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an eye dot com. Again, that's B-O-D-I

2:40

dot com. I'm

2:52

Hannah. I'm Sruity. And welcome to

2:54

Red Handed, where we're

2:56

going to talk about lying toes. And

2:59

I think we have all been in a situation where you

3:02

get your back into a little bit, and then

3:04

you lie, and lie, and lie. I

3:06

don't want to do any more than I'm

3:08

40 mature. But in my early 20s, boy

3:11

howdy, did I? Oh

3:13

yes, we've all been. Can you think

3:15

of the worst lie you've ever told? I

3:17

think it would be an ongoing lie of

3:20

lying to myself that

3:23

everything in this relationship is totally fine. This

3:26

is working. This relationship with this man

3:28

is working. And everything is going to

3:30

be great. And fine. And he'll definitely

3:33

change. That's the

3:35

biggest lie I've ever told. For sure.

3:42

What about you? I must know. The

3:44

one I still feel awful

3:47

about, and

3:49

still has repercussions to this day. Oh

3:51

no. I was completely and utterly

3:53

my fault. I was 20, I think.

3:57

And I went out to the

3:59

gay bars in Boxwood. when I was out for about like

4:02

almost 24 hours, right? Because

4:04

they don't stop. And I was

4:07

living in a flat share and

4:09

they owned it and I was a tenant, but

4:12

they were away. And

4:15

I had loads of people back to the house and

4:17

one girl was really drunk slash

4:19

had done some GHB and was like in a really

4:21

bad way. So I put her in one of

4:23

their beds and they were

4:25

very funny about cleanliness. Who's they? These fans?

4:27

Yeah, you know who they are. Oh. And

4:35

then another person went into the other bedroom and

4:37

sat on the bed to make a phone call

4:40

and it like moved the blanket. Anyway,

4:42

so I was so terrified of telling them that

4:44

I just lied and of course they figured it

4:46

out. Of course. And

4:49

I just lied and lied and lied and lied.

4:52

Was everyone gone by the time they came back? Oh,

4:54

God, yeah, yeah, yeah. I just like hoover the bedsheets

4:57

and then like got them some chocolate and stuff being

4:59

like, welcome home. And they were like,

5:01

how stupid do you think we are? Oh, no.

5:04

Oh, it was horrific. It was just awful. It was

5:06

just awful. And that is why I'm still terrified of.

5:12

Oh my God. That is the

5:14

yeah. Yeah, it was bad. It was really bad. That's

5:16

probably the worst thing I've ever done. Nice, nice.

5:20

So that's my confession. My

5:23

exposure therapy for the day.

5:27

So we have all done it to

5:29

varying degrees whether you're lying to spare

5:31

someone's feelings or like me, a big

5:33

fat act of selfish self-preservation that will

5:35

never work, don't bother. And at the

5:37

time it can feel harmless but then

5:40

just like me, you just keep doing. So

5:42

maybe you can relate to this quote from the subject

5:44

of our story today. When you

5:47

get caught in that endless

5:49

effort not to disappoint people, the

5:51

first lie leads to another and

5:53

then it's your whole life. We've

5:56

all told what we thought was a little white lie

5:59

only to find ourselves. caught out and

6:01

having to dig further and further. Wow.

6:05

Whatever untruth you're thinking

6:07

of that you have committed is

6:10

nothing compared to

6:12

the mendacious misadventures of today's

6:14

subject. And of course, he

6:16

is French. I'm

6:20

kidding, I like France now. Because

6:24

he kept on going for

6:26

18 years until he

6:28

was faced with a choice whether

6:31

to face the music and come clean once and

6:33

for all like Hannah was forced to do or

6:37

to murder five people in cold blood.

6:39

That could have been the solution to all your problems, Hannah. You

6:41

could have just killed them both. And

6:43

then no one else to know. And then just put

6:45

them in their dirty beds. Yeah, right. Or just

6:47

kill the girl who's in the bed and then no one could be mad at me because she's

6:49

dead. So

6:53

the story we have for you today isn't

6:56

about Hannah murdering a bunch of people in hot

6:58

flat. It

7:01

contains no doubt the

7:03

biggest, most extravagant deception

7:05

that we have ever covered here on Red

7:07

Hand. It also may

7:10

well contain the worst thought out

7:12

plan we've ever seen. And

7:15

also possibly the easiest murder investigation

7:17

in history. So

7:19

how did a simple falsehood over

7:21

uni-exam results spiral into

7:24

decades of deception and

7:26

the senseless annihilation of

7:29

five lives? This

7:31

is the unbelievable story of

7:34

Jean-Claude Romain. At

7:37

4am on the 10th of January 1993,

7:39

Luc de la Admiral received

7:41

the kind of phone call that nobody wants

7:43

to get. His best

7:45

friend's house was on fire, threatening

7:47

the lives of everyone inside. I

7:50

often use that as a comparison. Like,

7:54

yeah, you're my best friend, but who am I calling when my house is

7:56

on fire? Is it you? I don't

7:58

know. Anyway. He

8:00

drove to the house in the early hours just in time to

8:02

see his friend of 18 years, the godfather

8:05

to his children, being wheeled out

8:07

on a stretcher. He was unconscious,

8:10

but miraculously alive. The

8:13

fire had taken the rest of the family. The

8:16

two children, the best friends to Luke's kids, were

8:18

zipped up in grey body bags and Florence, their

8:20

mother, was lying still, covered

8:22

in a coat. At

8:25

that point, Luke found himself wishing that

8:27

his friend wouldn't make it, so

8:29

he wouldn't have to confront the pain

8:32

of losing his entire family. As

8:34

Florence was wheeled past him, Luke

8:36

reached down to stroke her hair to

8:38

say goodbye, but her hair was

8:40

wet. And as

8:43

Luke reached down, he was shocked

8:45

to find a bloody open wound at

8:48

the base of Florence's skull. I

8:50

understand that this is important to the story, but

8:52

if I walk past a dead person, I

8:55

ain't touching them. No, no, no, no, no,

8:57

no. Don't do that. That's a terrible idea.

8:59

Don't do it. But Luke

9:01

did, and then he told the firemen all

9:04

about the wound that he had seen. And

9:06

these men told him that the attic in

9:08

the house had collapsed during the fire, and

9:11

they guessed that Florence must just have been hit by

9:13

some sort of falling beam or something. Make

9:16

sense. The next

9:18

day, a relative drove the 50 miles to

9:20

the children's grandparents' house to tell

9:23

them the devastating news. But

9:26

he found them both, lying

9:29

in pools of blood. The

9:31

grandparents and their golden retriever had

9:34

all been shot. Dead. It

9:38

was now obvious to police that the fire had

9:40

been no accident. Someone

9:42

had directly targeted and wiped out every

9:45

member of the Romain family.

9:48

All except for one. Jean-Claude

9:51

Romain was born on 11th February 1954. Oh,

9:56

fucking hell. Clévoir, le l'art.

10:01

He grew up in that town

10:03

that Cerussi's friends GCSE are doing all the

10:05

work for. It's a town

10:07

of just over a thousand people, so pretty small, on

10:09

the westernmost edge of France. The

10:12

town sits at the foot of the Giro Mountains. On

10:15

the other side of the mountain range is the Swiss

10:17

border and the city of Génève. I know how to

10:19

say that in French. Jean-Claude's

10:23

family went back in the Giro region, generations

10:26

of stern, dedicated timber merchants that knew

10:28

the value of a good hard day's

10:30

work. His father,

10:32

Emi, had even more reason

10:35

to be stoic. In 1939,

10:37

when war broke out, Emi

10:39

was drafted into the French army to

10:41

fight for liberty, egality and fraternity. And

10:44

almost immediately he was taken prisoner

10:46

by the Germans and he spent the rest

10:48

of the war in a POW camp. After

10:52

the war, Emi came home and took over

10:54

his father's timber company. Even

10:56

though he was stubborn and emotionless, he

10:58

was serious in his case. He

11:00

married a woman named Anne-Marie and

11:03

they soon had their only child. Jean-Claude.

