The Serpent started on BBC One on January 1 and is now on Netflix. In the eight-part show, serial killer Charles Sobhraj’s horrifying crimes are shown. Here is all the information you need about Sobhraj’s right-hand woman Marie-Andrée Leclerc.
Who is Marie-Andrée Leclerc?
Canada’s Marie-Andrée Leclerc was a nurse. She was the main person who helped Charles Sobhraj, a French serial killer, con man, and thief. Marie-Andrée Leclerc was born in the Canadian village of Saint-Charles-de-Bellechasse on October 26, 1945.
When she died, she was 38 years old. Scorpio is her star sign. She went to school in Quebec City, which is in the Canadian province of Québec. After that, she worked as a medical secretary at a clinic in Levis, Québec.
Marie-Andrée Leclerc’s Biography
She came from France. Her parents and siblings are a mystery. She had an on-and-off relationship with a married doctor when she worked as a medical secretary in Levis. She went to Kashmir, India, for a change of scenery.
There, she met Alain Gauthier, who said he was a photojournalist for Paris Match magazine. Charles Sobhraj, a serial killer and con artist, was really Alain Gauthier. During her trip, she fell in love with him.
Charles helped Marie find her way around India, and at the end of her trip, he asked her to promise to come back to Asia to see him. After she went back to Levis, Charles sent her love letters and called her to tell her he loved her and wanted to marry her.
He asked her to come to Bangkok to be with him. She broke up with her boyfriend and quit her job. In June 1975, she used the plane ticket that Charles had sent her to go to Thailand.
Thailand Murders
Marie was so taken with Charles that she became his follower and a puppet in his hands. She started going along with his scams. Charles stole the tourists’ money and passports in Thailand by pretending to sell gems or drugs.
Charles’s other trick was to get people to follow him by helping them get out of tough situations. One of these men, Dominique Renelleau, who later joined Charles’ clan, remembered that Marie gave him a potion that made him sick. Charles gave Dominique a place to stay, and Dominique stayed with Charles and his clan for months.
Charles killed his first people in the fall of 1975. Most of them were his partners in crime, who threatened to tell on him if he didn’t stop. The first person he killed was a Seattle woman named Teresa Knowlton.
On October 15, 1975, her body, which was wearing a flowery bikini, was found on the shores of the Gulf of Thailand near Pattaya City. Before the autopsy reports, people thought that Teresa drowned while swimming and that it was an accident.
Vitali Hakim, a Turk whose burned body was found on the way to Pattaya Resort, where Charles and his family were staying, was the man who was killed.
Nepal & India Murders
Sobhraj killed Canadian Laurent Carrière and American Connie Bronzich in Kathmandu on December 21 and 22, 1975. These people are also known as Laddie DuParr and Annabella Tremont in some sources. The bodies of Laurent and Connie were found in a field near the capital of Nepal.
Marie and Charles then went back to Thailand using the passports of Laurent Carrière and Connie Bronzich. After a few of Charles’ friends in Thailand thought he had killed someone, he and Marie ran away to Bombay, where they killed Israeli scholar Avoni Jacob to get his passport.
Marie and Charles went to Singapore and India after getting Jacob’s passport. In March 1976, they went back to Thailand. Next, Marie went with Charles and his right-hand man, Ajay Chowdhury, to Malaysia. Ajay was sent to Malaysia to find gems. He was seen giving gems to Charles, which was the last time anyone saw him. His body has not been found.
Back in India, Barbara Smith and Mary Ellen Eather joined Marie and Charles in their crime in Bombay. Later, Charles and his group of three women attacked a Frenchman named Jean-Luc Solomon. During a robbery, Solomon was poisoned and left to die.
In July 1976, the Delhi Police caught Marie, Charles, and his two helpers while they were trying to rob a group of French post-graduate students. The students were part of a group that told the police about them.
Imprisonment & Trial
After Marie, Charles, and the other two women were caught by the police, they were questioned. During questioning, Barbara and Ellen admitted to what they had done, and they were sent to Tihar Jail in Delhi for their crimes.
Marie was accused of helping kill Jean-Luc Salomon and Avoni Jacob, both of whom were killed in India. She was found not guilty of killing Jean-Luc on July 28, 1978, but she had to stay in prison because Jacob’s murder trial was still going on.
During Jean-Luc Salomon’s murder trial, she stood by Charles Sobhraj and spoke out against the verdict when he was found guilty. Marie and Charles were found guilty of killing Avoni Jacob, and Marie was found guilty of giving drugs to students and given a 12-year prison sentence.
She filed an appeal, and the judge immediately let her go, but she said she wouldn’t leave the country. She was eventually able to go back to Canada.
Marie-Andrée Leclerc’s Death
She was on parole in July 1983 when she was told she had ovarian cancer. She was allowed to go to Canada as long as she reported to the High Commission of India in Ottawa once every three months and went back to India for her trials as long as her health allowed. She died of cancer at the Hotel Dieu Hospital of Lévis on April 20, 1984, when she was 38 years old.
