Unforgettable for the families of the victims, the Charles Sobhraj affair no longer made the headlines but marked the 1970s with the diabolical character of its protagonist. A look back at this extraordinary affair adapted into series in early 2021 by Richard Warlow and Toby Finlay.
He was nicknamed “the serpent”, “the cobra” or “the killer bikini”in reference to his mania for dressing his victims in two-piece swimsuits. French serial killer who raged in Asia during the 1970s, Charles Sobhraj done, since 1er January 2021, the subject of a detective mini-series broadcast in the United Kingdom on the BBC One channel and then posted on Netflix. baptized The snake, the series follows Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg in his hunt for Charles Sobhraj, an influential Bangkok-based diamond merchant whose alias, Alain Gauthier, finds himself embroiled in the murders of two Dutch tourists. But who is the abominable serpent? How was his trace found? Back on the investigation in this new issue of forgotten cases of Closer…
It all started in the spring of 1975. In the city of Srinagar, in northwestern India, Charles Sobhraj meets Quebecer Marie-Andrée Leclerc. With her, he moved to Bangkok, in an apartment in a house called Kanith House. There, Sobhraj made a name for himself as a diamond dealer. under the identity ofAlain Gauthier, it begins to attract the attention of tourists in search of rare jewels. But attracted by money, a thief since his adolescence, the Indo-Vietnamese takes advantage of his clients’ inattention to drug them, steal their money and steal their papers. In love, fascinated by her companion, Marie-Andrée Leclerc attends without saying anything to these questionable shenanigans. But when she thinks she shares the life of a “simple” crook, the young woman ends up understanding that the vices of the one she loves go much further…
The Pattaya ‘Bikini Murders’
On October 17, 1975, the couple met Teresa Ann Knowlton, an 18-year-old American student who went to study Buddhism in Nepal. As always, Sobhraj administers a sedative. But instead of appropriating his goods, the young man carries her to the beach in Pattaya, dresses her in a bikini, strangles her and throws her into the sea. This is his first crime, the first of a long list. A few months later, the body of the Turkish Vitali Hakim was found around Pattaya, then that of Stéphanie Anne-Marie Parry. In December, Sobhraj crosses paths with Heinricus Bintanja and Cornelia Hemker, a couple of Dutch backpackers. Their bodies were found, asphyxiated and burned, on December 16, 1975.
Protected by his false identity, Charles Sobhraj acts for many months with the greatest impunity. But in Bangkok, within the walls of the Dutch Embassy, the young secretary Herman Knippenberg establishes a link between the Dutch found dead and the diamond dealer Alain Gauthier. While investigating, against the advice of his superiors, the ambassador discovers that Heinricus Bintanja and Cornelia Hemker had met Gauthier on December 7, during a trip to Hong Kong. The noose therefore tightens around the false diamond dealer. At the latter’s home, the Thai police seized passports, diaries and credit cards that belonged to the Dutch couple, as well as to Teresa Knowlton and Vitali Hakim. At the end of a hunt of several months which earned him the nickname of the Serpent, in reference to his ability to slip through the cracks, Charles Sobhraj was arrested. Marie-Andrée Leclerc and her other accomplices are also apprehended.
In 1977, the Serpent was sentenced to 12 years in Tihar prison in New Delhi. Knowing that he risks the death penalty in the event of extradition to Thailand, he stages an escape attempt, which allows him to remain in captivity in India until 1997. In 2003, he is nevertheless captured in Nepal , and is sentenced to life in prison for the murder of American Connie Jo Bronzich. Now 77, Charles Sobhraj is still being held in Nepal. And while some investigations are still ongoing, the Serpent is believed to have murdered nearly thirty people across Asia in 1975 and 1976 alone.