11:06

They wanted a big family, but Anne-Marie's

11:08

series of miscarriages and worsening health

11:10

problems meant that Jean-Claude stayed

11:13

an only child. It

11:15

was well known in the town that

11:17

Anne-Marie was quote unquote sickly. It

11:20

wasn't totally clear to anyone what exactly

11:22

her illness was. She

11:25

was delicate and easily worried.

11:28

And that meant that in the early years of

11:30

Jean-Claude's life, he became very

11:32

adept at sparing his mother's feelings.

11:35

Worry was a physical thing for Anne-Marie as

11:39

Jean-Claude knew that if she was worried, she

11:41

would deteriorate. So he learnt to

11:43

keep things from her and

11:45

present her a stress-free, unproblematic view

11:48

of their life. And

11:50

since he admired his father's emotionless

11:52

stoicism so much, there wasn't

11:55

much back and forth there either. Later

11:57

Jean-Claude would admit that the only person he was comfortable with was Anne-Marie.

12:00

telling his problems to was his

12:02

dog. And that's sad

12:04

if he's described his dog as a person. The

12:06

only person I

12:09

could talk to is my dog. Well,

12:11

I dunno. I feel

12:14

like Mabel's got some free will, some agency

12:16

going on. Oh she's definitely got that.

12:20

At his first local school, little Jean-Claude

12:22

was one of just three students. He's

12:24

literally got no one. No. Parents

12:27

are like, fucking, don't talk to me or

12:29

don't tell me anything bad is happening. Even

12:32

the dog is scared and now he's got two school

12:34

friends. Or two kids at school. But

12:38

soon, when the timber business got

12:40

a boost, young Jean-Claude was shipped

12:42

off to a fancy boarding school. The

12:45

area between the Jura Mountains and the

12:47

Swiss border is dotted with rich

12:49

villages full to the brim with

12:52

international dignitaries. And guess who went to

12:54

boarding school there? Osama bin Laden. Ah,

12:57

it's true, look at that. Wow. I believe it.

12:59

He was like... And I believe Kim Jong-un.

13:01

Yeah. I mean, Kim Jong-un,

13:04

yes. Totally believable. But everybody needs

13:06

to remember that Osama bin Laden came from

13:08

a very wealthy Saudi family. He had a

13:10

lot of money. He wasn't like this fucking

13:12

man dressed in rags hiding in a cave

13:15

his whole life. He was just doing that

13:17

to fucking manipulate all of the people on

13:19

the ground. And it's making

13:22

up every resurgence now. Have you seen this? Fuck

13:24

off, my god. Anyone

13:26

who is re-Tiktoking, I

13:29

don't even know what the tweet, what the

13:31

fucking word is for Tiktok. Anyone

13:33

who's sharing Letter to

13:35

America and getting mad

13:37

for jihad on TikTok.

13:41

You deported. You should be

13:43

deported. It's really not good stuff. But

13:46

this generation. Grumble,

13:48

grumble, grumble. Do

13:50

you remember that TV show called Grumpy Odd Women?

13:53

Where like

13:55

Joe Brand and like... Oh yeah,

13:58

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh,

14:00

what's her name? I do remember that show. Yeah, and

14:02

they just go on and whinge about stuff. Like, I

14:04

think we're old enough to do that. I feel like

14:06

we should be, but they were whinging about how

14:08

we, like, wore our trousers too,

14:11

like, I want to

14:13

whinge about how the TikTok generation thinks

14:15

that Osama bin Laden is some sort of

14:17

poster boy for freedom fighting. Kill

14:20

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16:50

both schools in the Swiss Alps a

16:52

perfect The people who want easy access

16:54

to high flying no tax paying jobs

16:56

that Geneva has which is why I

16:58

think Fifa is that you Ifa is

17:00

that The Wh I is that. Red.

17:03

Cross that off. Or once

17:05

accidentally parked outside either us or Fifa

17:07

and I didn't know. Anecdotally, They

17:11

need every penny. And.

17:14

I didn't buy it because I've got no I collateral

17:16

in Switzerland. so come and get me. Please

17:18

don't. Search. On clothes.

17:21

School was full of the signs of the squeaky

17:23

toy t families. And yet again.

17:25

Just. Support him a merchant son. He.

17:28

Really struggled to sit in. Other

17:30

student he was well behaved and he gets police. He

17:32

was fast reader and respectful to the point

17:34

of being slightly too much. His.

17:37

Teaches report a strong cloying

17:39

suck up five. Needless,

17:41

To say. He was not especially

17:44

liked by other kids and. Became.

17:47

A very weird and solitary boy. And

17:49

this. Is. Hop.

17:52

Wrenchingly tragic. And. Very

17:54

Dennis Nelson of him and

17:57

very job and cannibal. So,

18:00

a la Armin Myves, with

18:02

his dog therapist unfortunately absent,

18:05

Jean-Claude started to share

18:07

his secrets with

18:09

an imaginary friend that he

18:11

called Claude. So

18:13

it's just his name? Yeah, yeah, okay. He's

18:16

not very imaginative, he's not just a solitary child,

18:18

is he? So

18:20

yes, unfortunately his classmates just

18:23

weren't ready for Jean-Claude's imaginative

18:25

flights of fancy. So

18:28

he was naturally bullied to hell. I

18:31

will say though, I'm sure it's extremely irritating to have such

18:33

a sucky up student, but I do think that

18:35

children who are bullied do tend to do that because they feel

18:37

like they've got nowhere to turn. Oh of course, and also

18:39

he's not getting any sort of like praise

18:41

at home, he's not getting any sort of

18:43

attention at home, his dad's just off silently

18:46

staring at trees being stoic and

18:48

his mum is on the verge of a mental breakdown half

18:50

the time. So, you know, he's trying

18:52

to look for those parental figures

18:54

in teachers which is again completely

18:56

natural. Now

18:58

Jean-Claude once, he was beaten up so badly

19:00

while he was at school that he was

19:02

actually sent home because of his injuries. Remember

19:04

he's at boarding school, miles away. After

19:08

this he was kept out of classes for a

19:10

series of sinuses and when

19:12

they didn't stop, he picked

19:14

up his classes remotely. Jean-Claude

19:16

stayed in his room all day and all

19:19

night and worked away at his studies.

19:22

And although he didn't fit in at school, he

19:24

had picked up his peers aspirations and

19:27

maybe a dash of their snobbery too. Many

19:30

of their parents were doctors and lawyers and

19:33

looked down on the honest thought of the

19:35

Earth Romand family. And even

19:38

though Jean-Claude had zero interest in helping people

19:40

and actually found sick people to be

19:42

quite repulsive, he started to

19:45

consider medicine as a future career.

19:48

But he kept this from his parents, as

19:51

well as the fact that by the end of term there

19:53

was nothing physically wrong with him. He

19:55

just didn't want to go back to school. And

19:57

the title he chose for his end

20:00

of year. baccalaureate essay was, does

20:03

truth exist? I

20:05

would be lying if I said I didn't write

20:07

that same essay. Ah! So

20:12

after that Jean-Claude went to Lyon to

20:14

study medicine, drawn by the prestigious course

20:16

as well as the knowledge that a

20:18

girl from his childhood, Florence, was

20:21

also going to Lyon. She

20:23

also happened to be a distant cousin. Jean-Claude

20:25

had seen her around at family gatherings when he

20:28

was growing up, which I imagine in rural France

20:30

happens quite a lot. He

20:32

said that he had even considered himself engaged

20:34

to Florence since he was just 14 years

20:37

old. So at Lyon Jean-Claude

20:39

got in with Florence and her mates,

20:42

including other medical students, like

20:44

Luc Le Admiral. Luc

20:46

was from a long line of doctors, but

20:48

unlike many of their classmates, he

20:51

didn't look down on Jean-Claude's humble beginnings. Jean-Claude

20:53

even eventually managed to convince Florence to go

20:55

out with him. Their gang would

20:58

regularly study together and go out on the town and

21:00

generally live a fun, slightly

21:02

ramshackle French student life. Jean-Claude

21:04

did well in his first year exams and

21:07

his second year was on track for success, until

21:11

he dropped the L-bomb on Florence. Now

21:14

Florence had never been particularly crazy

21:16

about Jean-Claude. She had

21:18

been pretty clear to her friends that she didn't

21:20

find him very attractive, and

21:22

maybe to let him down gently. She

21:24

now told him that he had to concentrate on

21:26

her studies and swiftly dump Jean-Claude.

