TRUE CRIME SPECIAL
65 OF THE MOST ADDICTIVE TRUE CRIME SHOWS EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT
THE SERPENT
He was the murderer with the million-dollar looks – the charming psycopath. The story of Charles Sobhraj, who drugged and killed at least a dozen Westerners on the Hippie Trail in Asia in the 1970s, will be told in eight-part drama The Serpent. But it won’t glamorise his actions. As executive producer Preethi Mavahalli says: ‘We are bringing Herman Knippenberg’s determined story to the screen, not Sobhraj’s life of crime.’
Knippenberg was the Dutch diplomat in Bangkok who exposed Sobhraj as a multiple killer. He will be played by Billy Howle, 30, who admits that the story of Sobhraj, who poisoned, strangled and drowned his victims, is so extraordinary he thought it a work of fiction at first. ‘Sadly, for his victims, it is what happened,’ he says.
Sobhraj, played by Tahar Rahim, appears to have avoided detection thanks to a mixture of charm, good fortune and loyal support. His partner Marie-Andrée Leclerc, a role taken in The Serpent by Jenna Coleman, stood by him despite full knowledge of his crimes.
Initial attempts to bring him to justice in Thailand were halted for fear a murder trial would be bad for tourism. It was only when Knippenberg became involved in 1975 that the net closed. His brief was to help Thai police investigate the deaths of two Dutch students. Unable to interest the police in his work, he launched his own investigation and gained permission to enter Sobhraj’s home, after the suspect had left for Malaysia. There he found victims’ bloodstained documents and passports, as well as poisons and syringes.
A sighting of Sobhraj in Kathmandu in 2003 led to his arrest. ‘I think they were all killed for refusing his offers to join him in his nefarious activities, including drug trafficking,’ Knippenberg says. BBC1 coming soon