January 26, 1934 - Émile Louis
Louis operated with a particular advantage: his victims were young women with intellectual disabilities, residents of a state care facility whose disappearances went largely uninvestigated for decades, in part because authorities did not take them seriously. The years between the crimes and his eventual confession in 2000 represent not only his own evasion, but a broader institutional failure that allowed the cases to go cold. His later retraction of that confession added a final layer of obstruction to a case already defined by neglect.
From Wikipedia
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.
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