21:30

This hit the JC pretty hard. He

21:32

retreated once more, staying in his bedroom all

21:34

day, and when the day of

21:36

his second year exam came, he

21:39

just stayed in bed, nursing that broken

21:41

heart. Now this in

21:43

itself wasn't the end of the world, he only

21:45

needed a few points to pass the year, and

21:48

he could retake the exam when term started

21:50

in September. For most

21:52

of the summer, Jean-Claude stayed back

21:54

in his old sulking ground. His

21:56

bedroom, back in his parents' house in Clévaux.

22:00

hard all summer long about Florence,

22:02

about how she wouldn't see him

22:05

and how her and all his friends were probably

22:07

living it up without him. When

22:10

Jean-Claude got back to Lyon, he and the gang, minus

22:12

Florence, went out to a club one night. Jean-Claude

22:15

said that he was going out to get some cigarettes

22:17

like any good medical student would. He

22:20

didn't reappear for hours, but

22:22

because it's Jean-Claude, nobody really noticed. When

22:25

he finally did show up again, his shirt was

22:27

torn and stained with blood. He

22:30

told them that strangers had just grabbed him from the

22:32

street, taken his keys and thrown him into the boot

22:34

of his own car. Then they drove

22:36

it around, shaking and bruising him in the back, before

22:39

stopping, taking him out and then beating the shit out

22:41

of him. And just as

22:43

quickly as they arrived, these mystery

22:46

assailants then left. He drove

22:48

the thirty miles back to the club. Jean-Claude

22:50

couldn't say what the attackers had wanted, or

22:53

why they'd picked him out. He also

22:55

never got round to filing a police report. And

22:58

I'm sure you can tell, much later on, Jean-Claude admitted

23:01

that he had made this entire story up. Why?

23:04

He couldn't say. But

23:07

whether intentionally or not, Jean-Claude had

23:09

tested the water. And

23:11

he had discovered just how easy it could

23:13

be to lie to your friends. After

23:16

all, what reason would they have not to

23:18

believe you? It

23:20

was shortly after that that Jean-Claude told

23:22

the one small lie that would

23:25

go on to define the next two

23:27

decades of his life. Because

23:30

when the day of his exam retake came round, Jean-Claude

23:33

slept in, again. And when

23:36

his parents started to ask how it had gone, he

23:39

didn't know how to tell them that he'd missed

23:41

the retake. So instead he

23:43

said, it went

23:45

well. Which is

23:48

very much the original lie

23:50

in this entire story. And

23:52

everything spirals from him. Jean-Claude

23:55

announced his success to the rest of his friends

23:57

as well. But he

23:59

retreated from the group. again, locking

24:01

himself back up in his room, shutting the

24:03

curtains, and only eating food out

24:05

of case. After

24:08

a while just before the Christmas holidays, Jean-Claude's

24:10

best mate, Luke, came by to check in

24:12

on him. Assuming that Jean-Claude

24:14

was just still broken up from the break up,

24:17

Luke took him for a drink, and a heart to

24:19

heart. And at some point

24:21

during this don't worry there's plenty of fish in the

24:23

sea bro chat, Jean-Claude

24:26

told Luke that he had

24:28

cancer. He didn't, obviously,

24:30

but he did need an explanation for

24:32

retreating from his uni work in social

24:34

life. So he

24:37

picked lymphoma. It's not always fatal,

24:39

and it has no outward symptoms, but

24:41

it is still deserving of huge amounts of sympathy

24:43

and patience. The word spread,

24:46

and saying he was now in remission, Jean-Claude

24:48

rejoined the fray, and

24:51

even got back together with Florence. The

24:53

thing is, for him, it's just like he lies,

24:56

and then everything works out in that

24:58

immediate space of time, so he's just

25:00

like, this is great, why

25:02

doesn't everybody do this? Things

25:06

were looking like they were getting back on

25:08

track. Except, Jean-Claude

25:10

wasn't a student. At

25:13

first he had tried using a fake doctor's note

25:15

to use the cancer as an excuse, but I

25:17

imagine a fake doctor's note at medical school isn't

25:19

going to get you particularly far. Yeah, and also

25:21

like if he hasn't done the retake exam, he's

25:23

not a student anymore, so it's like he's saying,

25:25

oh I've got this fake note to show all

25:27

of his friends why he's never in class, but

25:30

like how long are you going to be able

25:32

to do that? But

25:34

of course he wasn't able to provide any real

25:37

certificates, and he got to a dead end.

25:39

But luckily for Jean-Claude, this was the 70s.

25:43

And the super basic computer system at

25:45

Lyon was not hard to hoodwink. Jean-Claude

25:48

couldn't sign up for his third year without passing

25:51

his second year exam, but

25:53

there was nothing stopping him from signing up for his

25:55

second year again. So he

25:57

did. And then again, the following

25:59

year. year, and the one after that

26:01

as well. Jean-Claude Romain

26:03

stayed a second year student at the

26:06

University of Lyon for 12 years.

26:10

Oh my god, so he is a student, so

26:12

he is there, he is there with a fucking

26:15

certificate. Wow,

26:17

that is something. So

26:19

this is basically how the whole thing played out. At

26:22

the start of each year, from 1975 to 1986, Jean-Claude Romain

26:28

would go and get a new student ID from

26:30

the uni every single

26:33

year. To keep up appearances,

26:35

he attended all of the lectures that his peers did.

26:38

He even bought the books, did all

26:40

the assigned reading, took notes, studied for

26:42

exams, and even had study

26:44

sessions with Florence and other

26:46

friends. He even showed

26:48

up before and after each exam, to

26:51

be there for the pre-test nerves and

26:53

the debrief afterwards. It

26:55

was just as much work as, I don't

26:57

know, actually becoming a fucking doctor. Just

27:00

without the actual qualification. But

27:03

over the years, Jean-Claude just

27:05

sank deeper and deeper into the

27:07

lie. What

27:09

helped was that of course he and Florence weren't on

27:11

the same course anymore. Why? Well,

27:14

she hadn't passed her second year exam all

27:16

those years ago, the same one that

27:18

Jean-Claude had missed. So she

27:20

had switched to pharmacology. So

27:23

it's easier for him to keep lying

27:25

because they're like, she's not progressed to third year, so

27:27

she's not like, why aren't you in my class? He

27:29

can just be like, I am in third year. Don't

27:31

look at my ID that says I'm in second year.

27:34

This is so fucking complicated. You

27:37

definitely could have pulled that off at my uni though, the

27:39

admin was so fucking terrible. Oh wow. My

27:42

dissertation supervisor just vanished. Still don't know what happened

27:44

to him. Three weeks

27:46

out from the due date, gone. Dr. Steve, where

27:49

were you? Just free spirits though. Free

27:51

spirits. But also you

27:53

could smoke weed inside and people had orgies in the library.

27:55

So it was a different time. Years

27:59

later. Leon University got

28:01

a new head and

28:03

Jean-Claude's hopes of being

28:06

lost in that classic French pre-orocracy

28:08

were dashed. He was

28:10

invited to a meeting with the new dean of

28:12

the university, and Jean-Claude sensing

28:14

the jig might be up, and

28:17

with all of his friends having graduated by this

28:19

point, he finally left Leon.

