Jean-Luc Blanche

Jean-Luc Blanche (born February 1958), known as The Backpacker Rapist, is a French serial rapist and thief. Blanche had a consistent modus operandi—when he spotted the victim, he would break into her house at night, bind her hands and bring her to his car, driving to the outskirts of the city, under the threat of a knife. He then began terrorizing his victim, raping her once or repeatedly, usually in the middle of the countryside. His impulses now appeased, he started behaving as a friend or even a considerate companion, bringing his victim back to their home.

In 1992, Blanche was imprisoned for the first series of rapes. He was released in 2002, despite the warnings of the adverse psychiatric expertise, and he resumed raping in 2003. He was rearrested, and his second trial made it to the national headlines, because the French police could not proceed with his arrest, since Blanche acted in several departments that did not share their judicial information. The national mediatization of the case lead to the creation of the automated judicial file for perpetrators of sexual offences.

Biography Jean-Luc Blanche was born in February 1958, the sixth in a family of 14 children. Like many of his brothers and sisters, he was placed in another family at a young age, after suffering abuse at the hands of his parents. At age 8, he returned to his family in Pauvres, in Ardennes.

At 17, Jean-Luc found a job as a farm labourer, during which time he received his first criminal conviction. He stayed in prison several times for thefts and falsifying checks. During this period, Blanche also stole bank cards and cars.

In 1982, Blanche left Ardennes, got married and moved to Caen, in Calvados, where he continued his crimes. His wife eventually filed for divorce in 1990, after his seventh conviction.

First series of rapes On August 27, 1990, Jean-Luc Blanche kidnapped his ex-wife, driving her to a forest where he raped her several times. Then he tried to strangle her with a rope, which broke. He then decided to drive her home, but at a stop she opened the door and ran away.

On September 7, on Des Jardins Street in Caen, Blanche broke into the house of a woman named Nathalie at night, threatening her with tear gas and a knife. He drove her to a forest, where he raped her, before driving her home, but like his ex-wife, she jumped out and managed to flee.

On September 14, again on Des Jardins Street, Blanche broke into another woman's house, named Clara, at night, threatening her with a knife, tying her up and raping her. After the fact, he conversed with her a long while, before stealing the money in her purse and left the house, leaving her tied up.

Blanche was sentenced in September 1992 by the cour d'assises of Caen and Évry, to 20 years imprisonment.

On September 25, 2002, he was released from Caen Prison with a remission and a pardon. The psychiatric experts said, however, that Blanche is a "narcissistic pervert likely to reoffend".

Second series of rapes In late April 2003, in Vouziers in the Ardennes, Blanche molested Nadia, the nine-year-old daughter of his wife.

On June 21, in Reims, two students of a local school (12/13-year-old Aurore and an unnamed 17-year-old) ran away from class to attend a music festival. Jean-Luc Blanche and his brother, Bruno, lured them into their home, made them drink alcohol and then raped them. The next afternoon, one of the brothers brought the teenagers back to their homes.

On July 27, at Fontaine-la-Soret in Eure, around 11 p.m., in a rest area near the RN13, Blanche tried to strangle a woman named Charlotte. She struggled immensely, but he had the upper hand, raping her before fleeing. Charlotte didn't manage to remember his license plate because of the shock, but still filed a complaint to the gendarmerie in Bernay.

On the night of August 9, Blanche entered his ex-wife's home in Vouziers through an open window. He took a knife from the kitchen, raped Laurence/Brigitte, then struck and knocked her down, also destroying some of the property around the house. A neighbor, alerted by the cries of coming from within the household, called the gendarmerie, but in the meantime, Blanche had run away. When they learned that it was Jean-Luc, gendarmerie realized several things, among them: he disrespected his judicial control; he hadn't shown up to work since July 13; he never went to his mother's house in Reims, nor did the weekly visit to the police station. On August 13, an arrest warrant was issued for Blanche on the FPR.

That same day, Céline went to the police station in Caen. The police went with her to the places mentioned, and at the site of the second rape near the cornfield, they found condoms used by Blanche. They also found the mobile phone, which was thrown out of the car window by Céline.

On each day of the trial, Jean-Luc entered the court after a suicide attempt. The first day by slashing the veins of his left arm,

Jean-Luc refused to apologize to Solange, his last victim, as he claimed that it was consensual. His defense tried to mitigate the circumstances through the child abuse, during which Blanche received no love or care, with his ultra-violent farm worker father punished his children harshly.

Pierrette Varin, their mother, was unable to say how many children she had had, nor could remember their names.

In June 2006, Jean-Luc Blanche was sentenced to life imprisonment with a 22-year mandatory prison sentence by the Charleville-Mézièrs cour d'assises.

The whole cased was described as a "judicial blunder", which caused a lot of noise, contributing to the creation of the sex offender files.