What happened to The Serpent's lover Marie-Andrée Leclerc? 'Naïve' French Canadian tourist became so besotted with French serial killer, who murdered 20 backpackers in the 1970s, that she ended up being his willing accomplice
The French serial killer dubbed 'The Serpent', who is linked to the murder of at least 20 backpackers across Asia in the 1970s and 80s, was photographed in London last week, just days before a new documentary about his life and crimes airs on Channel 4 tonight.
Charles Sobhraj, now 79, was released after serving 20 years in prison in Nepal in December 2022 for the murder of two backpackers in Kathmandu.
The criminal, who still denies he took the lives of mainly western backpackers on 'the hippy trail', was spotted sightseeing on London's Westminster Bridge, using a wig and spectacles to disguise his appearance, ahead of being interviewed for the three-part series.
Three-part docuseries The Real Serpent: Investigating a Serial Killer, which begins at 9pm, is likely to ignite fresh intrigue into Sobhraj, also dubbed the 'Bikini Killer', and his glamorous accomplice, who helped make his macabre crimes possible.
Three years ago their romance - and subsequent descent into murder - inspired the 2021 BBC One drama The Serpent, starring Tahar Rahim and Jenna Coleman.
But who was the woman who became so besotted with the Serpent's charms that she abandoned her fiance and a secure job in her native Canada to join him in what became one of the 20th century's most prolific murdering sprees?
![Marie-Andrée Leclerc and Charles Sobhraj, aka The Serpent, pictured before their arrest in 1976; Sobhraj served nearly 20 years in a Nepal prison, charged with murdering two backpackers - and suspected of murdering many more - with a 'besotted' Leclerc his accomplice throughout](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/19/11/82631865-13213711-image-m-14_1710846275893.jpg)
Marie-Andrée Leclerc and Charles Sobhraj, aka The Serpent, pictured before their arrest in 1976; Sobhraj served nearly 20 years in a Nepal prison, charged with murdering two backpackers - and suspected of murdering many more - with a 'besotted' Leclerc his accomplice throughout
![Described as a naïve tourist keen to shrug off her mudane life as a medical receptionist in Quebec, Marie-Andree Leclerc met the charismatic Sobhraj in India in the early 70s...and quickly became obsessed with the serial killer](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/19/11/82631869-13213711-image-m-15_1710846485546.jpg)
Described as a naïve tourist keen to shrug off her mudane life as a medical receptionist in Quebec, Marie-Andree Leclerc met the charismatic Sobhraj in India in the early 70s...and quickly became obsessed with the serial killer
That they met at all was down to fate and wanderlust. French Canadian Marie-Andrée Leclerc, born in 1945 in the province of Quebec in Canada, first encountered Sobhraj while travelling in Srinagar, India, with the man she had been set to marry and quickly became 'obsessed' with the charismatic backpacker.
The easily manipulated medical receptionist, who had previously lived in the small Quebec city of Levis, fell head over heels in love with the mysterious Frenchman; his exotic looks and mesmerising personality luring her to follow him to Bangkok, his new home.
Leclerc, who walked with a limp after a childhood injury, had a thirst for adventure and when Sobhraj persuaded her to meet him in Thailand to be his 'guide' - even paying for her air fare - she packed up her rucksack and joined him.
![In 2021, the BBC's hit crime drama The Serpent, starring Tahar Rahim as Sobhraj and Jenna Coleman, retold the story of the couple's crimes as they are thought to have drugged and killed at least 20 backpackers across India, Thailand, Nepal and the Middle East before their arrest in 1976](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/19/11/38396000-13213711-The_BBC_s_hit_crime_drama_The_Serpent_starring_Tahar_Rahim_as_So-m-16_1710846565810.jpg)
In 2021, the BBC's hit crime drama The Serpent, starring Tahar Rahim as Sobhraj and Jenna Coleman, retold the story of the couple's crimes as they are thought to have drugged and killed at least 20 backpackers across India, Thailand, Nepal and the Middle East before their arrest in 1976
Within months, she quickly took on a new, more dangerous role, becoming her lover's accomplice, posing as a nurse or model, sometimes even his wife, and turning a blind eye to his crimes and philandering.
Sobhraj had been born in 1944 in Ho Chi Minh city in Vietnam, then a French colony, and had risen through the ranks of Parisian high society in the 1960s, cultivating a stylish image financed through burglaries and exploiting wealthy women.
When his earlier, less serious crimes threatened to catch up with him, he fled back to South East Asia, and wooed Leclerc to follow him.
The killings began in 1975. Sobhraj and Leclerc would befriend Western tourists in bars and hotels and invite them to stay at their apartment. She used the alias 'Monique', and would pretend to be Sobhraj's wife or a fashion model.
![Leclerc, who walked with a limp following a childhood illness, used the fake name Monique when the couple wooed new victims; after her capture alongside Sobhraj in 1976, she was jailed - and died of ovarian cancer in her native Quebec in 1983 at the age of 38](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/19/10/82631867-13213711-image-a-11_1710845998941.jpg)
Leclerc, who walked with a limp following a childhood illness, used the fake name Monique when the couple wooed new victims; after her capture alongside Sobhraj in 1976, she was jailed - and died of ovarian cancer in her native Quebec in 1983 at the age of 38
The couple hosted parties for their 'guests' and took them to Bangkok nightspots.
Their victims were drugged with a crude mix of laxatives, sedatives and vomit-inducing medication.
Those who survived were stabbed, strangled, drowned or burned alive, their bodies dumped on roadsides or beaches, with the Thai police apparently uninterested.
Sobhraj then took their cash or travellers' cheques and stole their passports. The total number of murders he committed is unknown.
