Shownotes Transcript
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Las vacunas actualizadas te protegen. Ponte al día con las vacunas contra el COVID-19 y la gripe. Patrocinado por los defensores de la educación, la equidad y el progreso de la vacunación. Hi friends, how are you today? My name is Bailey Sarian and today is Monday, which means it's murder, mystery, and makeup Monday. If you are new here, hi, my name is Bailey Sarian and on Mondays I sit down and I talk about a true crime story that's been heavy on my mind.
There we go. Heavy on my noggin. Okay, and this one's been heavy on my noggin. And I do my makeup at the same time. Just kind of keeps my hands busy while I tell you a story. It's really, that's all it comes down to. While today's story is super fucked up, holy shit. Wow, let me tell you. It's about this guy. Well, first it takes place in France, Paris. Paris, France. So you know I'm gonna be butchering everybody's name, okay? So already, look.
Lower the standard. Okay, but other than that, I will shut up and let's get to today's story So today's story is about a spree killer. Yeah, I was like a spree killer. What's that? Huh? A spree killer is different It's a little different than a serial killer because a spree killer is someone who like is
kills more than one person in a short period of time. That's the best way to describe it. But they might have all kinds of reasons for doing it in the first place. Sometimes it's premeditated and sometimes it's just like a crime of passion where they snap. These are the ones that scare me to death 'cause they just one day, they're like, you know what?
I'm gonna kill everybody. And then they do it. That's a spree killer. I think Chris Watts is the best way, right? Well, this guy is just as bad. Holy shit. So our story takes place in like a little French village. It's called Préveux-Saint-Mois. It's in like the Burgundy region of France and it's right on the border of Switzerland. And I hear, based off my Googling, it's a really lovely town where like
It's just cute where they got the old stuff, they got the new stuff, they got the castles. It just reminds me of like Beauty and the Beast. I mean there's a lot of stuff over there, a lot of art and a lot of smart people. Now despite it being like this incredible town with so many city, with so many opportunities and like smart people and whatnot, it's still like a pretty close-knit community. They have about 8,000 different people living there. So they would you know,
Pretty small. So this is where our story takes place, okay? So then it's early like 1993 and there's this guy, his name's Dr. Luke Ladmerell. He's sleeping and he's woken up by, you know, the phone's ringing. Bing, bing, bing. And he's like, "Hello." And he's half asleep, right? It's a local pharmacist who's telling Luke that
His best friend, 39-year-old Jean-Claude Romand, this person was calling to say that his friend's house is on fire. Yeah. And Luke is like, oh my God, what the fuck? What do you mean it's on fire? Like, you know, like what? So he throws on his coat and he like goes out there. It's January, mind you. So it's freaking freezing. He rushes out the door and he drives over to his best friend's house. Luke and Jean-Claude, they had been best friends for like,
20 years or something like that. So a long time, thank you. They go all the way back to medical school together.
Yeah, smart. The two of them even got married around the same time, like to their partners, and they had kids that ended up growing up together. So it's like a really special friendship, right? That's like a friend you want who's been there through everything and even your kids hang out. That's special. So that's the kind of friendship they had. Jean-Claude was even Luke's daughter's godfather. So you know it was pretty serious. So with that being said,
if anything would have happened to Jean-Claude or like his family, Luke would be devastated. It would be a tremendous loss. So Luke, he drives out to Jean-Claude's house, right? He pulls up the whole thing, flames, fire. What the hell? Half of the roof had completely caved in. Okay. There's just smoke.
everywhere, billowing out of the roof. There's firefighters, they're out there and they're like putting the rest of the fire out and police are also just in the area, right? And Luke is just like watching and praying everyone is okay. But then the worst happens, like he starts to see firefighters bringing out Jean-Claude's children. I know, like carrying them out, their bodies.
Yeah, there was Carolyn. She was just seven years old and then there was five-year-old Antoine and both of them were in body bags and they were dead. So this is devastating to Luke, oh my god, right? Jeez. Then Luke sees firefighters bring out Jean Claude's wife, Florence. Yeah, they brought her out of the rubble and sadly she didn't make it either.
Oh my god. It looked like maybe she had some serious head trauma, like a beam from the house had fallen on her head. It was just tragic. The last person the firefighters found was Jean-Claude. Now, his whole family's dead. Like, it's not funny, but it's like, holy shit. And miraculously, Jean-Claude is alive. He's in a coma and he's suffering from smoke inhalation, but...
He was a lucky one. He survived. This is murder mystery, so you know, lucky things don't just happen.
Do they? Luke, the friend, he had a horrible day. Devastated. So he heads home. He waits to hear from the hospital, hoping for an update that Jean-Claude is like gonna wake up from his coma. So he tries to go to bed, Luke, the friend. And then the next morning he gets a knock at the door and it's the police.
And they want to talk to him. They're like, hey, we want to talk to you about that fire. You were there, weren't you? With most of the Romand family dead and Jean-Claude in a coma, the authorities, they try to contact Jean-Claude's parents, Amy and then Anne Marie.
but they also don't answer the phone. So police can't seem to get ahold of anybody in Jean-Claude's family, but eventually they do get ahold of Jean-Claude's uncle. So his uncle decides to take it upon himself to drive an hour away to a town called Clairvaux-les-Lacs to inform Jean-Claude's parents about what the fuck happened. So the uncle goes to the house, he's knocking on the door and then nobody answered.
So he's like dude what the damn hell is going on around here? So he ends up letting himself into the house and that's when he finds Anne Marie in the sitting room shot in the chest. Body laying in a pool of blood.
