The authorities investigated them, but released them and Sobhraj escaped to Malaysia with his accomplices - and Chowdhury was never seen again, presumed another victim of Sobhraj. Sobhraj - travelling on yet another stolen passport from one of his victims - returned to Bangkok in 1976, where three of his former French associates had gone to the Dutch diplomat, Herman Knippenberg, and the police about crimes. In India, he killed Israeli scholar Avoni Jacob.ĭEVENDRA M SINGH // Getty Images The capture? In Nepal, using stolen passports from people they had previously killed, Sobhraj, Chowdhury and Leclerc then murdered the Canadian and American Laurent Carrière and Connie Bronzich. Dutch couple Henk Bintanja and Cornelia Hemker (changed to Willem and Lena in The Serpent) who were drugged, strangled and burned. Vitali Hakim, a young Sephardic Jewish boy, was found burned near Pattaya. It’s a grim roll-call: Teresa Knowlton, from Seattle and on her way to join a Buddhist monastery, was drowned in a tidal pool. Over the course of a year in 1974 to 1975, Sobhraj was directly responsible for the murders of approximately 12 people, but the real toll could be more than 30 people. Things took an even darker twist when Sobhraj groomed young backpackers drugged them, robbed them and killed them. On the run in Thailand, Sobhraj met two of his future accomplaces: Marie-Andree Leclerc (played by Jenna Coleman in The Serpent) and Ajay Chowdhury, who fell into his crime sprees with him. The Dark Ending of 'Ma Rainey', Explained.By this point, his wife decided to finally leave him and he fled to Iran, Europe and the Middle East, where he committed further crimes, then blowing all the money on his increasing gambling addiction. In an indication of just how duplicitous he had become - and what earned him The Serpent nickname - Sobhraj was arrested for theft, but feigned illness, drugged the hospital guard and escaped. A few years later, he had escalated into armed robbery but managed to escape from prison and fled to Kabul, where he first began to rob backpackers on the hippie trail. In 1970, he moved to Asia with his wife, Chantal Compagnon, who gave birth to their daughter in Usha in Mumbai. He began masterminding a series of burglaries and scams, and found himself in prison again for his illegal dealings. When he was released, he ingratiated himself into both the heart of Parisian high society and in the murky criminal underworld. Hatchand Bhaonani Gurumukh Charles Sobhraj was born in 1940 in Saigon, but when his parents divorced, he moved to France with his mother and her new partner.Īs a teenager, he became involved in petty crimes and was sent to Poissy prison, near Paris. Fairfax Media Archives // Getty Images Sobhraj’s early life
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