A NOTORIOUS French cannibal who murdered and ate a farmer escaped custody and beat a woman with a stick in a random horror attack.
Jeremey Rimbaud, 34, grabbed his latest victim after breaking free from a Toulouse psychiatric ward on Wednesday.
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Jeremey Rimbaud, 34, broke free from a psychiatric ward on Wednesday Credit: AFP 3
The notorious French cannibal beat a woman with a stick Credit: AFP
The infamous man-eater - who served as a soldier in Afghanistan - grabbed a woman who had been out walking her dog near the city centre at around 10pm.
A source close the investigation said the unnamed victim has been left "absolutely terrified" by the shock encounter.
"He punched her in the back of the head and then hit her with a stick, before passers-by intervened, and chased him off," they said.
"It was only later that she was told that she had been attacked by a known cannibal."
Rimbaud was eventually restrained and 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.
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On November 14, he murdered a 90-year-old farmer called Leopold Pedebidau in Nouilhan, west of Toulouse, and then chopped up his body.
Court papers later described how Rimbaud "cut out his victim’s tongue and a piece of his heart, to cook them with white beans".
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, it was claimed.
A local police spokesman said on Friday confirmed the convicted killer had been returned to custody.
They said an enquiry was underway to try and find out how he escaped.
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Rimbaud killed a farmer in 2011 and ate his heart and tongue Credit: AFP