28:22

It's just so confusing because okay fine,

28:24

Florence moves into pharmacology but the rest

28:26

of his friends carry on with the

28:28

medical degree. He's just

28:31

doing study sessions with them and turning up pre and

28:33

post exams even though he's not setting them because it's

28:35

the wrong year. Aren't they like, why aren't you in

28:37

class? But then I

28:39

guess he just says, oh I'm just studying from home

28:42

because I'm sick. I don't know. How he manages

28:44

to do this is

28:47

baffling. But everybody I guess just thinks he's

28:50

already a weird guy and probably just doesn't ask that

28:52

many questions. Or maybe

28:54

they're just not that arsed. They're

28:56

like, okay Jean-Claude, fine. Yeah, that's

28:58

also very fair. They've got fucking

29:00

lives to live. They're literal doctors. They've got

29:02

enough to do. So

29:05

anyway, Jean-Claude announced that he was actually going to

29:07

go to Paris to pass his board exams. Later

29:10

he told everyone that he had got a job as

29:13

a research assistant at the French National

29:15

Health Institute, which is called INSEUR in

29:17

Paris. And soon, at

29:20

Jean-Claude's fake job, he got a big fat

29:22

fake promotion. And

29:24

that meant that he was assigned to

29:26

work as a research scientist at the

29:28

World Health Organization in Geneva. Jean-Claude

29:30

and Florence got married and they moved to a

29:32

French town right on the Swiss border. Quite

29:35

a lot of people do that. They live in France and commute into

29:37

Geneva because it's cheaper. The

29:39

location was perfect. It was near where

29:42

Jean-Claude had grown up and

29:44

his BFF, Luca Admiral, had just taken

29:46

over his father's practice nearby. And

29:48

both his and Florence's parents were just down the

29:50

road. Almost like

29:53

he had planned it. So

29:56

the remarks went on to have two children. Caroline

29:58

was born in 1985. and

30:01

Anthony in 1987. A

30:04

Jean-Claude absolutely smashed his new

30:06

fake job at the World Health Organization.

30:09

He talked at length about the new medications

30:11

that he was inventing and the clinical trials

30:13

they were going through. He

30:15

said he got on well with his new bosses and

30:18

even brought gifts from them home to

30:20

the children. He'd report back

30:22

on conversations with foreign dignitaries and

30:25

fancy new friends, including Bernard

30:27

Kochner, the founder of

30:29

Doctors Without Borders. But

30:32

unfortunately the who had a strict

30:35

privacy policy. Colleagues

30:37

were forbidden from coming to his house and

30:40

family couldn't visit the office either.

30:43

They couldn't even have his work phone

30:45

number. Instead to

30:47

contact Jean-Claude at work, they'd

30:49

have to ring his answering service, leave

30:51

a message and wait until he called

30:53

them back. No

30:56

one ever asked why a helped the organization had a

30:58

stricter office policy than MI5. But

31:01

like this, Jean-Claude's work life and home

31:03

life stayed separate for

31:05

years. So

31:08

by now, you probably have

31:10

two very pertinent questions. Where

31:12

is all this money coming from and what

31:14

the fuck was he doing all day? They're

31:17

good questions, I'm afraid I don't have

31:20

particularly satisfactory answers. As

31:22

for what he was up to, basically nothing, every

31:25

morning Jean-Claude Remand would take his kids to

31:27

their expensive school and then set

31:29

off for Geneva. And he'd go

31:31

over the border to drive into Switzerland to

31:33

the WHO. He would park

31:35

in the WHO car park and get

31:37

himself a visitor's pass and wander around the

31:39

public areas. He does

31:42

this for years and no one clocks on. He'd

31:45

do things like sit in the huge public library or

31:47

in conference rooms. Or he'd

31:49

walk around the publications office looking

31:51

for printed material, anything letterheaded, with

31:53

the WHO logo that he could

31:55

swipe for evidence. This

31:57

is just further proof that I've all suspected

31:59

that the WHO has absolutely no idea what

32:02

the fuck he's doing. I'd

32:04

only be a little bit more surprised if they'd

32:06

actually given him a job, if he was pretending to

32:08

be a fake doctor. He'd

32:11

pick up all these little bits of paper, stuff them

32:13

in his car or leave them lying around his house.

32:16

He used any WHA services that were available

32:18

to the public like its travel agency, its

32:20

bank and its post office. He

32:22

even sent photos of the outside of the building with

32:25

a big red X on them to show

32:27

where his office was. Oh

32:30

my god. So top secret of you sir. Yes. So

32:34

after years of going to the WHO, apparently

32:37

finally deciding that the lie was sufficiently

32:39

established, Sean Claude started

32:41

spending his days in other ways. He'd

32:44

sit in various cafes, reading magazines and

32:46

newspapers, just seeing out the clock until

32:48

he could return home again. That

32:51

sounds like hell. Ugh.

32:54

And sometimes he'd even just park up on

32:56

the side of some road and stay in

32:58

his car all day, either

33:01

reading or just sleeping.

33:04

Sometimes Jean Claude would even drive into the

33:06

Jura Mountains for a solo hike. Once

33:09

in a while he'd tell his family he was going

33:11

on a business trip. Which for

33:13

Jean Claude Roman meant driving to Geneva

33:15

Airport, parking in the airport car park

33:18

and checking into an airport hotel. He'd

33:21

buy travel guides in advance for Florence to

33:23

see as she packed his suitcase. And

33:26

once in the hotel, he'd look up the

33:28

time and weather in his chosen destination.

33:31

He'd phone home at lunchtime and tell

33:34

his family that he was just off to bed and

33:36

that it was raining in Tokyo. He'd

33:39

buy gifts from Geneva Airport, as

33:41

relevant to his pretend country as possible. And

33:44

then he'd just lie all day in his hotel room, watching

33:47

TV. secret

34:00

second family or any high-level secretive

34:02

job or responsibility, there's absolutely

34:04

nothing at the centre of it. Strinklord

34:07

would just sit around, all day, for

34:09

years and years and years. And

34:12

as for a lifestyle so entirely

34:14

vapid, directionless and boring, it was

34:16

fucking expensive to maintain. His

34:19

kids went to private school and he

34:21

also stayed in endless airport hotels and

34:23

they're not cheap on the annual salary

34:26

of zero francs. Lots

34:28

more, they lived in an expensive area, their friends

34:30

were rich, cultured, they had expensive tastes. Strinklord

34:33

positioned himself as a leading figure

34:36

in the world of research, one

34:38

who went to international conferences and dined

34:40

with government ministers. So he

34:42

had to have the lifestyle to match, which

34:44

meant that Strinklord needed money. While

34:48

at uni in Lyon, Strinklord's parents had

34:50

bought him a fat and a car.

34:53

And initially, Strinklord kept his

34:55

duplicitous life propped up, using

34:58

the 300,000 francs that he'd

35:00

got from selling that apartment. Thus,

35:02

he'd still make regular small withdrawals from his

35:05

parents' bank account. And

35:07

they let him, even though he

35:09

was definitely not a student anymore. Maybe

35:12

they even did this because he didn't need it. They

35:15

never suspected any irresponsibility, he was a big

35:17

shot now. So what were a

35:19

few withdrawals here and there? They could afford

35:21

it after all. But

35:23

after a while, the apartment money

35:25

was dwindling, and he needed more.

35:28

But like they say, in for a son team,

35:31

in for a franc. So

35:33

Jean-Claude started grifting. His

35:36

fake position as an international civil servant

35:38

didn't just give him a massive fake

35:40

salary, it gave him

35:42

unique financial access. He

35:45

started telling his family and his friends about

35:47

high interest accounts he could invest in, secure

35:49

Swiss bank investments that paid out 18% a

35:51

year. And

35:54

the best part was, he was allowed

35:56

to share that access with his family. His parents

35:58

were the first to leap at this time. dynamite opportunity.

36:01

Then his uncle. They forked over

36:04

large sums of money for Jean-Claude to invest

36:06

and expected no written

36:08

confirmation or receipts, because

36:11

he was family. It is

36:13

kind of the perfect crime. Except

36:16

Jean-Claude didn't actually have any way to increase

36:18

their money and lots of ways

36:20

to lose it. He didn't have an

36:22

exit strategy. But since

36:24

they were his family, they weren't exactly

36:27

going to go anywhere. So sooner or later,

36:29

parents or not, they were going to

36:32

expect money back. So

36:34

once again, Jean-Claude was forced to

36:36

up the ante. His

36:39

wife Florence's retired father, Pierre,

36:42

also decided to invest to the tune

36:44

of 378,000 francs. It was the biggest one yet. The equivalent of

36:46

more than 150,000 dollars in

36:52

today's money. But

36:55

a few months after the investment, Pierre

36:57

wanted to buy himself a Mercedes. So

37:00

yeah, for some of the cash back. Then

37:02

a week later, while Pierre was alone

37:04

in the house with Jean-Claude, he

37:06

had a rather nasty fall. Jean-Claude,

37:09

the only witness, broke the news to

37:11

Florence and her family. Pierre

37:14

had suffered a stroke, fallen down the

37:16

attic stairs, and died. But

37:19

the doctors found no trace of a

37:21

stroke, and the investigation basically led nowhere.

