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Wrongfully Accused as a Serial Predator, This Man Lived Alone on an Island for 15 Years
He chose isolation on a barren reef while the real “Beast of Jersey” remained free.
For 15 years Alphonse Le Gastelois lived alone on the Ecrehous, a barren reef in the English Channel between Jersey and France. Surrounded by little more than Seaspray, winters, and scavenging seabirds, he chose isolation over the cruelty of a society that turned against him.
Alphonse was born on the island of Jersey. He was a simple man and the locals saw him as a bit odd, kept to himself, and harmless. They said he liked to wander country lanes late at night, and Stan de la Haye from the Honorary Police once described him as a “loner — like an old, worn-out raincoat held together with rope.”
In the early 1960s, his life was offended when a wave of sexual assaults and attacks on women and children shocked the island. A masked intruder was terrorizing families in their homes, creeping into bedrooms at night, and assaulting his victims. The unknown perpetrator became infamously known as the “Beast of Jersey.”
Despite a lack of any evidence, Alphonse was suspected. Perhaps it was his solitary lifestyle, his unusual appearance, and the purposeful silence of the police who refused to…