Yes, shot in the chest. And then he finds his brother, Amy, in the upstairs bedroom. So with Amy, his body was draped across the bed. There was blood spatter everywhere. Amy was also shot. So this uncle, he's looking around the house,
God, I couldn't even imagine what's going through your head or how you even remember any of this shit because I'd be in a blackout. But he ends up finding the family dog. I know, the family dog was shot too. Really? Yeah. I mean, if you're gonna murder, like, leave the dog out of it, my God. Just the whole thing. Tragic, right? I don't know what any of us would do. I'd probably just go jump out a window because what's the fucking point? Okay, that took a dark turn.
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I'm sorry. The coroner finished, uh, we're doing an inspection of the bodies of Florence, the wife, Carolyn, the daughter, and Antoine. And the coroner had found some things that were like not really lining up, you know? He was like, there's some things that are not making sense. For example, one of the things he thought was a little questionable was
was the fact that Florence, she had this large gash in her head and it was determined that it was not from a large beam or like a beam that fell on her head. It was clear that it came, it was blunt force trauma. He determined her skull had been bashed in. Yes. So, okay, right, okay. So then on top of that,
The children had also been shot at close range, which led the coroner to the conclusion that all three of them were dead before the fire started. Also, Jean-Claude, he wasn't in a coma from smoke inhalation. Of course he wasn't, right, Nene? They did blood tests on him and it turns out that he had a high concentration of barbiturates in his blood system.
Well, ain't that something, huh? Now, none of this was making sense. I mean, how the hell did this family get massacred so brutally? Like it was insane. And like the family, they were considered typical middle-class family. Like nothing stood out about them in any way. So there was nothing that stood out to police about this family either. They didn't have any weird secrets, not that they could find.
So naturally the police, they go back to Luke, the best friend, and try to see if they could get something.
Right? So Luke, he was the closest person to the Romans. And he couldn't think of anyone that would want to do this to them. He had no enemies, not that he knew of. And I mean, they were involved, the family, they were involved in the community. They had good jobs, kids thriving. Just none of it made any sense. So please ask like, well, where did Jean-Claude work? Let's start there. You know, maybe they could follow something there.
So Luke tells him that Jean-Claude, he was a researcher at the World Health Organization in Geneva. Yeah, and he had been working there for the last 18 years. Like that's a long time, right? In Geneva, princess of Genovia. He was princess of Geneva. So Jean-Claude was a prominent scientist there. After medical school, Jean-Claude had taken his training to research
something very complicated, but it had to do with heart disease. And he would tell people he was on the front lines looking for treatments for heart disease and how to prevent and all that stuff. And that basically...
Jean-Claude was a hero, basically. Pretty important job. In other words, Luke made Jean-Claude sound like he was a really big deal, okay? So investigators, they call up the World Health Organizations and they ask to speak to a colleague of Dr. Jean-Claude Romand. And not only do they have to deliver like the bad news about what happened and whatnot,
but they're also looking to get some kind of lead, some kind of information, right? They're thinking that maybe somebody at the workplace or maybe Jean-Claude like had pissed off the wrong person. So investigators, they call up the World Health Organization, right? They get put on holds.
Please hold. So after a few like transfers, they finally reached the personnel department where the investigators are told that there is no Jean-Claude Romand even working there. And they're like, well, has he ever worked there? And they're like, no,
This person has never worked here. Ever. Wow. Dude, how embarrassing. So investigators are like, who the hell is this guy? Okay, who is this Jean-Claude guy? Well, Jean-Claude, he was born in February of 1954 to like an upper middle class family. And they lived in this cute little town of Clairvaux-les-Lacs.
They have lived in this cute ass town for multiple generations. It's woodsy, it's famous for its beautiful lake, it's rural, no one likes that word but it is, and it's like a pretty popular camping destination, you know? Let me know if you've been down below.
it sounds like paradise honestly. so jean-claude, his dad, his name's amy, he was a very decorated veteran in the french military. so he fought in world war ii fighting the nazis. he was captured and then became a prisoner of war so it was like damn his dad had been through some shit.
They've been through some shit because his dad, Amy, had spent five years in a German prison camp and was forced to do like slave labor and it was brutal, awful. And he survived. Yeah, just wild to think that they went through all that shit. So once he got back home, he got into lumber and started his own like lumber business.
And it turned into like this family business. So Jean-Claude's mom, she was sick all of the time. Jean-Claude remembers that when he was a kid, like his mom would spend most of her time in bed. She had gotten pregnant and then the pregnancy had gone not well. So she was bedridden. And it ended up like almost killing her. And she had to spend a lot of time recovering in the hospital.
And Jean-Claude's father, he would never really explain what was going on or like why she was away or why she was in bed. So yeah, I mean, that's gotta be really confusing for sure. Jean-Claude would say that he was a very quote unquote good kid. Like he did really well in school. People described him as well-behaved. Like he was a good boy. He was quiet. He was sweet. Didn't really say much.
he was just there. Sean Claude said he felt like any type of troubles he was going through, he kind of had to keep to himself because he didn't want to add extra stress to the family knowing that his mom, something was wrong with his mom. So he didn't want to say like speak up or be an inconvenience because mom needed all the attention. So this led to him is just always
being good, trying to always do the right thing and not speak up at all. So from a young age, Jean-Claude pretty much learned to just shut up, just be quiet. So for high school, Jean-Claude started at a high school that had a forestry department. Yeah, and it like focused on trees.
