation brought against him by the Bishop of Nantes. Gilles de Rais was a lord from Brittany, Anjou and Poitou, a leader in the French army, and a companion-in-arms of Joan of Arc, but he is best known for his (disputed) reputation and later conviction as a presumed serial killer of children. Gilles was first accused of engaging in a series of child murders in 1432, with victims possibly numbering in the hundreds. The killings supposedly came to an end in 1440, when a violent dispute with a clergyman led to an ecclesiastical investigation which brought the crimes to light, and attributed them to Gilles. At his trial the parents of missing children in the surrounding area and Gilles own confederates in crime testified against him. Gilles was condemned to death and hanged at Nantes on 26 October 1440. Although Gilles de Rais was convicted of murdering many children through his confessions and eyewitness accounts, doubts have persisted about the courts verdict based on the theory that de Rais was a victim of an ecclesiastic plot or act of revenge by the Catholic Church or French state. Doubts on Gilles de Rais guilt have long persisted because the Duke of Brittany, who was given the authority to prosecute, received all the titles to Gilles former lands after his conviction. The Duke then divided the land among his own nobles.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 03:34:38 +0000
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