37:24

So at this point, Florence's father was dead.

37:27

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38:37

then, Jean-Claude turned his attention to

38:39

Florence's uncle, who happened to be

38:42

dying of cancer. Jean-Claude mentioned

38:44

to this uncle's wife that he was working

38:46

on a miracle drug at the WHO.

38:50

He had invented it, naturally, but it was still

38:52

in trials and it likely wouldn't be available to

38:54

the public until it was too late. Jean-Claude

38:57

claimed that this pill had been shown to

38:59

either halt the spread of cancer or

39:02

cure it completely. And

39:04

you could have it all for the low, low price of 15,000 francs

39:06

per pill. The

39:10

first dose was two pills and then 5 months later,

39:12

the patient would need another dose. And

39:15

of course, Florence's uncle paid

39:18

the money. And then he

39:20

died the next year. With

39:22

Florence's father gone, her mother

39:25

decided to downsize. And

39:27

with the sizable amount of cash that freed up, she

39:30

decided to invest even more in the

39:32

imaginary Swiss investment opportunity run

39:35

by her son-in-law. So the

39:37

romance got a further 1.3 million francs. That's

39:42

half a million dollars today. Jean-Claude

39:44

had by this point made the equivalent of

39:47

more than a million dollars in total off

39:49

his extended family. And

39:51

although he and Florence shared a joint account, she

39:54

never looked at the statements. That was Jean-Claude's

39:56

job. So he moved the

39:58

family to a big farmhouse in Paris. at the foot of the

40:01

Jura Mountains. He even bought a

40:03

Range Rover. And then he started

40:05

to have an affair. What's gonna happen, isn't it? I

40:08

feel like, how long can you just sleep in your car? Yeah,

40:11

he needs somewhere to go. And it's exactly what you

40:13

said. He's constructing this

40:15

incredibly elaborate lie with zero

40:18

payoff. He's literally just doing

40:20

all of this in order to make enough

40:22

money to sustain the lie that he's already

40:24

told. And now he's like, all right,

40:27

I might as well find something else to do with my day. And

40:30

that's something else to do was Corin

40:32

Hooten. To be an old family friend

40:34

who'd recently divorced another friend of theirs called

40:36

Pierre and moved to Paris. Sean

40:39

Claude had always taken a shine to her. And

40:41

weeks after her divorce was final, he sent her

40:44

some flowers and asked her out. This

40:46

is the thing where Sean Claude, right? He

40:48

flies so close to the sun in that

40:51

all of his cons and his griffs and

40:53

his affairs all happen within

40:55

like a very close circle of friends

40:57

and family. I'm like, what

40:59

are you doing? Go find some random that you

41:01

can grift. I'm not trying to give people advice

41:03

on how to be a horrible person, but he

41:06

really makes it harder for himself. And

41:09

if she's a family friend, assume

41:11

she probably knows he's married. That's

41:13

what I mean. Anyway,

41:16

soon enough, Sean Claude was flying up to Paris

41:18

every single week. He told

41:20

Corin, just as he told his wife, that he

41:22

just had a new assignment with the research institute

41:24

of Paris. Sean Claude ended up

41:26

falling pretty hard for Corinne and they

41:28

talked for hours over dinner every Friday night. Sean

41:31

Claude even considered coming clean to her. Maybe

41:34

this could be his first start. Maybe she

41:36

would understand. They started to

41:38

buy each other gifts and they went on short trips together.

41:41

Finally, there was something else on the other side

41:43

of Jean-Claude's life. When he

41:45

said he was working, he wasn't just sitting in

41:48

his car. He was having a sexy

41:50

tryst in Paris. I don't believe for

41:52

a second that he was gonna tell Corin. Mm,

41:54

no. It bollocks. Like,

41:57

I think he's romanticizing that to

41:59

be. like, oh, maybe she did

42:01

really love me. Maybe she would have understood

42:04

all of the lies I had to tell to

42:06

keep everybody in my life happy. Like I think the

42:09

reason that Jean-Claude has the affair is A, obviously

42:11

to have something better to do with his time

42:13

than just sleeping in his fucking car. But

42:15

I also think it was the darling

42:18

effect, right? Everybody in his life

42:20

has already been like, oh, wow, you're so amazing.

42:22

You work at the who and now you work

42:24

here and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's

42:26

going to hit a point of where that admiration

42:28

from the people in his life is not going

42:30

to mean anything anymore. So it's like finding another

42:32

person, a fresh start to

42:35

be like, oh, look how amazing I am. It's

42:37

to tell all his bullshit stories to all of

42:39

the lies he's told already to everybody in his

42:41

life, who's already heard it a million

42:43

times to somebody new and to soak in their

42:46

admiration. I think that's the role that Corinne plays

42:48

for him. So

42:50

anyway, meanwhile, while he's

42:52

off having this sexy tryst, this

42:54

being France, there was more standing

42:56

than that. At the

42:58

kid's school, the headmaster was found to be having

43:01

an affair with a teacher. The

43:03

school board voted to remove him as head. But

43:06

there was one person who was

43:08

very vocal about defending him. Jean-Claude

43:11

Romain. Hearing about

43:13

this, the president of the school board wanted to

43:15

get the other view. So he

43:17

decided to phone Jean-Claude at work. He

43:20

pulled up the WHO directory, couldn't

43:23

find the name Romain anywhere. He

43:26

even checks the international pension

43:28

fund database, but found

43:31

no trace. And

43:33

this head of the school board later

43:35

mentioned all this to another

43:37

than Florence. And she

43:40

mentioned it to her husband. Florence,

43:43

luckily, just laughed it off. Florence really is just

43:45

like, no, I don't know. Just leave me alone.

43:47

She's got a pretty good life. Yeah, she's like,

43:49

it's working out fine for me. Everybody shut the

43:51

fuck up. Hand me the keys to

43:53

that rage rover, baby. So yeah,

43:57

Florence laughed it off, but this was the

43:59

first line too. Jean-Claude that

44:01

the truth was closing in. And

44:04

then he got dumped by

44:06

Corinne. On a tempestuous trip

44:08

to Rome, she broke things off because

44:10

Jean-Claude was quote, too

44:12

sad. Oh no. Oh no. Whoops.

44:19

Not whoops actually, get it gone

44:22

girl. Like, on

44:24

a trip to Rome.

