![]() It has been speculated that this was precisely what Sobhraj wanted - he had realised that if released before Thailand’s 20-year statute of limitation expired, he would be deported and would receive the death penalty - and had planned the escape to extend his stay in prison in India.Is Netflix's The Serpent Based On A True Story? In 1986, he escaped after drugging inmates and guards - but was recaptured in Goa soon, and had 10 years added to his sentence. Sobhraj lived lavishly in Tihar, bribing guards and befriending prisoners for special treatment. He was charged with the murder of Frenchman Jean-Luc Solomon and received a 12-year sentence. But he was caught in Delhi before Thai authorities could get to him. In 1976, Thai police issued a warrant against Sobhraj for the murder of six women, all of whom were found dead in bikinis on beaches. ![]() “In resisting the overtures of Sobhraj,” he said, “they triggered his childhood preoccupation with being rejected”. Herman Knippenberg, a Dutch diplomat who was key to uncovering details about Sobhraj, told The Guardian in 2020 that he killed his victims because they rejected his criminal entreaties. He often used the passport and identities of his victims to travel to multiple countries. Sobhraj has himself claimed that many of the deaths were either accidental drug overdoses or cartel killings. Why Sobhraj killed so many remains a mystery. He was subsequently arrested and sentenced for trying to poison and rob some French tourists. He had been arrested earlier in Delhi for trying to rob an emporium at Hotel Ashoka and a con job in Tilak Nagar among other petty crimes. A trial court convicted him, but he was acquitted by the Allahabad HC and then the Supreme Court in 1996 after the prosecution failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. Like most of his murders, Sobhraj had allegedly killed his victim by poisoning. In 1976, Sobhraj, along with Leclerc and an Indian accomplice Ajai Chaudhary alias Mohan Lal, was accused of murdering, robbing, and forging the identity of an Israeli tourist in Varanasi. He would be accused of killing at least another 11 people in Thailand, Nepal, and India some estimates put the number of his victims at 30. The American Teresa Knowlton was found dead in a tidal pool wearing a bikini, the first of similar murders that earned him his name of Bikini Killer. In 1975, Sobhraj and Leclerc found themselves in Thailand, where he committed his first confirmed murder. ![]() He was arrested multiple times in Athens, Delhi, and Kabul - he got away each time through bribery or audaciously planned escapes. Hordes of young Europeans came to South and East Asia on shoestring budgets - and it was in the obscurity and transience of the hippie trail that Sobhraj committed his worst crimes, often targeting those who were allured by his magnetism. In the 1970s, many Westerners journeyed to the ‘Orient’ to “find themselves” outside the capitalist decadence of their native lands. Rather, he saw himself as a victim of an unjust society and wretched fate, with his only way to power, wealth and opulence being the path of crime. He grew close to Chantal Compagnon, whom he married in 1969.įrom early on, Sobhraj displayed little remorse for his actions, Neville and Clarke reported. ![]() By his 20s, he was moving between Parisian high society and the underworld, making money through scams and burglaries. (File)Ĭharles spent most of his adolescence in and out of juvenile offender homes - he stole cars, robbed housewives, and mugged people on the street. Towards the end of his sentence, Sobhraj escaped, by giving Tihar prison guards spiked sweets for his “birthday”. ![]()
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