Having repeatedly slipped through the net as authorities worldwide went after him, by the time he was caught in 1976 he was Interpol’s most wanted man.
The couple were eventually arrested in Delhi - along with other accomplices - when a plan to drug a group of French students went wrong.
Leclerc was jailed for life in Nepal after being convicted of conspiracy to murder - but later released on appeal, freed on the grounds that she must stay in the country.
Three years later, an ovarian cancer diagnosis saw her allowed to return to her homeland, upon the proviso that she return to India to face another trial when her health allowed.
Shortly before her death from the disease, at the age of 38 in April 1984, she wrote a book called 'Je reviens' (I'm coming back), which explained her feelings for Sobhraj and her role in his killings.
Leclerc claimed in her diaries that Sobhraj had exerted control over her by withholding her passport and her money - and said she had never had strong affection for the French serial killer.
![Charles Sobhraj aka The Serpent photographed at the time of his capture in New Delhi, India, in 1977](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/19/10/82542003-13213711-Charles_Sobhraj_aka_The_Serpent_photographed_at_the_time_of_his_-a-9_1710845982649.jpg)
![After being released from prison in December 2022, Sobhraj, also dubbed the 'bikini killer', now aged 79, looked every inch the tourist as he took snaps on his phone of the sights around London Eye last week](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/19/10/82542005-13213711-Disguised_in_a_wig_and_spectacles_serial_killer_Charles_Sobhraj_-m-8_1710845978177.jpg)
Charles Sobhraj aka The Serpent photographed at the time of his capture in New Delhi, India, in 1977. Right, after being released from prison in December 2022, Sobhraj, also dubbed the 'bikini killer', now aged 79, looked every inch the tourist as he took snaps on his phone of the sights around London Eye last week
When Jenna Coleman played her in the 2021 BBC One hit, the actress revealed she'd discovered another side to Leclerc while researching her.
The star said: ‘She was controlled by him, but what was interesting playing her was where the line was between her willingness to stay and her desire to go. She wasn’t faint-hearted.
'She could be quite fiery and she did know what she wanted. So the question of whether Leclerc was a victim is a complex one.'
Coleman added: ‘My thinking about it was she needed to live in a delusional state, she needed to allow this to happen because she was so obsessive about Charles and she needed to be with him. It’s the psychology of complete delusion.
'I don’t think she allowed reality into her consciousness at all. She pushed it away. That’s the only way she could exist with him.
'She’d created this whole new identity and it was a kind of addiction for her to not be the medical receptionist with a limp living a normal dull life.’
![Sobhraj was freed on December 23rd 2022 after spending almost 20 years in a Nepali prison](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/19/11/67347661-13213711-French_serial_killer_Charles_Sobhraj_responsible_for_multiple_mu-a-12_1710846244132.jpg)
Sobhraj was freed on December 23rd 2022 after spending almost 20 years in a Nepali prison
![In a media offensive in Paris in February 2023, he denied being responsible for the string of killings of mainly western tourists. Pictured: Charles Sobhraj in 2014](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/19/11/67347641-13213711-In_a_media_offensive_in_Paris_he_denied_being_responsible_for_a_-a-13_1710846247221.jpg)
In a media offensive in Paris in February 2023, he denied being responsible for the string of killings of mainly western tourists. Pictured: Charles Sobhraj in 2014
In February 2023, shortly after his release from prison in Nepal, Sobhraj admitted drugging and stealing passports from at least 150 victims, but insisted he was never guilty of murder.
In a media offensive in Paris, he told Le Monde: 'I've used quite a few stolen passports, but I've never killed anyone, and I'll prove it. Right now, I'm running around everywhere trying to get my papers redone.'
The man who was crucial in bringing Sobhraj to justice, diplomat Herman Knippenberg, who had been posted to the Dutch embassy in Bangkok around the time of the killings and was relentless in his pursuit of the Bikini Killer, said when the BBC One series came out that he didn't doubt for a moment that Sobhraj was guilty.
Knippenberg - now 79 - said in 2021 that the reality of the case was every bit as heart-stopping as the BBC story unfolding on screen.
'It took a long time to get Sobhraj, many years,' recalls Knippenberg, who worked as a consultant on the TV drama.
![Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg was tenacious in his pursuit of Sobhraj - and said in 2021 that the murderer would have gone on to kill more if he hadn't been caught](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/19/12/38396014-13213711-Dutch_diplomat_Herman_Knippenberg_was_tenacious_in_his_pursuit_o-a-39_1710850188404.jpg)
![Billy Howle as Knippenberg in the hit BBC series The Serpent](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/03/19/12/38396008-13213711-Ellie_Bamber_and_Billy_Howle_as_Angela_and_Herman_Knippenberg_ar-m-38_1710850183853.jpg)
Dutch diplomat Herman Knippenberg was tenacious in his pursuit of Sobhraj - and said in 2021 that the murderer would have gone on to kill more if he hadn't been caught. Right: Billy Howle as Knippenberg in the hit BBC series The Serpent
'But I had to do it. He got inside me like some sort of tropical malaria. He wouldn't go away. This is not over until Sobhraj and I are in different worlds. If there is a Hell, I am sure he is a candidate.'
'Of all the things I have done, the Charles Sobhraj work is still the most important. It is the only point at which I felt I really made a difference, where I felt I saved lives.
'If we hadn't stopped him when we did, he would have gone on to kill many more.
'People say I was obsessed with it but I am absolutely not. Finally I just feel a sense of justice.'
The Real Serpent: Investigating a Serial Killer airs March 19th at 9pm on Channel 4