The murderer of ‘hippies’ who used the identity of his victims to escape

Serial killer stories are among the most panicky of viewers. The case of Charles Sobrhaj is no exception, as this singular Frenchman became known for murdering thousands of ‘hippies’ who toured the Asian continent, then went unnoticed using the identifications of their victims.

Sobraj was nicknamed ‘The Serpent’ for his incredible ability to sneak between different countries to commit his crimes, cynically bypassing all immigration security cordons.

This criminal was established in several Asian countries in the 70s and had a special fixation with the ‘hippies’ who came to make tourist tours of the continent, which was very popular at that time.

Nobody ever knew exactly why Sobraj dedicated himself exclusively to murdering ‘hippies’. Some rumors say that he detested them, others pointed out that he got angry when the tourists did not obey him, but the truth is that he was one of the most feared characters of that time.

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Sobraj was sent to prison several times and received short sentences. However, he managed to break out of prisons on different occasions and his ability to bypass security was absurd.

His story was so popular in the media that many journalists traveled to interview him and wrote articles about him. There is even a Netflix series, co-produced by the ‘BBC’ agency called ‘La Serpiente’, which captures the life and crimes of this murderer.

His life

Sobrhaj was born in Saigon, Vietnam, in 1944. His biological father abandoned him and he obtained French nationality thanks to his mother marrying a French soldier, so years later they moved to Marseille, in the south of France.

The abandonment of his father caused him psychological trauma and several experts speculate that this was the factor that most influenced him to become a serial killer.as reported by the ‘BBC’.

From a very young age he began his life as a criminal, since he never fit into European society and was very ambitious.

During his adolescence he dedicated himself to stealing vehicles and assaulting people in the streets of Paris, for which he was confined in reform schools and, when he came of age, he was sent to prison, although he remained behind bars for a short time since he was only charged with crimes minors.

when he found love

As the ‘BBC’ tells, the criminal tried to leave his life of crime when he met his first love, Chantal Compagnon, a Parisian who belonged to the French bourgeoisie. The woman gave in to Sobhraj’s irresistible charms and she fell madly in love with her.

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For this reason, “The Serpent” got a job in a restaurant in Paris, although, shortly after, he was carried away by his ambition and returned to stealing cars, for which he was taken to prison again.

Compagnon patiently waited for her lover to be released to go with him and emigrate to Thailand, where they made a new life and had a daughter. Although the woman thought that Sobrhaj would stop committing crimes, the reality was that she had found a new country to commit her crimes.

his victims

As author Gary Indiana explains in an article for ‘Vice’ magazine, ‘The Serpent’ adopted a modus operandi and fixed a specific type of victims when it arrived in Asia between the 70s and 80s.

Many witnesses affirm that Sobhraj had the ability to charm and convince people, he appeared to be a nice man. In this way, he managed to establish relationships with the ‘hippie’ tourists who arrived, and then assassinate them.

The criminal invited them to have a drink in a bar, where they could spend hours chatting. Later, he took them to his house or to the place where they were staying, and many of them got so drunk that they woke up lost and didn’t remember anything from the night before.

To kill them, ‘The Serpent’ simply poisoned their food and enjoyed watching them die. Why? It was clear that Sobrhaj hated the ‘hippies’, but it was never quite clear what the underlying motive was for making them his victims.

Some of the journalists and biographers who interviewed him and investigated his life speculated that it could be due to the traumas of his childhood due to the abandonment of his father, although the criminal never confirmed it.

On the other hand, Herman Knippenberg, a Dutch diplomat who investigated the case of a Dutch couple murdered in Thailand, assured in an interview with journalist Andrew Anthony that Sobrhaj killed tourists who did not obey his requests, so he was easily enraged with them.

New accomplice?

Seeing that ‘The Serpent’ had become a very dangerous criminal and had made her spend time in prison, Compagnon separated from him after being released from a prison in Afghanistan. The Parisian decided to emigrate to another country to never have to see her loved one again.

Years later, Sobrhaj traveled to India and found who would not only be his new love, but also his accomplice: the Canadian Marie-Andrée Leclerc.

Leclerc helped ‘The Serpent’ to drug his victims to take them to other places where he stole their belongings, including their documents, and applied a ‘medicine’ to kill them.

As explained in the ‘Vice’ article, from that moment on, the criminal began to steal the identities of the people he killed to sneak across the borders of Asia and thus enter other countries in search of new prey.

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Sobhraj had two factors working in his favour: immigration controls were not so strict at the time, so he was able to easily outwit the authorities; and she was a polyglot, she was fluent in various Asian languages, so hardly anyone noticed her true nationality.

the star escape

‘The Serpent’ had an incredible ability to circumvent security controls. One day in 1976, he even managed to put all the guards and inmates of a prison in India to sleep so he could escape.

That time, Sobrhaj threw a birthday party to which he invited all the members of the prison. For this, he organized a great feast with a lot of food and drinks, so that no one refused to attend.

What none of them knew was that the delinquent had put a powerful sleeping substance in the food, so they all fell unconscious after a few minutes and he was able to calmly leave the premises.

After having escaped, ‘The Serpent’ walked through the streets as if he were not a fugitive. He knew that the laws were deficient and that, since he had been tried in so many countries, the terms of each process would expire before they managed to capture him.

Some time later he even returned to France and he sold his image for films and documentaries, with which he obtained 1.2 million dollars (more than 4 billion Colombian pesos).

The end of their voyages

In 2003, the criminal traveled to Nepal, where he was recognized by the citizens and immediately captured. There he remains confined to this day. He is 77 years old.

Despite the fact that he killed so many people and was in prison serving several sentences, it was not until 2004 that he was charged with the crime of murder for all the crimes he committed in Asia. Although he denied the charges, he was sentenced to life in prison.

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