Yeah. I was like, cool. And I think because maybe so he can take over the family business. But it turns out Jean-Claude had a bunch of allergies that were triggered in nature. Yeah. So he really couldn't be outside much or around trees. That means like he could not work for the family business. And then on top of that, he got bullied a lot because he's a nerd.
He's a nerd. That's just the best way to describe it. So, I mean, look, Jean-Claude's father pretty much was going to make Jean-Claude work for the family business. There really wasn't any choices back then, you know? You just were gonna do it. But deep down, Jean-Claude, he didn't want to, and he's getting like kind of resentful, right? And Jean-Claude would say that he felt like he was under a lot of pressure to be the perfect son.
And he also didn't want to worry his mother in any way. And he didn't want to like upset his father. And he wanted to fulfill their dreams for him.
For them. And then on top of that, Jean-Claude was an only child. So lots of pressure. So the way that Jean-Claude felt like he could kind of make his parents proud was he was very smart. So maybe he should go into medicine. So that was going to be his plan because it would still please his parents. When he goes on to college, he ends up studying medicine. And then he was accepted to Lyon Medical School when he was 19 years old. So...
Okay, smarts. So going to Leon Medical School, I mean, it wasn't all just to impress his parents. There was also another reason he decided to go there. It's because he fell in love with a lady. Jean-Claude had a longtime crush on a girl named Florence. And he actually, originally he met her because they're cousins. Yeah, that's how they met. So he's in love with her.
Yeah, she's the one. They're distant cousins, but they're still close enough that they met at family parties. So, ha. Florence was a year younger, so she gets accepted to Leon Medical School. And that's when Jean-Claude is like, oh my God, same. I'm gonna go do that too. But then he gets sent to medical school. But he tells her like, oh my God, me too. Pfft.
So listen, it was not love at first sight. Florence did not like him. She thought Jean-Claude was socially awkward and very clingy. She had her own thing going. She had her own friends, her own life, right? And this cousin was just always around. He would tag along and just be there. She thought he was freaking annoying. And her parents, they absolutely loved Jean-Claude. And like...
That was annoying as well because Florence is the only one like, "I don't want to do-- like, no! It's not gonna happen!" And everyone's rooting for them. Poor Florence. Jean-Claude kind of insinuates himself into her social life and he ends up becoming best friends with a man in Florence's friend group, Luke.
from the beginning. And then they start doing everything together, like B-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F-F. So at this point though, it seems like everything is going really well for Jean-Claude because he's doing really well in school. He's got friends, he's got this girlfriend, he thinks, you know? And so he's doing well. So Jean-Claude's parents, they end up buying him a flat in town. I guess they had money, but like I couldn't verify, but they financially supported him. So I'm gonna say...
They did. Jean-Claude does really well in his classes and he passes his first year exams with like flying colors. Florence, she's still weirded out by him and she's really annoyed with how pushy he is, okay? She ends up going to her roommates and she tells them like, "Oh, he gets on my nerves. He's always tagging along." And that she felt like he was an annoying brother, an annoying like little brother.
more than he was boyfriend material. It's like maybe she feels that way because they're cousins. I don't know, just an idea. Plus he's just being pushy. It's like, dude, chill. In their second year of school, Florence finally lets Jean-Claude like have a chance. She goes out with him a few times, but I guess in her gut, she's like, this kind of is not for me. You know, so she tells him, she's like, I'm sorry, but...
I just want to focus on school. She has to think of an excuse other than I don't want to date you, right? Because he won't accept that answer. Anyway, so she tells him that and obviously devastating to Jean-Claude, okay? He has been after this woman since he was 14 years old and...
He was just not, he was not happy about this. He had plans with her. I know, it's sick. It's like, just let the lady live her life, but we're asking too much. So when she asked for them to break up, I mean, he just completely shuts down. Jean-Claude, he starts,
Well, he doesn't show up for his classes as much. He doesn't even show up for his second year exam. The combination of him like failing his second year exams and Florence and him breaking up, Jean-Claude just goes into like some deep depression.
He's spiraling. What's gonna happen? He ends up shutting himself into his studio apartment. He stops going to classes. He stops hanging out with his friends. He won't answer the phone. He doesn't shower. Obviously, depression. He's having it. He's just at his lowest. Now, finally, Jean-Claude's
friend, Luke, he was like fed up with it. And he shows up at Jean-Claude's door and he's forcing him to get up and have his come to Jesus moment. Okay. So Luke wants to cheer Jean-Claude up and like help him just get back into the swing of things. And it's just, he's being a friend. He
He's trying. The thing is though, Jean-Claude never told anybody that he missed his second year exams. Like Luke, Florence, and his parents, and whoever else knew him, none of them had any idea that he had actually fallen behind in school. So he couldn't really like rejoin the circle of friends, he felt like, because they would find out that he actually wasn't on his third year classes. So Jean-Claude is feeling a little embarrassed and doesn't want to tell them the truth.
So what's easier than telling the truth? Lying. Great. So he decides to come up with the perfect excuse. He's like, I'm going to tell everyone I have cancer.
cancer, you know? And also I think Jean-Claude kind of liked this because it gave him a chance to live a semi-normal life for the next couple of years. And also he was gaining a lot of like sympathy from his friends and especially Florence, 'cause she felt so bad. She was like, "Oh my God, oh my God, I'm so sorry."
Yeah. So it was said like Florence didn't want to get back with him, but she did anyways because she felt bad. So the two of them end up dating and this poor woman, she ends up getting engaged two years later in 1977. A pity engagement? I don't know. That ain't the way.