44:26

The happiest place on earth. I'm just

44:28

like sitting there eating a bowl of spaghetti, looking

44:30

at the Colosseum. I haven't been to Rome. I

44:33

assume that's what people in Rome do. And

44:35

I'm gonna break it off with you. You're just too sad? But you

44:37

want to split this? And then let's go home. Bringing

44:40

up with people on holiday is weird. Yes,

44:43

I agree with you. But

44:46

then, I don't know, this is just

44:48

me being a judgemental bitch. But like, I

44:50

always think when couples break up just after a holiday

44:52

and you look at the pictures and like, he knew

44:55

what he was gonna do. He was

44:57

waiting. Oh yeah. What a bastard. Yeah. Like, do you

44:59

know what I mean? Oh yeah, do it before, do

45:01

it after. Yeah, that's true. Don't do it on. Because

45:03

then I'd be like, you could have at least let

45:05

me just have a good holiday. Yeah, you

45:07

prick. Now I'm

45:10

really too sad. Yes, and Jean-Claude indeed was

45:12

sad. He was so sad he spiralled. And

45:15

on one family holiday, he took an

45:17

early morning drive out to the woods. His father had

45:19

taken him there once and told him

45:21

to be careful of a deep cousin. He

45:24

had told Jean-Claude that the fall would kill him. Jean-Claude

45:28

went up to the edge of this very same gorge

45:31

and jumped. But

45:33

he was caught by branches

45:35

and thorns that grew across the opening. Like

45:38

you see in a Disney film, they stopped him from

45:40

falling to his death and scratched his face and clothes

45:42

instead. So he managed to

45:44

clamber out of the brier. Would you

45:46

say that's a brier? Is that

45:49

a thing? The look of expectation on your face

45:52

when you said that to me, I'm like, I have

45:54

no idea what

45:56

is a brier. I've heard the word brier

45:58

and it's other context. Is this

46:00

a bra I don't know? I don't know. Anyway, he gets himself

46:02

out of the pokey plant and he drove himself

46:04

to Lyon, sewn Florence and told her that

46:06

he had been in a terrible car accident, after

46:09

which he had been helicopter out to a hospital

46:11

in Lausanne. Then

46:13

Jean-Claude drove home in his own,

46:15

unscratched car and got out with

46:18

a face of scratches instead of impact wounds and

46:20

he told Florence why the accident had happened. He

46:23

told her that he wasn't thinking properly because,

46:26

he said, his cancer was

46:28

back. So they

46:30

agreed not to tell the kids, but

46:32

the romance did tell their friends. They

46:35

told each of them to keep it to themselves so

46:37

it didn't get out. Jean-Claude

46:39

stopped going to work and started

46:41

going to Paris more often for

46:44

expensive chemo from a world class doctor.

46:47

And at this point Jean-Claude

46:49

gave his ex-mistress Corinne a ring and

46:52

she was happy to hear from him. They started

46:54

meeting up again and soon she

46:56

asked for some advice. She

46:58

had an apartment to sell, she was wondering what to

47:00

do with the money. Jean-Claude

47:02

had the perfect suggestion. So

47:05

he took her 9000 francs. Four,

47:07

you guessed it, another fake

47:09

Swiss investment. But

47:12

the next time he saw Corinne, she

47:14

did what none of his marks had done before.

47:17

She asked Jean-Claude for

47:19

proof. Corinne said

47:21

that if he were to have some kind of

47:23

accident then she'd have absolutely no idea how to

47:25

track down her investment. She

47:28

at least needed some kind of receipt to

47:30

see where her money was going. And

47:33

where Jean-Claude couldn't, she demanded

47:35

her money back. So

47:38

by this point Jean-Claude Romaines was well and

47:40

truly on the ropes. At his

47:42

next dinner liaison with Corinne, she

47:44

demanded her money back again so he just

47:47

couldn't put her off any longer. So

47:50

he told her that she would have her money back

47:52

by the 10th of January. The night before

47:54

that, he just so happened to

47:56

be having dinner with the founder of Doctors Without

47:59

Borders. in who wanted Corinne to join

48:01

him. Jean-Claude knew that neither the repayment

48:03

or the dinner was going to happen, but

48:05

it didn't matter, because Jean-Claude

48:08

knew that by the 10th of January, either

48:11

him or Corinne would be dead. Back

48:14

in Perivisin, Florence relayed

48:17

another strange conversation to her husband,

48:19

Jean-Claude. A friend of

48:21

theirs, whose husband worked for the WHO,

48:24

had asked Florence if her and her

48:26

children were going to the

48:28

office Christmas party, and Florence wanted to

48:30

know why they hadn't been invited. And

48:33

then, Jean-Claude's mother rang him in

48:35

tears, wondering why her

48:37

accounts were all overdrawn. Corinne

48:40

wanted her money, his family was getting wise, and

48:42

the coffers were dry. Eighteen years

48:45

after he had first lied about that

48:47

second year exam in Lyon, Jean-Claude

48:49

of Romaines knew that his time

48:51

was up. After

48:54

a trip away to ring in the new year,

48:56

the Romaines spent the first few days of 1993

48:59

skiing together up in Stroudsburg. Afterwards,

49:02

Jean-Claude went alone to Lyon

49:05

and did some shopping. At

49:07

various shops, he bought a Stunwant,

49:09

two pepper spray canisters, bottles

49:12

of barbiturates, ammunition, a

49:14

silencer, and a couple of petrol

49:16

canisters. He filled the

49:18

cans with fuel and drove to

49:20

his parents' house. He said hello,

49:23

got his rifle from their house, stuffed it in

49:25

his car, and then drove back to

49:27

his house. On Saturday,

49:29

the 9th of January 1993, Jean-Claude

49:32

entered the living room to hear

49:34

his wife Florence on the phone with her mother. The

49:38

children had already gone to bed. Jean-Claude

49:40

sat down next to Florence on the

49:42

sofa and started talking. He

49:44

remembers holding her in his arms and comforting her.

49:47

And then the next thing he remembered, he

49:49

was holding a bloody rolling pin in his hand,

49:52

and Florence's skull had been caved in. Then

49:57

he went to the bathroom, washed the rolling pin

49:59

and put it away. The kids woke

50:01

up early, and he told them that their

50:03

mother was still asleep. He made them

50:05

cocoa-pops and sat down with them to watch cartoons for over

50:07

an hour. As soon as

50:09

he had killed Florence, Jean-Claude knew that he

50:11

would have to kill his children too. So

50:14

he brought them water that he'd laced with barbiturates

50:17

and asked them to drink it. But

50:19

it smelled funny, so they wouldn't. So

50:22

Jean-Claude told seven-year-old Caroline that

50:24

she felt quite warm and might be ill. He

50:27

took her upstairs and asked her to lie face down.

50:31

And then he shot her in the back. Jean-Claude

50:34

then called the younger child, Antony,

50:36

upstairs and shot him too. He

50:39

went to the corner shop and brought a newspaper. Then

50:41

he went to check the mailbox. Then he

50:44

got changed, put the rifle back in his

50:46

car, and drove to his parents' house. There

50:49

he sat down for lunch with his mum and dad in

50:51

his childhood home. After

50:54

which Jean-Claude called his father into his old bedroom to

50:56

look at a broken air vent.

50:58

When his father bent down to take a closer look,

51:01

Jean-Claude shot him from behind

51:04

and covered his body with a bedspread. He

51:07

then went downstairs to his mother, who,

51:10

thanks to the silencer, hadn't heard

51:12

anything. And

51:14

he simply should have heard too. And

51:16

then, just for good measure, he shot his

51:19

parents' golden retriever. He

51:21

comforted himself with the thought that his daughter

51:23

Caroline, who he had shot that

51:26

morning, loved that dog, saw at least they'd

51:28

be together in heaven. After

51:31

cleaning the rifle and returning it to his

51:33

father's gun rack, Jean-Claude

51:35

called Corinne. It was still

51:37

the 9th of January and they had dinner plans with

51:39

Bernard Crouchna. Jean-Claude drove straight

51:42

to Paris, just in time,

51:44

to go to a Saturday evening mass with

51:46

Corinne and her parents. And

51:49

then he and Corinne set off for

51:51

their imaginary dinner party. Halfway

51:53

there, out in the countryside, Jean-Claude

51:56

pulled over and said he needed to grab

51:58

something out of the boot. He

52:00

said he couldn't find it, but that he had brought her a necklace

52:02

and wanted to put it on her. And

52:04

when Corin approached him, Jean-Claude

52:06

sprayed her in the face with pepper spray.

52:09

Then he rammed her in the stomach with the stun wand, giving

52:11

her a series of electric shocks. Corin

52:13

fought back and pleaded with him not to kill her. She

52:17

looked into his eyes and told him to

52:19

remember her daughter's. Suddenly,

52:23

Jean-Claude stopped and started pleading with Corin to

52:25

calm down. Later, he would

52:27

say that she had started attacking him and he

52:29

was just defending himself. Jean-Claude

52:32

kept insisting that Corin

52:34

had provoked him, until eventually

52:36

he said, it may have just

52:38

been the cancer. It must

52:40

have brought on some sort of temporary madness.

52:43

So he drove Corin home and begged

52:46

her not to tell anyone. She

52:48

agreed, probably because she was absolutely fucking tempted

52:50

of him. And she said

52:52

that she wouldn't tell anyone as long as she got her

52:54

money back. And he got some therapy.

