French cannibal escapes psychiatric unit and attacks woman

An infamous French cannibal who murdered a farmer before cooking his heart and tongue with white beans escaped from a psychiatric unit and attacked a woman before being taken back into custody.
Jeremy Rimbaud, a 34-year-old who served in Afghanistan, attacked his latest victim in Toulouse on Wednesday 19 January. “She was absolutely terrified,” said an investigating source. “The lady was out walking her dog close to the centre of the city when Rimbaud struck.
“He punched her in the back of the head and then hit her 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 10 pm, was stopped, and Rimbaud was returned to the secure psychiatric unit where he has been held since 2011.
It was in June 2011 that the French cannibal had returned from his tour of Afghanistan, where he had been fighting the Taliban as a corporal. On 14 November of the same year, he murdered 90-year-old farmer, Leopold Pedebidau in Nouilhan, west of Toulouse, and then chopped up his body.
At the time, prosecution papers detailed how Rimbaud “cut out his victim’s tongue and a piece of his heart, to cook them with white beans”, reminiscent of the famous movie, Silence of the Lambs. Rimbaud was later caught as he tried to kill a second farmer, and later became known as ‘The Cannibal of the Pyrenees’ after being sentenced to life in prison for murder.
He was “diagnosed with schizophrenia and was suffering from post-traumatic shock linked to his fighting in Afghanistan”. His lawyer, Maître Françoise Séles, called Rimbaud a victim of the Afghanistan war.
A local police spokesman said on Friday 21 January: “The convicted killer has been returned to custody”. He said an enquiry was underway to try and find out how he escaped.

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