That ain't the way. But also Jean-Claude could have just like signed back up for classes and whatnot while he's going through all this, but he doesn't. He chooses not to. And you know why? Because he actually hates medicine. Yeah, Jean-Claude said he actually hated it. Later it was said that Jean-Claude got like really grossed out when he saw any kind of bodies. Anyone who was sick or dead, he was like, "Ill."
I can't. So he's not in the best field, I would say. He was already in medical school and doing his thing there and again, Jean-Claude would later say that he felt like it was the best option for him to just lie because at least he wouldn't disappoint his parents and then all of his friends and whatnot. Like, oh my god.
He's building a web of lies. He's telling everyone that he's back on track at medical school and he's taking his exams. Okay. And then he's like, yeah, since I was so sick with cancer, the school allows him to work from home, like do school at home. So he ends up doing this for the next 12 years, 12 years. He's telling people he's in medical school and taking classes.
and follow okay so in france it takes roughly like 10 years to become a doctor and then another two like once you pick your specialty sometimes longer i don't know you know but that's just kind of what i got from google what jean-claude does is uh with the school's permission he just kept going to his second year classes and he would just go like stand outside of the classrooms for the lectures
And then he would take the handouts from the classes. He would buy the same textbooks over and over and over again. And he would even lend other students like all of his notes. And he did all of that work for 12 years. But never once did he go and like take the second year exam. Does that make sense? I think it does. It totally makes sense. So he never took, he just kept going to the same classes over and over and over. He probably could have recited them.
Like he didn't want to move on. He was just being weird. So by the 12th year, Jean-Claude, he just stops going altogether because if the math is math incorrectly, he should have been on track to actually finish his studies. So he can't keep lying to everybody because he should be done. Jean-Claude, he ends up telling another lie that he took his final exams in Paris and he passed.
And now he was a full-blown certified doctor. Congratulations. Yeah, he's just lying his way to the top. He tells all of his friends and his family that he's a doctor. And then he tells them that he was offered a position at the World Health Organization, which is huge. I mean, this is very impressive. Wow. They're like, wow, you go, guy. Yeah.
Guy, you go. During that time of the 12 years, a student thing, Jean-Claude and Florence, they ended up getting married in like 1980. And at the time Jean-Claude was 26. So they ended up moving to a town like right next to the Swiss border so that Jean-Claude could be closer to his office in Geneva.
because he works at the World Health Organization, remember? In 1985, Florence gave birth to their first daughter, who they named Carolyn. And then four years later, they had their son, Antoine. So by 1988, like he has built his family. He has a reputation with his friends and like everything, you know, and he has this really big, important job. He honestly got himself in such a big, fat lie. And there's like no way he can get out of this.
There's no way. So he just keeps going with it. Now, Jean-Claude, he would keep this lie up for like 15 years. And every morning, literally like every morning, he would do this little act.
He would wake up like clockwork. He would drive to his office. He would have to go cross the border into Switzerland. And then he would park his car at the World Health Organization in the parking lot. And he would sit there. He would just sit there. And then some days, if he was feeling a little spicy, he'd get up and go into like a cafe that was nearby. And he would just sit there until it was time to go home.
That's concerning.
I mean, one thing we can all agree on was that he was a very dedicated man, but this is spooky, sir. Can you imagine all the things he could be doing with that time that he's sitting? Yeah, what a creep. Jean-Claude would say like to pass the time, he would read medical journals so he could kind of like keep up with what was going on in the medical world and like sound like he knows what he's talking about. Jean-Claude was like so good at this lie that his friends who were actual doctors, they even came to him for advice.
Again, Jean-Claude was like very, he was very dedicated to this. Okay, so he would take advantage of all the services that were offered by the World Health Organization. Like, okay, so there was a post office that was inside the building and Jean-Claude would like send all of his mail from that post office.
And then if he needed to make a bank withdrawal, he would use the bank that was inside. He even used their travel agency. Yeah, I guess they had a travel agency. Fancy. So Jean-Claude, again, dedicated. Jean-Claude made sure that he never went too far into the building to attract security or anything like that. But he would steal branded stationery from the World Health Organization's Public Information Office.
so he could write letters and have their letterhead, which is smart. Like he was really thinking it through and this is spooky. These people scare me. He is this dedicated to this lie. It's like, bro, give it up. It's okay, give it up. He's literally like LARPing.
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Not only did Jean-Claude like fake his whole career and stuff, he would also fake business trips. He would tell Florence, he'd be like, "Florence, baby, I'm going to Belgium to cure heart disease." And he would go for like three days. But in reality, he would just be at a rest stop just
just somewhere waiting it out. Like it's so weird. He would buy gifts at a gift store, you know, to give to the kids and wife and be like, see, I was there. It was just, again, wild, very wild. And he would come home. He could give like really great details to his wife and stuff about the trip and then like carry on. I don't know how he slept at night. I don't know.
I don't know. Now, I don't know about you guys, but at this point, I was like, how the hell did he afford to do all this and like keep up appearances, right? I mean, it's expensive lying like that. How is he doing it with no job? At this point in his life, he was living like a, you know, happy middle-class family. Florence, technically she was the only one working and she was working as a pharmacist. And then on top of that, his kids went to like this really exclusive private school.