52:57

So Jean-Claude left. Five minutes

52:59

later, he phoned her from a

53:02

payphone to insist again how random

53:04

and un-premeditated the attack had been. He

53:07

even said, quote, if I'd

53:09

wanted to kill you, I'd have done it in your apartment.

53:12

And I'd have killed your girls too. How

53:14

very confident. Corin

53:18

never remembers actually seeing a necklace.

53:21

But she does remember at one point, through

53:23

the tears in her eyes. Seeing

53:25

a plastic cord on the floor. And

53:27

she still thinks, she has no

53:30

idea how she narrowly managed to escape

53:32

strangulation. Jean-Claude

53:34

returned to his silent home early on the

53:36

Sunday morning. He spent three

53:38

hours videotaping some random TV over some

53:40

VHS tapes. It had since been revealed

53:42

that he was probably erasing a series of sex tapes

53:44

they had made with Florence. And

53:47

then he called Corin, repeatedly, for hours. Eventually,

53:50

she picked up the phone and he started

53:52

to apologise over and over. And

53:54

once again, Corin said that he needed to see a

53:56

therapist. Jean-Claude hung up the

53:59

phone and... doused his house in putzel.

54:02

Then he changed into his pyjamas and set fire

54:04

to the children's room and

54:06

then went to his own bedroom and stuffed clothes at the

54:08

foot of the door so the smoke would keep out. When

54:11

the fire department arrived, he waved for them out

54:13

of his bedroom window and before they

54:15

could reach him, he found unconscious. Which

54:19

leads us back to where we started, with

54:21

Luke Gladmoren at his friend's

54:23

flaming house and

54:25

Jean-Claude's uncle finding the bodies

54:27

of Emi and Anne-Marie Romain. And

54:30

their golden retrievant, all shot dead.

54:34

News of the Romain's death spread like wildfire

54:36

and the investigation quickly ramped up to match

54:39

it. After a prosecutor assigned

54:41

to the case looked through Jean-Claude's bank accounts,

54:44

he suggested a motive. The

54:46

impostor's fear of being unmasked and

54:48

the abrupt cessation of an

54:51

as yet ill-defined illicit enterprise.

54:54

In the media this was interpreted in a string

54:56

of wild theories. Arms trafficking,

54:59

corporate fraud and drugs rings involving the

55:01

Russian messier. The classics? Yes.

55:04

The classics Swiss bank problems. But money

55:06

aside, the police were certain of one thing.

55:09

This was a deliberate murder. And

55:12

any suggestion that this was just down to

55:14

some intruders who accidentally killed the family then

55:17

burned the entire house down to destroy evidence.

55:20

How down? When investigators found

55:22

out about Jean-Claude's parents. Two

55:25

murder scenes hitting the same family fifty

55:28

miles apart. It all told

55:30

police that someone had had it in for the

55:32

Romain's. So when

55:34

they asked Luke Gladmoren if the

55:36

Romain's had had any enemies, he

55:38

was down sounded and said what everybody said. Everyone

55:41

loved the Romain's. But

55:44

in reality, as soon as investigators

55:46

started to look into Jean-Claude, the

55:48

whole house of cards instantly

55:51

collapsed. The investigation was over

55:53

before it really began. All they had

55:55

to do was call the WHO and talk to

55:57

Romain's colleagues, who obviously didn't

55:59

exist. because he had never worked there. Officers

56:02

also checked the National Registry of Physicians.

56:04

They called hospitals in Paris where he

56:06

said he had completed his training. They

56:09

checked the records at Lyon University. And

56:11

there was no trace at

56:14

any of them of a Jean-Claude

56:16

Romaint. So it all fell

56:18

apart in a few phone calls. The

56:21

Romaint's friends took their time to accept the truth.

56:24

For months, Luc L'Admiral was still convinced

56:26

that he had been caught up in something bigger,

56:29

that his friend Jean-Claude had fallen into

56:31

some sort of court-protessebéonage or a leak

56:33

of industrial secrets. Maybe

56:35

Jean-Claude had had his identity purposefully

56:38

erased or some dark empathy

56:40

had framed him as a warning. Luc

56:43

decided he would believe anything before accepting

56:45

that his kind, generous and

56:47

humble friend of twenty years had

56:50

made every word of his life up. When

56:53

investigators searched Jean-Claude's car, which

56:56

he'd parked at a shop nearby, they

56:58

found a note. And this is what it

57:00

read. An ordinary accident,

57:03

an injustice can bring on madness. Forgive

57:06

me, Corinne. Forgive me, my friends.

57:08

Forgive me, good people of St. Vincent's School

57:10

Board, who want to punch my face

57:13

in. Why he

57:15

brings the school board into this is anyone's guess.

57:17

It's an odd choice. I think the only reason

57:19

I can think is because he is like... Because

57:22

he's pissed that they're the ones that sort of open

57:24

to the camera. Oh, that's a good point. Yeah,

57:26

yeah. It's the school board guy who

57:29

wants to talk to Jean-Claude that

57:31

calls the fucking WHO something as

57:33

West Lawrence hasn't done in their

57:35

lives. So maybe it's just

57:37

his last shaky fist moment at them. So

57:41

then the police brought Jean-Claude in for an

57:43

interview and for a lifelong

57:45

mismaniac, his lies under

57:47

interrogation were dreadful. He

57:50

told investigators that a man dressed in black

57:52

had burst in and shot his children and

57:54

then set the house on fire. But they

57:56

also stuffed clothes under my door, so I was fine.

58:00

And when the police confronted him with the fact

58:02

that he clearly didn't work for the WHO, Jean-Claude

58:04

said that he worked at a different company now.

58:07

So the police boned that company, who had never heard

58:09

of him. Very Casey Alpin. Mmm,

58:11

I was just going to say. And eventually when he

58:14

knows that he's rumble, he moves on to a news story.

58:16

And after several hours of disorienting

58:19

but it can force him,

58:21

Jean-Claude eventually gave a

58:23

full confession. So

58:26

speaking of Mythomania, what exactly

58:28

is going on here? As we said

58:30

at the top, everyone's been caught up in

58:32

a lie that's got away from us, but this

58:35

is really something else. So

58:37

of course, before his trial, Jean-Claude Romand

58:39

was seen by a psychiatrist who diagnosed

58:41

him with narcissistic personality disorder. And

58:44

we've covered NPD before. What

58:47

essentially sets it apart is

58:49

feelings of grand importance and

58:51

a desperate need for admiration, which

58:53

obviously makes sense. He wanted to be

58:56

seen not just as a doctor, but

58:58

as a high-flying, internationally important research scientist.

59:01

He's entirely unable to accept not

59:03

getting what he wants, especially when he

59:05

gets dumped. And he fakes cancer

59:07

twice to get back with women. You

59:10

might also be thinking of the

59:13

terms pathological liar and compulsive liar.

59:16

So what do we actually mean by these? Well,

59:19

normal lying is generally defined as

59:21

telling fewer than five lies in

59:23

a day. That's normal

59:25

lying. Fucking hell. And

59:28

so, yeah, if like me you're thinking that seems like a

59:30

lot, just can't the lie as

59:32

you tell tomorrow, including when your friend bakes

59:34

you a terrible cake and asks you how it is. Or

59:38

when someone stops you in the street to talk about

59:40

a new charity and you tell them that you have to

59:42

run because you've got an appointment. Most

59:44

people do tend to lie a few times a day. And

59:48

the prolific lying, which is taking

59:50

us up to the next stage, is more

59:52

like six to nine lies a day, of various

59:55

degrees of seriousness. But

59:57

it's still not considered pathological.

