Throughout history, many heinous crimes have been committed by many evil, troubled men and women. Some of the stories have survived through the centuries while others have been all but forgotten and left behind. The werewolf of Châlons, also known as the demon tailor, was a 16th century French serial killer, cannibal, and alleged werewolf responsible for the murder of around 50 children. The French werewolf epidemic, which between 1520 and 1630, resulted in the execution of more than 30,000 individuals was the result of a link forged between the werewolf and a new, more aggressive attitude toward witchcraft arising in ecclesiastic councils taking place in Basel Switzerland in the 1430s. The first regions in France to begin prosecutions were therefore naturally those adjacent to Switzerland. Many there were overseen by Henry Bouguet, a judge who tried approximately 600 witchcraft cases in the locality.
In 1598, children began to disappear at an unusual rate from the French town of Châlons, in the Champagne region of France. His real name is unknown, as almost no records of the case survive, but a few survive to this day. This is supposedly because a French court ordered all records of the case destroyed, although more likely is that they were simply lost to time.
At first it seemed as if these children were just vanishing off the face of the earth, but the disappearances were cast in a grim new light when there were scattered reports of a bestial “feral animal” creature, half animal and half man prowling the surrounding wilderness. Considering that this was an era in which myths, witches, and monsters were very much considered a real threat, it was not long at all before rumors spread that the town was being besieged by a loup garou, the French name for a werewolf. Some people claimed that they had seen the children’s corpses being eaten by a wolf, further fuelling speculation. Parties of men began going out into the night to hunt the wolf.
This changed when somebody reported they had heard screams coming from the local tailor’s shop, and that the tailor had run into the woods during the night. A group searched his shop and found an array of barrels, which when opened were found to contain the skeletons of children. Another room contained cuts of human flesh, some of which were half-eaten. Blood and gore was found all over the shop, and the graves of children were dug up in his yard. When confronted with the evidence, the tailor denied he had done anything wrong.
He was believed to lure children of both sexes into his shop, and having tortured and sexually abused them he would slice their throats and then powder and dress their bodies, disjointing them as a butcher cuts up meat, and had them for his dinner. This might sound like a simple case of cannibalism, except that he allegedly captured more children by prowling the nearby woods at night after taking the form of a wolf.
The tailor was arrested and placed on trial in Paris. He confessed to having killed and eaten 50 children, as well as others he found in the woods at night, but continued to deny the accusations that he was a werewolf. The total number of murders in this case is still unknown but he clearly was a serial killer in a time when such a term did not exist in common language yet. He would often fly into rages in custody and froth at the mouth (most likely psychotic episodes), which at the time was believed to be a symptom of lycanthropy.
He was convicted quickly and easily, likely because of the superstitious nature of the case and sentenced to be burned at the stake (the standard punishment for those accused of witchcraft or lycanthropy in France at the time). When the sentence was due to be carried out the tailor flew into another one of his rages as he was tied to the stake before being burned unrepentant and blaspheming, never showing a single ounce of remorse or asking for forgiveness.
One source reported that another thing working against him is the fact that his sister, brother, and two children all were tried the same year for murder, as supposed werewolves and witches that killed children. All of them were convicted and burned at the stake. The sister was the only one who’d committed any crimes but they were all executed because of their claims of supernatural abilities and the fear that such a claim inflicted on the general public but since documents were destroyed, this may be here say or a story embellishment.
Historically, people believed in a thing known as Damnatio memoriae, which is a Latin phrase that means “damnation of memory”. This was the ultimate dishonor to criminals, that they would essentially be erased from history. In ancient times, this was much easier because there was less documentation but as time went on, it became a much more complex process and by association, a much lesser used tool in convicting and sentencing criminals. It is said that the court felt that the acts of the Demon Tailor were so horrible and shocking that no one should ever dare read the accounts ever again. Just like the cannibalistic serial killer, the court documents were burned to ashes.
Sources: https://www.ranker.com/list/crimes-committed-by-modern-werewolves/cristina-sanza, https://www.swordandscale.com/the-demon-tailor/, http://weekinweird.com/2014/05/12/werewolf-trial-demon-tailor-chalons/, http://www.werewolfpage.com/myths/Chalons.htm, https://reallifevillains.miraheze.org/wiki/Werewolf_of_Chalons, https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2019/06/the-grim-story-of-the-werewolf-of-chalons/, https://www.boneandsickle.com/tag/werewolf-of-chalons/
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