I just finished watching “The Serpent” on Netflix, a highly compelling drama based on true life events.

This limited series recounts the life and times of con man and serial killer, Charles Sobhraj, especially highlighting the period from 1975 to 1976—the heyday of hippie travel in Asia. Equal time is given to his pursuit by earnest Herman Kippenberg, a Dutch diplomat in Bangkok, Thailand—his first international posting—and his tiny group of helpers.

The series also interweaves the story of Marie‐Andrée Leclerc, Sobhraj’s romantic partner, powerfully acted by Jenna Coleman. We can learn the most important qualities to avoid in a romantic partner by observing their romance.

Leclerc worked as a medical secretary in Quebec. To get her mind off a troubled relationship with a married doctor, she traveled to India on vacation, where she met Sobhraj in Kashmir. With charm, compliments, and undivided attention, Sobhraj lured her into an ultimately destructive relationship. 

Do you think this could never happen to you? You would never fall in love with a con artist, thief, and certainly not a serial killer, right? 

Leclerc probably never imagined doing so herself. But con artists lure unsuspecting people into their traps every day.

That’s why this series is an important one to watch. 

We need to know how con artists and narcissistic perpetrators easily tempt victims into compliance. You may never meet a serial killer, but there are plenty of people who would like to con you or involve you in a toxic relationship.

Let’s look at the three qualities you should absolutely avoid in a partner, one of the main takeaways, at least for me, from this film.

1. Fatal Charm

Sobhraj (known as “Alain Gautier” during this period) used his charm to lure young travelers to the apartment he shared with Leclerc (who he renamed “Monique”) at Kanut House in Bangkok. He complimented them, gave friendly advice, offered help, and let them stay in the apartment he shared with Leclerc for free. 

Leclerc participated in setting up victims, but she felt torn. She wrote about the internal conflict she experienced between the wishes of “Marie‐Andrée” to run away and what was required of her as “Monique” in her diary.

Sobhraj was born of a Vietnamese mother and an Indian father. He felt unfairly treated because of his mixed race origin and determined to prove those who had dismissed him in his early years in Paris as wrong. Teaming up with a white woman made it easier engage with young European and American travelers. He and Leclerc targeted individuals and couples they suspected or discovered had large amounts of cash.

Once at his apartment, with Leclerc’s help, Sobhraj drugged his new “friend” with substances that made him or her progressively ill. Finally incapacitated, he and his Indian accomplice, Ajay Chowdury, took the victim to a deserted location and killed them. Sobhraj kept their valuables and used their passports to cash their travelers checks and for travel under assumed names.

He committed other murders, using a similar modus operandi, in India, Hong Kong and Nepal.

Charisma allows you to easy magnetize and influence others. It’s considered a positive quality in business and politics because charisma inspires people to get behind a shared goal. Most people consider Barack Obama, Martin Luther King, Jr., Madonna, Oprah Winfrey, and Richard Branson charismatic.

But charisma has a dark side when employed by narcissists, con artists, and predators to manipulate people to their own ends. 

Clearly, you want to avoid partners with the wrong kind of charisma. But how do you tell?

As a start, avoid people who repeatedly display self-absorption and self-aggrandizement as main character traits. These traits are common in narcissists, but not in people with healthy charisma.

In her Psychology Today article on charismatic business leaders, professor and licensed counselor, Suzanne Deges-White, Ph.D., offers the following four questions as a way to separate a charismatic person from a narcissistic one in the workplace. You can translate and apply these questions in other circumstances as well.

1. “Does this person create a sense of purpose around the task or goal at hand?”

2. “Does this person acknowledge my own strengths and encourage me to grow as a person or team member?”

3. “Does this person have to ask for validation or does he offer it to others who are involved in the project?”

4. “Lastly, when the leader meets with obstacles or has to re-work a plan, does she lash out at everyone around her — placing the blame for the failure on others or does she accept that there may be a better path to success and gather her team around her to work together to plot a new course?”

What went through Leclerc’s mind the first time Sobhraj asked her to use the name Monique and befriend a couple sitting across from them on the beach? What when through her mind when she discovered he had drugged them and stolen their money? 

She was aghast at first. But Sobhraj rationalized his actions. He said, they were rich kids who didn’t need or deserve the money. He told her they would wake up and be fine in the morning. She had fallen in love so she didn’t act on her conscience.