1:00:01

Pathological just means that it's

1:00:03

part of an existing mental or physical

1:00:06

disease. Pathological lying

1:00:08

is not a mental disorder in

1:00:10

and of itself, it's a behavioural

1:00:13

disturbance with in-personity disorders, or

1:00:16

trait or behaviour caused by brain damage. It

1:00:20

was previously called pseudologica

1:00:22

fantastica, or

1:00:24

misamania. Pathological

1:00:26

lying is marked by constant deliberate

1:00:29

deception without a clear motive or

1:00:31

awareness. I think that's the key

1:00:33

thing. You're not doing it with some

1:00:35

sort of clear goal in mind that

1:00:37

you're trying to achieve. And

1:00:40

it's most likely linked to an

1:00:43

existing personality disorder, something like for

1:00:45

example NPD. It's

1:00:47

also a feature of the

1:00:49

newly fucking rebranded factitious

1:00:52

disorder, which I absolutely despise the name of and

1:00:54

I'm going to call it Munchausen syndrome, which

1:00:56

we'll be covering in glorious detail. The

1:01:01

brains of pathological liars often

1:01:03

have more developed linguistic fluency

1:01:05

and thought processing capabilities, making

1:01:08

them uniquely good at lying as well. Often

1:01:11

it's developed in early childhood as a coping

1:01:13

mechanism and continues with little

1:01:15

to no regard for the emotional consequences.

1:01:18

Compulsive lying is often goal orientated

1:01:20

but it's so constant and

1:01:23

can be so unnecessary that

1:01:25

some pathological liars are almost

1:01:27

impossible to catch in the act and

1:01:29

they often live in a completely false sense

1:01:31

of reality. Some

1:01:33

psychologists define compulsive lying separately. It

1:01:36

also has origins in early childhood but it's

1:01:38

not linked to any existing disorder. Rather

1:01:41

it's developed as a habit, mostly to

1:01:43

avoid confrontation or avoid an

1:01:45

embarrassing or stressful situation and

1:01:47

compulsive liars are often much easier to

1:01:49

catch because their stories don't add up and

1:01:52

they show physical cues like sweating or avoiding

1:01:54

eye contact. They're just not as good at

1:01:56

it and they do feel embarrassed when

1:01:58

they get caught. And

1:02:01

we'd say that there is definitely

1:02:03

a pathological reason and tenacity behind

1:02:05

Jean-Claude Romain's mendacious life. After

1:02:07

all, he took a huge amount of work and effort

1:02:09

just to maintain a life of sitting alone in his car

1:02:12

or in a hotel room. But he did

1:02:14

it for 18 years. That's the thing, I'm

1:02:16

just like, why? Like,

1:02:18

that's the pathology of it, I think. So

1:02:22

the trial of Jean-Claude Romain began on

1:02:25

the 25th of June 1996. Jean-Claude Romain stayed

1:02:29

mostly quiet and stoic throughout. Until

1:02:32

he didn't. In an effort

1:02:34

to humanise him, his lawyer asked

1:02:37

him about his childhood dog. Why are

1:02:39

you letting this man go on the

1:02:41

stand? Oh

1:02:44

my God. But he does, that's what he does.

1:02:46

Yes, I guess he's trying to be like,

1:02:48

look how broken. Look, he's too sad. He's

1:02:51

too sad. You can't convict him. He's

1:02:53

got a sad little bit. But the

1:02:55

problem is that this approach had a

1:02:57

slightly different effect than the lawyer had

1:02:59

intended. Jean-Claude first started

1:03:01

swaying. Then he started to

1:03:04

shake. Then he collapsed on the

1:03:06

ground, groaning and shivering violently. Jean-Claude

1:03:09

said that the very thought of that dog

1:03:12

reminded him of the worries of his childhood,

1:03:14

which he couldn't share with anyone. He

1:03:17

then had the same reaction when recounting the murders of

1:03:19

his children. But no

1:03:21

dice. I think obviously what he's trying to do here

1:03:23

is it's very like borderline Manchausen.

1:03:26

He's not like, he's just pretending. Every time

1:03:28

he's confronted with a difficult question or something

1:03:30

like this, he's just like, I've got cancer.

1:03:32

But he can't say that on the stand.

1:03:34

So he's like, I'm just going to fall to

1:03:36

the ground and pretend to have some sort

1:03:39

of anxiety induced

1:03:41

seizure. But

1:03:44

it doesn't work because Jean-Claude Romain was

1:03:46

found guilty and sentenced to life with

1:03:48

no possibility of parole for 22

1:03:50

years. He was sent

1:03:53

to San Mio prison way out in the

1:03:55

middle of nowhere France. For

1:03:57

the first 16 years of his sentence, worked

1:04:00

diligently at his prison job, restoring

1:04:02

old audio archives. He

1:04:04

studied literature, Japanese and philosophy, and

1:04:07

even got qualifications in IT. He also

1:04:09

found God in a big way. No, here we fucking go.

1:04:11

The jail yard conversion, my friend. And

1:04:15

while he was inside, a best-selling book

1:04:17

was also written about Jean-Claude Romain's story.

1:04:20

It was called The Adversary.

1:04:23

It was written by esteemed French journalist and

1:04:25

writer Emmanuelle Carrere,

1:04:28

who spoke with Jean-Claude Romain for years.

1:04:32

And then a drama based on his life went

1:04:35

on to be nominated for the Palme

1:04:37

d'Or at Cannes. It

1:04:39

was actually beaten by the pianist by Roman Polanski. I

1:04:41

hate that that's a Roman Polanski film, man. It's so

1:04:44

good. Anyway,

1:04:46

in February 2019, after

1:04:48

26 years of super studious prison

1:04:50

time, Jean-Claude Romain was up for parole.

1:04:53

It was denied. Magistrates cited his

1:04:55

narcissistic and pathological disorders, and they said that

1:04:57

they saw no signs that he had improved.

1:05:01

But then the decision was appealed, and

1:05:03

then it was reversed. And then he was

1:05:05

released. Age 65 in

1:05:07

July 2019, and sent

1:05:10

to a monastery. Can they do that? You

1:05:15

can go, but you have to be sent to

1:05:17

a monastery. I feel like France projects itself. Imagine

1:05:20

what he could do if he were just not

1:05:22

fixated with maintaining his life. That's true.

1:05:25

It's pathological. That's the only thing you

1:05:27

can say, right? But yeah, there

1:05:29

you go. The very famous story. And

1:05:33

we didn't make fun of the French too much, did we? I'm

1:05:35

reformed. Goodbye. Prime

1:05:49

members, you can listen to Red

1:05:51

Handed early and ad-free on Amazon

1:05:53

Music. Download the Amazon Music app

1:05:55

today, or you can listen ad-free

1:05:57

on Wandery Plus in Apple Podcasts.

1:06:00

Hey you, before you go, tell us

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an actual royal is never about finding your happy

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wrong person, it changes the course

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of history. I'm

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Arisha Skidmore Williams and I'm Brooke Siffrin. We've

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Royals. We'll be diving headfirst

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members, you can listen to Red Handed

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early and ad free on Amazon Music.

1:07:37

Download the Amazon Music app today or

1:07:39

you can listen ad free on Wondery

1:07:41

Plus in Apple Podcasts. Hey

1:07:43

you, before you go, tell us a

1:07:46

little bit about yourself by completing a

1:07:48

short survey at wondery.com/survey. Being

1:07:51

an actual royal is never about finding your happy

1:07:53

ending, but the worst part is if they

1:07:55

step out of line or fall in love with the

1:07:57

wrong person, it changes the course of

1:08:00

history. I'm

1:08:02

Arisha Skidmore-Williams and I'm Brooke Sifrin.

1:08:04

We've been telling the stories of the rich

1:08:06

and famous on the hit wonder show Even

1:08:09

the Rich and talking about the latest celebrity

1:08:11

news on Rich and Daily. We're going all

1:08:13

over the world on our new show Even

1:08:15

the Royals. We'll be diving

1:08:17

headfirst into the lives of the world's kings,

1:08:19

queens, and all the wannabes in their orbit

1:08:22

throughout history. Think succession meets the crown meets

1:08:24

real life. We're going to pull back the

1:08:26

gilded curtain and show how royal status might

1:08:28

be bright and shiny, but it comes at

1:08:31

the expense of, well, everything

1:08:33

else. Like your freedom, your

1:08:35

privacy, and sometimes even your head.

1:08:38

Follow Even the Royals on the Wondery app or

1:08:40

wherever you get your podcast. You can listen to

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Even the Royals early and ad-free right now by

1:08:45

joining Wondery Plus.