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French serial killer Charles Sobhraj is escorted by Nepalese police after a court hearing in Kathmandu, Nepal, in 2011. Nicknamed “The Serpent,” he is linked to a series of backpacker killings in Asia in the 1970s. File Photo by Narendra Shrestha/EFE
Dec. 24 (UPI) — Infamous serial killer Charles Sobhraj, known as The Serpent, returned to France Saturday after spending nearly 20 years in prison in Nepal.
Sobhraj was linked to up to 20 murders throughout Asia in the 1970s, including the 1975 murder of a 20-year-old American woman, Connie Jo Bronzich, whose burned body was discovered outside of the Nepalese capital Kathmandu.
Nepal’s top court ruled on Wednesday that the 78-year-old Sobhraj should be released on health grounds. He was released on Friday and immediately deported back to France.
Police say Sobhraj killed at least six women in Thailand during the 1970s, many of whom washed up on beaches near the popular tourist city of Pattaya. He was convicted of poisoning a group of French tourists in India, where he was imprisoned between 1976 and 1997 before returning to France. In 1986 he briefly escaped prison by drugging guards.
While in France Sobhraj made large amounts of money off of interviews. The rights to his life story were reportedly sold for $15 million.
He eventually returned to a Nepal where he was arrested in 2003 for traveling on a false passport, and went on trial for the 1975 murder of Bronzich and Canadian tourist Laurent Carrière. He was given a life sentence in 2004.
Sobhjra is the subject of the Netflix/BBC docu-series The Serpent.
