In 1434 or 1435 he retired from military life, depleted his wealth by staging an extravagant theatrical spectacle of his own composition, and was accused of dabbling in the occult. After 1432, Rais was accused of engaging in a series of child murders, with victims possibly numbering in the hundreds. The killings came to an end in 1440, when a violent dispute with a clergyman led to an ecclesiastical investigation that brought the crimes to light, and attributed them to Rais. At his trial the parents of missing children in the surrounding area and Rais's own confederates in crime testified against him. He was condemned to death and hanged at Nantes on 26 October 1440.