So how did he do it? Jean-Claude did what any fraud would do to support their family. He helped himself to his parents bank accounts. Hello, duh. His parents were very trusting of their only son and they gave Jean-Claude access to all of their accounts and also let him use their assets
towards investments. Jean-Claude had lied and told his family that as an employee of the World Health Organization, he was able to invest internationally. And on top of that, he could get an 18% rate back. And they're like, oh my God, wow. And even though like the family saw their savings start going downhill, his parents, they just like thanked their son for...
taking the time to help them and manage their portfolio. And they believed that, you know, their money was safe with him and that they just had to trust the process, right? They didn't need to ask any more questions. Eventually that money's going to run out, right? So another thing Jean-Claude did was he sold his
college flat that his parents bought for him. He sold that and it was a good chunk of change, but again, it wasn't going to last forever. So Jean-Claude would decide to hit up his friends. His friends were well off and he had extended family members that were well off and he would go to them and say, hey,
"Hi, I have exclusive investment opportunities for you. And you're gonna get a big return." And these friends were like, "Oh, hell yeah." You know, they believed him. And he ended up collecting 1.5 million francs. Yeah, but that's how he got his money. Investment opportunities. God, this guy, isn't he tired? You know? So Jean-Claude also put his medical training to use as well for his,
In 1988, Jean-Claude was like 34 years old and Florence, remember his wife, cousin, his wife cousin, Florence's uncle, he was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And it was like, it was devastating for the family. Florence's family was just so sad. Frickin' bozo, Jean-Claude, he's like, "Hmm, business opportunity?" So Jean-Claude, he goes to Florence's aunt and he's like, "Listen, hi.
I work for the World Health Organization and we are in the final stage of developing an experimental cancer treatment. She's like, go on. And he's like, it's using cutting edge technology that uses stem cell technology to cure the disease. He's like, it's crazy.
We're developing this right now. And on top of that, all you have to do is take this pill because it comes in a pill form and you can watch the cancer melt away. So Jean-Claude gives her this whole spiel about the treatment not being released to the public yet, but that her husband was the perfect candidate for it. So...
He pretends that he's like doing the family a favor, you know, he's like, I'm going to hook you up with one of these. Don't tell anyone. But unfortunately it does cost money. And they're like, oh my God, how much, you know? And he charges them 15,000 francs per capsule. And then not only that, but he required two capsules. Yes.
He's literally doing this to his family. Like, holy fuck. I don't know. And they need two of them. Yeah. So, you know, at first, Florence's uncle was like, no, we're not doing that. I don't need it. It's too expensive. It sounds fake. But the family, they were begging the uncle to just go along with it, like stop being stubborn. And they want him to live.
So he goes along with it, whatever. And the family, they dip into their savings account. They give him the money. And then, you know, Jean-Claude does his treatment. He's like, "I'll bring you guys the capsules directly." And he brought them in this like very official looking bottle.
And he hands them over the doses. And yeah, that was that. I think it's safe to say the medication did not work. And sadly, Florence's uncle was dead within a year. But Jean-Claude would tell the family, like, well, I never said it was going to work. What is, like, slime ball? So Warren gets out that, like, everyone's investing with Jean-Claude, you know? Like, all the family is...
friends, whatever. So more people are like, okay, we want in. How do I get in on this investment? Jean-Claude's father-in-law, his name's Pierre, he too wants to invest.
So when Pierre had retired, he got like a big lump sum of money. There you go. It was like 400,000 francs. So Florence tells her father, hey, like you should invest with Jean-Claude because you'll be able to get a large return and bleep, blah, bloop, whatever. So naturally, Pierre wants to invest. And of course, it's his son-in-law like...
Got this great job and stuff. Awesome. So Pierre ends up giving Jean-Claude 347,000 francs out of his retirement fund to invest. So some time goes on after Pierre, you know, invests his money. And in 1988, Pierre goes to Jean-Claude and is like, hey, I really want some of my money back because I want to treat myself to a new car. You know, he's like, I deserve it.
So he calls up Jean-Claude and is like, hey, let's meet so we can talk about the money. So Jean-Claude, he heads over to Pierre's house and no one was there other than Pierre. So you would think it'd be a good time to maybe confess that Jean-Claude was lying and stuff because no one else was there, right? But instead, while Jean-Claude was over at Pierre's house,
Pierre quote unquote accidentally fell down some stairs. Mm-hmm. Whoa. And no one was there to see it? Oh, that's a shame. Pierre, I guess he had tripped and fell or many people speculate that maybe he had some help.
Someone pushed him, you know? But after Pierre fell, Jean-Claude, he called the paramedics. But by the time they had gotten there, Pierre had died. So the police, they get asked, they ask Jean-Claude about the accident. And he's like, I have no idea what happened. I was just minding my own business. And he fell down the stairs. And that was that. But hey, Jean-Claude didn't have to pay that money back. So...
Now, Jean-Claude, he swears he did not kill him, just for the record. But, you know. So Jean-Claude, he was very busy. And then in 1989, at the age of 35, he decides that he needs a lover. He needs a mistress. And I heard that when you're French, having a mistress is not a big deal, like it is here in America. Like monogamy is optional. Let me know if that's true. Yeah.
I don't know. I thought I came across a bunch of articles about that and I was like, oh really? Like lovers come and go. Okay, so Jean-Claude picks up a lover. After 10 years of marriage, he's like, look, maybe I need something else besides this Florence girl, okay? So Jean-Claude, he wants a little lovin' and he finds this lovin' from...
a friend's ex-wife. She was a dentist. Her name was Corinne. So just like Jean-Claude, Corinne also had two children of her own and she was going through a divorce. She was looking to be treated.
