AS THE BBC DRAMATISES HU
IF you went backpacking across the Far East in the 1970s, you could argue you’re lucky to still be alive.
That’s because you might have had a fatal encounter with half- French, half- Vietnamese Charles Sobhraj, a prolific serial killer who murdered young people during the decade all along the Hippie Trail of Southeast Asia.
His crimes led to him being dubbed ‘ The Bikini Killer’ – because many of his female victims were found dead in their bikinis.
He was also branded ‘ The Serpent’ due to his ability to ‘ slither’ away from the police.
And is the title for the BBC1 drama telling his astonishing tale.
The show stars Tahar Rahim as Sobhraj and Jenna Coleman, who showed us her amazing boobs in the 2012 drama Room At The Top ( right), as his sexy sidekick Marie- Andrée Leclerc.
Throughout Nepal, India and Thailand the monster slayed the people he disliked – dropouts and weirdos who had fled to West to join the backpacking trail.
He coerced people into helping him with his crimes, most notably Marie- Andrée.
Sobhraj, who is now 76 and serving a life sentence in Nepal, once said on his gift for coercing women: “If you use it to make people do wrong, it’s an abuse.
“However, if you use that power to make people do right, it’s OK. Who’s to say what’s right and wrong?”
Sobhraj was born in Saigon to a Vietnamese shop girl and an Indian businessman.
His parents were soon to divorce and his father deserted the family.
Sobhraj was adopted by his mother’s new boyfriend, a French Army lieutenant who was stationed nearby, and he would move back and forth between there and France.
As a teenager, he began to commit petty crimes and was jailed in Paris for burglary in 1963.
On his release he met Chantal Compagnon, to whom he proposed marriage, though they had to wait another eight months to wed as he was sent back to prison.
Sobhraj and Chantal left France in 1970 heading for Asia, travelling through Eastern Europe with fake documents, robbing tourists whom they befriended along the way, before turning up in Mumbai later the same year.
Here, Chantal gave birth to a daughter while Sobhraj resumed his criminal lifestyle, smuggling and thieving cars to fund his gambling addiction.
In 1973 Sobhraj was arrested and jailed after an unsuccessful armed robbery attempt on a jewellery store.
He was able to escape by faking illness and fled with Chantal to Kabul, Afghanistan.
There, the couple began to rob tourists on the Hippie Trail, only to be arrested once again.
Again, Sobhraj escaped by feigning illness and drugging the hospital guard. He fled alone to Iran, while Chantal returned to France.
Sobhraj spent the next two years on the run, using as many
ROOM AT THE TOPLESS: Jenna gets her boobs out onscreen as 10 stolen passports. He was joined by his half- brother, André, in Istanbul and the pair carried out criminal activities in both Turkey and Greece.
They were finally arrested in Athens but Sobhraj managed to escape, while André was turned over to the Turkish police and served an 18- year sentence
Posing as a gem salesman or drug dealer to befriend tourists, whom he then ripped off, Sobhraj funded his way to Thailand, where he met Marie- Andrée, a Canadian who quickly became a devoted follower.
Sobhraj gathered followers by gaining their loyalty by using scams like ‘ finding’ their lost property, which he himself had stolen.
He was finally joined by a Indian man, Ajay Chowdhury, a fellow criminal who became Sobhraj’s second- in- command.
Sobhraj and Chowdhury were to commit their first murders in 1975. Most of the victims had spent time with them before their deaths and were, according to investigators, recruited by Sobhraj and Chowdhury to join them in their crimes.
The first victim was a young woman from Seattle. Teresa Knowlton was found drowned in