Jenna Coleman's Marie-Andre Leclerc (l) was far from Sobhraj's only lover
Credit: Roland Neveu
For the first half of The Serpent, the BBC’s darkly stylish thriller about real-life killer Charles Sobhraj’s terrifying spree of attacks along the Hippie Trail in the 1970s, the only woman in Sobhraj’s life that the viewer encounters is Marie-Andrée Leclerc. His long-term girlfriend and accomplice, played by Jenna Coleman, is a curiously ambiguous character: part active participant in his crimes, part pitiable victim of his emotional abuse.
But in real life, Sobhraj’s romantic entanglements were not confined to Leclerc – he has been married at least twice, and fathered at least three children. Episode six of The Serpent flashes back to Paris in 1969, where a 24-year-old Sobhraj, fresh from a stint in prison, is marrying young Frenchwoman Chantal Compagnon, renamed in the show as Juliette. The sight of her glowering parents in the background of the wedding ceremony is the show’s nod to the real Compagnon’s conservative, Catholic background – in marrying a mixed race ex-con, she was daring their disapproval.