Chantal Compagnon is a French woman and the first wife of French serial killer and fraudster Charles Sobhraj.
Wiki/Biography and Family
Chantal Compagnon was born in 1945 (age 76 years; as of 2021) in Paris to a conservative Catholic family.
Compagnon and Sobhraj
She met Charles at a party in 1969, who told her about his adventures in the Orient and Dakar and his imaginary rich family in Saigon. At the time, Charles was dating Chantal Desnoyers. She broke with Desnoyers to marry Compagnon. Soon, Charles proposes to Chantal, but on the same day, he is arrested for car theft. Chantal’s parents were against her marriage to Charles, but they agreed after Charles demonstrated his wealth acquired by conducting a series of scams. Eight months later, Charles was released from prison and she married him.
Charles Sobhraj
In 1970, Compagnon, pregnant with his child, and Sobhraj left France for Asia using fake documents. On the way, Chantal helps Charles rob tourists. In 1970, the couple moved to Mumbai, where they decided to leave crime and make a fresh start. However, Charles failed to stay away from crime and involved himself in car theft and smuggling enterprises. Compagnon gave birth to her first child there, a daughter named Usha Sobhraj, who was later sent to live with Chantal’s parents. In 1971, Chantal and Charles fled to Kabul, where Charles involved himself with arms smugglers. Chantal ran from place to place with Charles. In 1973, when Charles was arrested and jailed after a failed armed robbery at a jewelery shop in Hotel Ashoka, Delhi, he was kept in Delhi’s Tihar Jail. A fortnight later, Charles feigns appendicitis and is taken to hospital, where Chantal helps him escape by drugging the guards. After this the couple went to Kabul. Chantal joined Charles in his misdeeds and helped him rob travelers on the hippie route between Europe and East Asia. The couple was arrested by the Afghan police and jailed. Charles somehow managed to escape and went to France, kidnapped his daughter and returned to Afghanistan to free Chantal. In the process, he was captured again. After his release, Charles moved to Iran, leaving Chantal and her daughter in Kabul. After the incident, Chantal returned to France and vowed to break relations with Charles and never have contact with him again.
Facts/General Knowledge
- From his relationship with Chantal Desnoyers, Charles has a daughter named Muriel Anouk and a son named Prank. In fact, the day Charles married Compagnon was the day Muriel Anouk was born.
Charles Sobhraj with his daughter Muriel Anouk
- According to GQ magazine, Chantal met an American in Kabul and moved to America with him and her daughter. In an interview with GQ, Charles claimed that when Chantal heard about his return to France in 1997, she left her husband to be with him.
- Chantal described in detail, in a meeting with the Indian-born British writer Farrukh Dhondy, who was once an acquaintance of Charles, claiming that Sobhraj had confessed to her to the murders. Dhondy shared his conversation with Chantal in an interview and said,
When she returned, Sobhraj took her to the border of France and Switzerland and forced her to sell some of the land she had inherited. He received approximately £40,000. He took it, got in the car, drove to Holland and gambled away. Every cent. I asked her why she came back to him, and she said ‘I love him.’
- After Charles was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for his murders in Nepal, Chantal appealed against her double murder conviction and in 2003 sued the French government for refusing to assist her husband Charles. Filed a case before the European Court of Human Rights.
- In 2021, BBC One and Netflix produced a series based on the life of Charles Sobhraj titled ‘The Serpent’. In the series, Chantal’s name was changed to ‘Juliette Vauclin’ and she was played by English-French actress Stacey Martin.
Stacy Martin as Chantal Compagnon, renamed Juliette Vocklen, in The Serpent (2021)
Categories: Biography
Source: vcmp.edu.vn