Charles Sobhraj is accused of twenty murders. In the 1970s, he drugged, robbed, and murdered young people traveling along the South Asian “hippie route.”
Charles Sobhraj, French serial killer and con artist who rose to fame after releasing TV series The Serpent on Netflix. But now a new chapter is added to his story. Sobhraj was sentenced to two life terms in Nepal in 1975 for the murder of an American and a Canadian tourist and is being released from prison. This was announced by the Nepalese Supreme Court on Thursday, which took into account the prisoner’s age (78) and his precarious state of health.
Sobhraj is believed to have committed twenty murders. Most of his victims are tourists, young people backpacking along South Asia’s “Hippie Route” between Pakistan, India and Thailand in the 1970s. Sobhraj, of Indian and Vietnamese descent, killed her after drugging and robbing her, and his first nickname “The Bikini Killer” refers precisely to the clothing worn by his victims.
The second nickname, “The Serpent”, which Netflix chose as the title for the TV series dedicated to his story, earned him thanks to his ability to escape from the police and use the documents stolen from his victims to recover his identity. After spending two decades in Indian prisons, Sobhraj was released in 1997 and managed to become a public figure in France. To then be imprisoned again in Nepal and today free again.
Four biographies, three documentaries, a film and most importantly, the eight-episode mini-series The Serpent, produced by Netflix and BBC, are dedicated to the story of Charles Sobhraj. A series that, according to journalist Andrew Anthony, author of two interviews with Sobhraj, would have captured the “sense of menace” the man exuded, but not “his wit and charm”.
December 22, 2022 (change December 22, 2022 | 10:55 am)
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