It’s necessary to listen to your inner doubts and hesitations to avoid being seduced into a toxic relationship. When you’re asked to do something at odds with your values, it’s time to get out.

2. Lying

Sobhraj sometimes told Leclerc the truth. For example, he told her his real first name—Charles. Leclerc didn’t seem to doubt Sobhraj’s truthfulness until much later in the story, when she learned of his his first wife, Juliette. 

When she confronted Sobhraj, he rationalized the omission by telling her of the pain Juliette caused him. Juliette, he said, died years ago and he could not bear to think or speak about that part of his life, evoking compassion from her.

On the lam from Asia, Sobhraj and Leclerc arrive in Paris, where he had promised they will create a new life and start a family. Leclerc begins to have doubts about the future when she sees their faces plastered on the front page of a Paris newspaper, a publicity campaign that had been initiated by the dogged Kippenberg. 

Leclerc has met Sobhraj’s mother once. But the encounter was strained and an angry Charles insisted they leave. Leclerc set up a second, this time secret, meeting with Sobhraj’s mother to learn more about him. Sobhraj’s mother laughs at Leclerc’s naiveté.

“Charles always lies,” his mother says.

Juliette is, in fact, alive and well, living with her new husband and the child she bore with Sobhraj.

Sobhraj constantly lied to his victims. Why would Leclerc imagine he wouldn’t lie to her?

According to philosopher and neuroscientist, Sam Harris:

“…all forms of lying — including white lies meant to spare the feelings of others — are associated with poorer-quality relationships.”

Even white lies. Don’t let little lies slide if you want a healthy relationship. You may one day discover your partner has been lying to you too.

3. Cheating

Sobhraj maintained a romantic affair with a gem store owner named Suda alongside his relationship with Leclerc. When Leclerc expressed dismay, he told her Suda meant nothing to him. He was simply pragmatic. Suda was his source for gems, which were part of his con.

Despite her dislike of the situation, Leclerc accepted it.

Later, in Paris, Sobhraj surveils his first wife, Juliette. He finds an opportune moment and tries to win her back. Despite the promises Sobhraj has made to LaClerc, a new life and a family, she is dispensable in his eyes.

Much later in the film, Sobhraj confesses he chose Leclerc because she resembled his first wife, Juliette. 

Some couples recover from infidelity. But someone who has cheated in a previous relationship is three times more likely to do so in a future relationship according to research reported in Psychology Today.

Be cautious if a potential partner confesses but rationalizes past infidelities. The odds aren’t in your favor.

What Happened to Sobhraj, Leclerc and Chowdury?

When Sobhraj slipped out of the hands of Thai authorities, Kippenberg started a publicity campaign that reached far and wide. This began a worldwide hunt for the killer.

Sobhraj and Leclerc fled Paris, returning to India to start over from scratch. After attempting to poison a group of French postgraduate students, they were apprehended by Indian authorities in 1976.

Sobhraj spent more than twenty years in an Indian prision for crimes he committed in that country. He claimed the guards loved him and curried him favor. By the time he was free again, the statute of limitations was up for the murders he had committed in Thailand. He went back to Paris in 1997, where he became a minor celebrity.

in 2003, he returned to Nepal for an unknown reason. Thanks to evidence still in the hands of the unrelenting Herman Kippenberg, Sobhraj was arrested, convicted of murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment. He remains in a Nepal prison today.

Leclerc’s role in the physical murders has never been clear. However, she spent time in an India prison cell for crimes committed there. When she was diagnosed with cancer in 1983, she was allowed to return to Quebec where she died at the age of thirty-eight.

There have been a handful of sitings of Ajay Chowdury, but no one knows if it was truly him. Some people believe Sobhraj killed Ajay before he departed Bangkok for Paris.

Although the dialogue in The Serpent was fictionalized, the script writers conducted thorough research and stayed as accurate to known facts as possible.

Closing Thoughts

You will probably never meet a serial killer, much less be enticed into a relationship with one. But the kinds of behaviors they enact with ease can be deadly to any relationship.

Be sure to watch out for these three things in partner:

• Fatal charm

• Lying

• Cheating

In one way, they may seem obvious. But since too many of us get fooled by charmers, it’s worth saying this again.

Let me know your thoughts in the comments. I would love to hear from you.

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