‘Serpent’ serial killer who murdered American tourist stuns detective with demeanor

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Charles Sobhraj, the French serial killer accused of murdering at least a dozen western tourists traveling through Asia in the 1970s, is now a free man and sharing his story in a new televised interview.

“If you follow Mr. Sobhraj … that’s his modus operandi, he likes to have the attention put on him,” Jackie Malton, retired detective chief inspector of the United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police, told Fox News Digital. “He has this narcissistic personality where he truly believes in himself and his own innocence.”

The 80-year-old French national is believed to have killed at least 20 people in Afghanistan, India, Thailand, Turkey, Nepal, Iran and Hong Kong during the 1970s. 

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French serial killer Charles Sobhraj (C) is brought to the district court for a hearing on a case related to the murder of Canadian backpacker Laurent Ormond Carriere, in Bhaktapur on May 26, 2014. Sobhraj, a French citizen who was serving a life sentence in Nepal for the murder of an American backbacker in 1975, has been linked with a string of killings across Asia in the 1970s, earning the nickname “bikini killer.” (Prakash Mathema/AFP via Getty Images)

“Back then, I would describe him as extremely ruthless, cold-hearted, lack of any empathy,” Malton said. 

Sobhraj was sentenced to life in prison, which is only 20 years in Nepal, in 2004 for killing 29-year-old American tourist Connie Jo Bronzich in 1975. A decade later, he was also found guilty of killing Bronzich’s Canadian companion, 26-year-old Laurent Carrière.

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French serial killer Charles Sobhraj is escorted by Nepalese police at a district court for a hearing on a case related to the murder of Canadian backpacker Laurent Ormond Carriere, in Bhaktapur on June 12, 2014.  (Prakash Mathema/AFP via Getty Images)

Sobhraj was released from prison in Nepal in December 2022 and sent back to France after being released 19 years into his life sentence.

The Supreme Court had ordered that Sobhraj be freed from prison because of poor health, noting he has heart disease, as well as for good behavior and having served more than 75% of his sentence.

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His new interview will be featured in Peacock’s “World’s Most Notorious Killers,” streaming Sep. 17. 

Sobhraj, who preyed mostly on young backpackers on the “hippie trail” through Asia, often by befriending them before drugging, robbing and murdering them, earned the nickname “Serpent” from the disguises he used to evade police over the years and was known as the “bikini killer” in Thailand.

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Charles Sobhraj in his interview for Peacock’s “World’s Most Notorious Killers.” (Peacock)

Malton, who is featured in Peacock’s series, spent much of 2023 working with a large team of criminal profilers, researchers and psychologists to investigate Sobhraj, who gained recognition after Netflix featured him in “The Serpent” in 2021. She sat down with the convicted killer for an interview this year after spending some time getting to know him.  

“He wanted to tell the world that he was an innocent man,” she said. “We investigated the five murders in Thailand, and we presented quite substantial evidence to him that showed, in my opinion, that he was not quite so innocent as he thought he was.”

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  French serial killer Charles Sobhraj on an aircraft from Kathmandu to France, on Dec. 23, 2022. (Atish Patel/AFP via Getty Images)

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  French serial killer Charles Sobhraj looks at his mobile phone in transit from Doha airport to France, on Dec. 23, 2022. (Atish Patel/AFP via Getty Images)

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The retired detective had a surprising impression of the 80-year-old Sobhraj, who she said was “not the man who was in his 30s who targeted backpackers.”

“Mr. Sobhraj is a very, very polite man, he’s very respectful,” she said. “He’s not what anybody would ever consider to be a kind of serial killer in the sense of how we have understood case histories of serial killers. He does not fit into that mold.”

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After his release from prison, Sobhraj told French newspaper Le Monde, “I’ve used quite a few stolen passports, but I’ve never killed anyone, and I’ll prove it.”

Mollie Markowitz is a reporter for Fox News Digital. Email tips to mollie.markowitz@fox.com. She joined Fox in 2019 and made her way from producing live news coverage to true-crime documentaries at Fox Nation. She is passionate about victim advocacy and has interviewed Ted Bundy survivors, the children of notorious serial killers, survivor Lisa McVey, members of law enforcement and families impacted by traumatic crime.Currently, she covers national crime stories for Fox News Digital. You can follow Mollie on LinkedIn.