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





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 Architectural Majesty 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







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

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.