Right. She needs a man. That's when Jean-Claude and Corinne kind of crossed paths. He would visit her in Paris where she lived and he would shower her in gifts. He would take her to exclusive restaurants, stay in five-star hotels. And she was hooked. I mean, she loved it. She thought they were in love. And she bought into his whole story because the money was flowing. So...
she's not gonna ask questions. Plus on top of that, she recently had sold her dentistry and had sold it for 900,000 francs. So Jean-Claude was like, "Oh my god, money, you should invest that." So Corinne, she, not to like victim blame or anything, but she ends up giving him the whole $900,000 that she just got from selling her business
She ends up giving it to Bozo. The whole amount. No, girl, no.
So Jean Claude is living it up, okay? It's now the early 90s. He's in love. He's got a shit ton of money. He's just spending it like crazy. He's got this hot little mistress thing. He's just living, loving, laughing. Yeah, he really is. Okay, but then things start to catch up to him. You can't lie forever. Somebody's gonna catch on to you. So after years of promising his investors 18% returns on their money,
friends are now like, hey man, remember? Remember that time you told me I was gonna get that money? What's going on?
I mean, after years of investing, they want to start seeing the dividends. So they're asking. I mean, their own bills were rising as our kids are getting older and they want to start withdrawing from their portfolios. Fair, right? Fair. Except when they got their portfolios back, it was just like a bunch of numbers thrown together onto a World Health Organization letterhead by Jean-Claude. So it was like, okay, the money was gone.
there was no money. And this is when Jean-Claude starts to dodge all of his friends, right? Like, he can't tell them there's no money, so he's just kind of trying to
hide from them, but he can't hide for long because it's a small town and like everybody knows everyone. And also all the kids go to the same schools together. So it was like, where is this guy? So there was this one night at a PTA meeting. Okay. Another mom goes up to Florence, Jean-Claude's wife, and tells her that her husband works at the World Health Organization as well. And she was like, how funny is that? Right? And then she asked Florence, like, how come she and the kids are like,
they never come around for the annual Christmas party. She's like, how come you guys are never there? I never see your family. And Florence tells the woman that she didn't feel comfortable taking advantage of such perks because that's what Jean-Claude always used to say. I mean, he's just a humble researcher. His only goal was to cure the world of heart disease. He didn't want to attend a Christmas party.
So that's what Florence says. But, you know, the seed was planted. Just before Christmas break that year, the president of the school board had a question for Jean-Claude. And he tried to call his office at the World Health Organization until he realized that he didn't have Jean-Claude's number because Jean-Claude never gave his office number out.
So, the president has his secretary look Jean-Claude up in both the directory at the World Health Organization and the international organization's pension fund database. He's having his secretary do some research.
Both of them come up empty. Like there is no Jean-Claude on the list. So this guy's really puzzled. He's like, what the hell? That's weird. Maybe it's a misprint. Okay, weird. Like the next day he runs into Florence, Jean-Claude's wife. He runs into her on the street and he mentions like, hey, I couldn't find your husband. What was that about? She's caught off guard. She doesn't have an answer. She's like, I don't know. And I guess she just really didn't even want to know, to be honest. Yeah.
because like she never found out really. But it was kind of like one of those things where the seed was planted for her. She was like, oh, this is weird, but...
I don't really know. I don't talk to my husband, which fair. So things go from not great to even not greater because then Jean-Claude gets a phone call from his mom. Oh no. And she wants money. She got a statement from her bank saying that the account was overdrawn by like $40,000. And she's like, what is going on? And Jean-Claude quickly covers himself and tells her that he would transfer money into her account like ASAP.
And I guess she just didn't think anything about it. But then a week later, another letter came from the bank that said they were freezing her account because...
There was no money. So she's like, what the fuck? So now the year is 1993 and Jean-Claude has been juggling these lies for quite some time. He's 39 and his life is starting to unravel. I mean, even his own mother who adored him, trusted him completely. She was starting to suspect something was wrong. Something was not right.
And at this time, also, everybody who had invested money with him, they're all demanding their money back. He's like, what do I do? What do I do? There was a real possibility that everyone was going to find out about his lies and what he really did. And he is starting...
to panic. Okay? At first, Jean-Claude really considered suicide. He wrote numerous like rough drafts of what his suicide note would be or what it would say and then he even made a tape recording of himself asking for forgiveness, like confessing and asking for forgiveness. It's like a confessional but in the end he couldn't go through with it. He's like killing yourself is scary.
Yeah, this guy is a looney tune for sure. So for the first time in 20 years, Jean-Claude is starting to realize what a failure he was, okay? He was overwhelmed with like how everybody's gonna receive this and the pure embarrassment of it all, really. It started to all slap him right in the face. Jean-Claude, he starts to panic about everyone finding everything out. Because of him, they're gonna be broke living on the streets.
So this is all everything he's thinking about. And honestly, he settled on the fact that he could not let this happen. Like, right? He can't let this, he can't let this happen. So he comes up with a plan. Oh, he sure does. Before I start, this is all according to Jean-Claude. He gave a very lengthy confessional and this is all according to him. So on January 5th, 1993, Jean-Claude goes to two different banks and takes out 1,000 francs,
$1,000 from each bank. He says he gives $500 of those dollars to a random homeless man he saw on the street and then he proceeds to go to the gun shop. Just a side note really quick, I always thought that was weird that he like mentioned in his confessional that he gave $500 to a random unhoused person because um
Like why would he mention that? Like did he really? Maybe he's trying to like at least seem kind of like nice so he'll go to heaven or whatever. I just feel like you wouldn't give a homeless person $500 before you go off your whole entire family. That's all. That's all I'm getting at. That's just my opinion though. And like what the fuck do I know? I'm surprised every week here.
