After serving out a 20-year term in India, Indian-Vietnamese serial killer Charles Sobhraj has been convicted again in Thailand (via Shashwati Talukdar). Sobhraj is an odd and unusual fellow as far as homicidal sociopaths go, befriending hippies on the ganja-moksha trail:
Charles Sobhraj was born… to an unwed Vietnamese shop girl and an India merchant who denied paternity… “I will make you regret that you have missed your father’s duty,” he confided in his diary.
… years later he made an even more audacious escape: this time by throwing a birthday party in which guards and prisoners alike were invited. Grapes and biscuits handed around the guests were secretly injected with sleeping pills, knocking out everyone except Sobhraj and four other escapees. Indian newspapers reported that they were so haughty about their getaway that they even photographed themselves walking through the prison gates onto the Delhi streets.
Crime Library explains his upbringing:
Born Gurhmuk Sobhraj to an unwed Vietnamese woman, Sobhraj grew up feeling his parents’ indifference to his existence… he took the name [Charles] as a teenager after being baptized a Catholic… Living in Marseilles, Charles had access to ships heading east to Indochina and he began stowing away on them in an effort to reach his natural father. The affection Charles held for his father was not returned…
He had stolen a car and taken [his fiancee], Chantal, to a glamorous casino. Crazed, almost frenzied wagering caused him to lose thousands of borrowed francs for which he blamed Chantal, who had put off his requests to marry him. Later, with Chantal white with fear beside him, he sped home at breakneck speed until Chantal agreed to be his bride… He tried to evade the police but lost control on a rain-soaked curve and crashed the car.
But, like the Pennsylvania 9/11 passengers, some people caught on to Sobhraj’s MO:
Dominique, Yannick and Jacques had put the pieces together and realized they had been under the care of a homicidal maniac. They broke into Charles’ office and found dozens of passports and identity papers belonging to unfortunate tourists who had met up with Sobhraj. The three Frenchmen fled Sobhraj’s apartment and Thailand, heading home to Paris. Before they left they told police what was going on in the apartment building…
The pills worked too quickly, and all around him in the lobby of the hotel, students were dropping like flies. When someone realized that the only people who were ill were those who took their new friend’s “medicine,” a trio of burly students wrestled Charles to the ground and sent for the police.
Before his latest conviction, Sobhraj had allegedly murdered over 20 people and was living comfortably in Paris, selling off book rights and charging $5K per interview. All this from a man who looks like Danny Denzongpa.
