French cannibal escapes psychiatric unit and attacks a woman before being chased away and recaptured
- A French cannibal who murdered a farmer before cooking his heart and tongue with white beans briefly escaped custody
- He attacked a woman walking her dog before passers-by chased him off
- The cannibal had previously told detectives he heard ‘voices and messages’
An infamous French cannibal who murdered a farmer before cooking his heart and tongue with white beans has briefly escaped from custody and attacked a woman.
Jeremy Rimbaud, a 34-year-old who served as a soldier in Afghanistan, grabbed his latest unnamed victim in Toulouse on Wednesday.
‘She was absolutely terrified,’ said an investigating source.
Jeremy Rimbaud (pictured being led out of a van in 2013) is known as the ‘The Cannibal of the Pyrenees’ to the French press. He escaped custody and attacked a woman walking her dog
‘The lady was out walking her dog close to the center of the city when Rimbaud struck.
‘He punched her in the back of the head and then hit here with a stick, before passers-by intervened, and chased him off.
It was only later that she was told that she had been attacked by a known cannibal.’
The attack, which happened at around 10pm, was stopped, and Rimbaud was returned to the secure psychiatric unit where he has been held since 2011.
It was in June of that year that the corporal returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, where he had been fighting the Taliban.
On November 14, he murdered a 90-year-old farmer called Leopold Pedebidau in Nouilhan, west of Toulouse, and then chopped up his body.
Prosecution papers later described how Rimbaud ‘cut out his victim’s tongue and a piece of his heart, to cook them with white beans.’
He told detectives he heard ‘voices and messages’ telling him to kill the elderly man.
Rimbaud, pictured arrivng for trial at the Pau courthouse in 2013, is a former Afghanistan soldier suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. He was convicted of having eaten in November the heart and tongue of an eighty-year-old man
The former solider had left the army only two weeks earlier, according to The Local.
Rimbaud was later caught as he tried to kill a second farmer with an iron bar after pushing him against a tractor before he was arrested
He later became known as ‘The Cannibal of the Pyrenees’ after being sentenced to life in prison for murder.
Rimbaud was ‘diagnosed with schizophrenia and was suffering from post-traumatic shock linked to his fighting in Afghanistan.’
He took ketamine while out on the front to give himself courage, along with many other French soldiers.
After spent five years in a marine infantry tank regiment based in Poitiers, he stayed in Cyprus for a psychological evaluation
His lawyer, Maître Françoise Séles, called Rimbaud a victim of the Afghanistan war.
A local police spokesman said on Friday: ‘The convicted killer has been returned to custody.’
He said an inquiry was underway to try and find out how he escaped.
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