He goes to the gun shop. He buys a stun wand, two tear gas canisters, a box of cartridges, and a silencer for his 22 caliber rifle that was gifted to him on his 16th birthday.
He's like, "Yay." So he sat with those items for a few days and he told himself that they were gifts for other people. But really in the back of his mind, he was planning on using these things on his family. Friday night, January 8th, Florence, she was on the phone with her mother. And I guess it was kind of like a very distressing call. Florence's mom spent the whole time, I guess, moaning about not being invited to somebody's wedding.
and also just complaining about being old. This is what it said, okay? That's what it said. So she's just complaining, complaining, complaining. And Florence is on the other end, I guess just feeling bad because she...
It feels bad for her mom for being just such a bitch. So Jean-Claude is nearby. He's being like a doting husband. He sits next to her on the couch and she's wiping her tears and he's holding her, comforting her. And then at some point they go upstairs and she falls asleep in bed.
So it's early in the morning when Jean-Claude creeps into the kitchen. He grabs a rolling pin. Yeah, rolling pin. And apparently he had just bought this rolling pin for Christmas. He was going to give it to Florence. Hey, small businesses. Sentara Health Plans has a team dedicated to answering your questions, leaving time for other business thoughts like... How did an action figure get stuck in the air vents? Or... What is the ideal human-to-goat ratio for my yoga class?
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Wow, so considerate. Psycho.
And then, okay, so just after he freaking bludgeoned his wife to death who didn't even want to marry him, the phone rings. So Jean-Claude is like, okay, it's a friend asking if Florence could help lead mass that Saturday night. Jean-Claude whispers back, no. And he's like apologizing to her for whispering on the phone. But he was whispering because the family was still asleep. Okay. Okay.
Are you following? I hope so. The family's still asleep, so he's like, I'm whispering. But no, she can't. And then he takes it a step further.
And he says, "Oh, I could go wake up Florence if you really want to talk to her. You know, I could do that because you're a friend." The friend's like, "Oh no, no, no, no. Like it's fine. It's, you know, all right. No big deal." Jean-Claude was trying to whisper because he really didn't want to wake the kids up. But at that point it was too late. The kids had gotten up and I guess they were kind of getting rowdy. So Jean-Claude tells the kids that they need to calm down and stay quiet because their mom was still asleep.
So he's like, let me make you guys some cereal. I think it was like Coco Pops or something. Yeah. So he makes them some Coco Pops. Yum. He cuddles with the kids and watches TV with them. He watches. He's. And then after the show's over, he tells Carolyn she needs to have her temperature taken. And she's OK, whatever. So she lies on her stomach and put her pillow on.
over her head to keep the thermometer away and i guess john claude just sees us as a moment of opportunity and he ends up he ends up shooting carolyn ah yep so at this point he's just gonna go completely ape shit and he does he tries to give his son antoine water with a bunch of like
sedatives in it, you know, crushed up or whatever. He tries to give that to his kid and Antoine takes a sip and he doesn't like it. So he tells his dad that he doesn't want to drink it because it's nasty. So instead, Jean-Claude ends up just shooting him.
I'm like twitching, just like, what the fuck, bro? Jean-Claude leaves his dead wife and kids at the house. He wraps his rifle up. He puts it in the car. And then he drives about an hour away to his parents' house. So he goes to his parents' house. He hangs out with them. He has lunch with them.
He has a lunch with them. And then at the end, he goes upstairs to like see his childhood bedroom and he calls his dad upstairs. And he's like, dad, come look at the air vents. So that's when the dad looks into the air vent and Jean-Claude shoots him in the back. Yeah. So just feel like that is a lot.
Well, he's not done. Jean-Claude calls his mom upstairs and he ends up shooting her right in the chest. She's the only person to actually see him shoot them because everyone else was turned away and she was not. That's when Jean-Claude sees this as an opportunity to
Also killed a family dog. And then he would later say that he killed the family dog for his daughter. So now that they could be happily ever after together in the afterlife. What the fuck? So literally everyone is dead. He goes downstairs, he washes the gun and then he puts it on the gun rack. He looks at his house, looks at what he did and then he just leaves and he drives away.
This same night, Jean-Claude, he goes and he sees his mistress, Corinne, and he tells her that they're going to have dinner with a super important guy. So she gets dressed up. He picks her up as if he did not just murder everybody. He picks her up and they're going to this dinner in the town next door. He's lying. They're not going to dinner, but this is what he tells Corinne. Okay. So he ends up driving out to this like small forest town where he plans to like
dump Corinne's body. So on the drive there, he tells her that he's going to leave his wife and be with her and move to Paris and all this stuff. So then after not knowing like really what else to say, Jean-Claude, he pulls over to like a picnic area and he tells Corinne he has a necklace for her that he's been meaning to give her. So he tells her to get out of the car, like turn around and
You know, close your eyes and I'm going to give you a little surprise. You know, like you would put a necklace on. And she does exactly that. And he ends up tear gassing her. He uses his stun thing to stun her in the stomach. I know, poor Corinne. Like, holy shit. I mean, poor all of them, but like, damn. So now Corinne is like laying on the ground. I guess she's begging for her life.
And for some reason, Jean-Claude actually stops and he lets her go. I don't know about this one. He actually stops attacking her. He apologizes. And then he takes her back home, which was almost two hours away, which must have been like the most awkward drive ever, you know? And it gets people thinking about this story. Like, why didn't he? There's a lot of different theories. Like,
My thought is maybe he really loved her. I don't know.
But he didn't kill her. So that's good. That's what we want. No killing. So in the car, Jean-Claude tells her that his cancer is back and it's been affecting his memory and like what he's doing. And that's why he tried to kill her. He's like, yeah, cancer made me kill you. So by the end of the ride, Jean-Claude begs Corinne not to tell anyone what happened. He's like, please don't tell anyone. And he even promised...
He promised her that he would get her all of her money back and she just can't tell anyone. She's like, sure. Yeah. Okay. So a few minutes after he drops Corinne off, he drives to a payphone and he calls her from the payphone and he tells her that he promises that was not premeditated and that if he wanted to kill her, he would have done it at her apartment. Click. So...
He's being weird.
I don't know what else to say. This guy is a loon. He is psychotic. Psychotic. Holy shit. So the next morning after dropping off Corinne, Jean-Claude, he actually goes back to his home with his dead wife and kids still upstairs. He takes a nap on the couch and then I guess at some point he wakes up in a sweaty panic because he's worried that people are going to spot his car and think he's home.
which he was, but he didn't want people to know that. So he grabs the keys to his car and he drives it to like the local market and parks it there. So once he parks his car, he writes down a confessional. It's just like, please forgive me. Forgive me. I'm a good person. Forgive me. He leaves that note in the car. He walks back home. And then around 3 a.m.,
Jean-Claude starts to douse his attic stairwell and the bodies with gasoline. He puts on his pajamas and he takes about 20 sleeping pills, which it was noted that they were expired by 10 years. And then he lights a match. He puts clothes at the bottom of the door to like stop the smoke from getting into the room. And he lays next to Florence.
So the room is starting to fill up with smoke. And when that happens, he ends up opening a window and that's when firefighters spot him and they rescue him. And when they rescue him, that's when he loses consciousness. So...
Remember that whole fire scene? Yeah, that was that. That was that. So when he wakes up from his coma, he goes in for questioning, you know, and they already know about all of his crimes and what this guy's been doing. They just need a confession. And they end up questioning him for about seven hours. And then eventually he cracks and he gives like a full detailed confession.
is what he did. Jean-Claude is arrested and he's waiting for trial and his trial didn't take place until three years later in 1996. So when the trial finally started, Jean-Claude would go into detail about his childhood and like the pressure he was under to succeed in life. He talked about how his dad was this war vet, heavily decorated and
His mom was sick and absent, which is why he had to lie the way he did. Yeah, this is why everybody. And while he's giving this, he's crying, spending hours in court with this confessional. And then he finally gets to the night of the murders. And his whole angle was that he was desperate and wanted to spare his family from the shame that was about to be brought on to their name because of him.
That makes sense. That makes sense. So he tells the court that he intended to die with his family in the fire. And that's why he swallowed all those pills because he wanted to die. But...
The prosecution, they had pointed out that there were holes in his story because at 4 a.m., the time that he started the fire, that's usually when the sanitation workers would be driving by the house to pick up trash. So, you know, they would spot it. Also, he lit the fire in the attic.
first so that it couldn't be missed, right? He also didn't set the bedroom he was in on fire. And he also cracked the window open once it was filling with smoke. So they're like, he didn't wanna die. It was just a show. It was a magic trick. He was performing a magic trick. So Jean-Claude, his case obviously was a hit in the media.
but also psychologists were very involved with this as well because he was diagnosed as a narcissist, but his profile was so different than most killers that he became a subject of a lot of debate. They gave one example, like he would cry and become super enraged that his family had been taken away from him. And he seemed to be like disconnected from the fact that
He was the one who actually killed them. They're like, what's that called? Anyone? So it was a confusing case. And at trial, Jean-Claude confessed to everything he did.
but he set it up in a way where his confession made him sound like a victim. And it's like two things can be true at the same time, but you know, you killed everyone. So go sit your ass in jail, man. Prison, sorry. So sentencing comes up, okay? In France, it's normal for defendants to give a final statement at sentencing. Jean-Claude's final statement, he got up there and he addressed Florence's mother and brothers saying,
And because they're still alive. Lucky, yeah. And asked for their forgiveness. And he's like, I know you guys won't forgive me, but please. Then he also, in his final statement, he also addressed his dead parents, his wife, his kids, the dogs. He just goes on and on and on asking for forgiveness from everyone, doing a big old performance. And it was like, oh my God, you didn't have to kill him, sir. Like you really, that was not,
the right thing to do there, okay? It's like, geez. So it takes about like five hours for them to come back with the sentencing and he would be given life in prison with the possibility of parole at 22 years. Now get this, because he got out.
It's so fucked. Okay, listen, because this is nuts to me. He was up for parole in 2015 and in 2019 he was granted parole for good behavior. And all the guards, they would say that he never bothered anyone and he was so well behaved. Jean-Claude was released into custody of a local monastery as part of his parole, which is kind of cool. So he would perform chores and he served...
time working alongside the monks. It was basically house arrest, but at the church. Now some people are like, "Mmm, this is good PR." So now he, I think he's still there or he's just been released.
I don't know about that one, but who am I to judge? Okay, I felt like that was a really long story. If it was, I apologize, but there was a lot to be said. I don't think this guy should be out at all. His whole life was a lie. He snapped and murdered everybody. I don't know, is that treatable? You don't think he might maybe be tempted to do that again? Hopefully he's still in Paris and not...
over here. I don't know. I hope you have a good rest of your day. Please be safe out there. Okay. But other than that, I'll be seeing you guys later. Have a question or need how to advice? Just ask Meta AI.
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