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Jean-Claude ROMAND
Classification:
Spree killer
Characteristics: Impostor
who pretended to be a medical doctor. He killed his family when he
was about to be exposed
Number of victims: 5
Date of murders:
January 9,
1993
Date of arrest:
Same day (suicide attempt)
Date of birth:
February 11,
1954
Victims profile: His wife, their children Antoine, 3, and
Caroline, 7, and his parents
Method of murder:
Hitting with a
rolling pin - Shooting
Location: Ain department, France
Status:
Sentenced to life
imprisonment with no possibility of parole
before 2015 on July
2, 1996
Jean-Claude Romand
(born February 11, 1954) is a French impostor and murderer who pretended
to be a medical doctor. He killed his family when he was about to be
exposed.
Early life
Jean-Claude Romand was
born in Clairvaux-les-Lacs. He studied at the lycée of
Lons-le-Saunier until his baccalauréat. In 1971, he registered at
the classes préparatoires of lycée du Parc in Lyon, but dropped
out after one semester. Afterwards he enrolled as a medical student.
The deception
The deception began with a simple lie:
Romand claimed that he had passed a second-year medical examination that
he did not take. He therefore never qualified as a doctor, a fact
unknown to his peers.
Romand fooled his family and friends for 18 years;
they thought he was a successful medical professional and researcher in
the World Health Organization. He managed to give an impression that he
had researched arteriosclerosis and he had contacts with political
figures.
In reality, he spent his days wandering and used free
information services of the local WHO building. He lived close by in
Prévessin-Moëns, France. Periodically he left for a supposed work trip
but only traveled to Geneva Cointrin international airport and spent a
couple of days in a hotel room there, studying medical journals and a
travel guide about Switzerland, the country where everyone supposed he
worked. Romand lived off the money his wife and he had made by selling
an apartment, from his wife's salary and from sums of money which were
given to him by various relatives, who relied on his assurances that he
was investing the money in various imaginary hedge funds and foreign
ventures.
Actions, the night of the murders
On 9 January 1993, Romand withdrew 2000Fr, and
purchased a handgun, silencer and gas canisters, and asked for them to
be gift wrapped.
That night, feeling the only thing left to do was
kill, he bashed his wife to death on their double bed with a rolling pin.
He left her body until the morning, sleeping as normal.
The next morning, he woke his children, had breakfast,
and watched cartoons. He put them to bed that night, and once they had
fallen asleep, shot them both in the head.
After these killings, the only people who could
expose him were his parents, who were both so proud of their 'successful'
son, and his ex-mistress, who wanted back 900,000 Fr that she had given
him as a favor.
The next morning, Romand traveled across the border
to his parents' house, where he joined them for a meal. Immediately
after the meal he repeatedly shot them both and the family dog.
That night he picked up his ex-mistress,
telling her he was treating her to a romantic meal for two. Pretending
the car had broken down, he made her exit the car, and she did so he
attempted to strangle her with a cord and sprayed tear gas into her face.
After she fought back, he apologized and drove her back to her home
before returning to his family home, which still contained the bodies of
his dead wife and children.
He sat and watched TV before he poured petrol around
the house, set it alight and took an overdose of sleeping pills to
create the appearance of an intended suicide. Whether this attempt was
genuine is doubtful, since the pills he took were long expired, and he
had access to more effective barbiturates; additionally, the manner the
fire was set and the timing of his taking the pills made his rescue
inevitable. He was rescued by local firefighters who were alerted by the
road cleaners at 4 o'clock the next morning.
He survived the blaze, but refused to talk to police
during subsequent questioning; it was initially believed that he was too
traumatized to speak.
Aftermath
Romand's trial began
on June 25, 1996. On July 6, 1996 Romand was sentenced to life
imprisonment; he will be eligible for
parole in 2015. Romand is reputed to suffer from Narcissistic
personality disorder.
Fiction
French author Emmanuel
Carrère entered into correspondence with imprisoned Romand to write a
book L'Adversaire (The Adversary) based on the case.
Nicole Garcia directed a movie based on the book; actor Daniel Auteuil
played the part of Romand. Romand's deception also formed the basis of a
2005 episode of the BBC crime drama Waking The Dead.
Wikipedia.org
Jean-Claude Romand
On the morning of Monday, January 11, 1993 tragedy struck the French
town of Prévessin-Moëns, near the Swiss border. Jean-Claude Romand's
house had caught fire and his wife and children had perished in the
blaze. Jean-Claude himself was found unconscious and rushed to the
nearest hospital.
A well respected member of the local community, he was a researcher
at the World Health Organisation in Geneva and took an active part in
the operation of the local school board. What at first appeared to be a
tragic accident took a turn for the worse when it was discovered that
his wife and children had been killed before the fire: Jean-Claude shot
his 2 children and beat his wife to death with a rolling pin. When Jean-Claude's
brother went to see his parents after the fire, he found them both dead,
shot by Jean-Claude.
Further investigations revealed that Jean-Claude had never worked
for the WHO. In fact he was not even a doctor having failed his first
year exams. Everything his friends and family had been told was a web of
lies and deceit, a mixture of self denial and an inability to admit
failure to those he cared about.
A quiet but normal childhood
During the trial Jean-Claude claimed that he had a
happy childhood, "J'ai reçu le maximum d'amour que des parents peuvent
donner" (I received the most love parents can give). He was a quiet
child who kept to himself and was a good pupil. He would lie to his
parents in order not to worry them, especially his mother who was said
to be fragile. In the philosophy paper of the Baccalaureate he got
16/20. The subject of the essay was "La vérité existe-t-elle ?" (Does
truth exist ?).
A first major lie
After the Baccalaureate, he joined a "classe preparatoire" in Lyon
but dropped out after a term, supposedly because of health problems.
He subsequently studied medicine. At the end of his first year Jean-Claude
missed one of the papers of his exams and as a result failed by a
narrow margin. Although he was eligible to resit his exams in
September, instead he chose to tell all his friends and family that
he had passed. No one noticed that his name was missing from the
exam results.
For twelve years he enrolled for first year medecine every September
and pretended to be a student, getting hold of lecture handouts,
borrowing notes from friends, working as hard as the other students. On
exam days he would turn up like all the other students hoping that
stress would help his fellow students forget that he did not actually
sit the exams. This came to an end when a new head of medicine became
suspicious. His friends though, never doubted that he had completed his
studies just as they did.
In many ways it was already too late. How could
he tell the world that he had been lying to them for the past 12
years?
An imaginary job
He needed a job so he invented one: researcher for
the WHO in Geneva, specialising in cardiology. His career was made up
from beginning to end, from lecturer at the University of Dijon to head
of a clinic in Geneva. He spent many an hour hanging around the areas of
the WHO headquarters open to the public , taking anything with the
organisation's name on it. His home was full of medical journals and
paperwork with the organisation's logo on it. He went on frequent "business
trips", which actually entailed staying in a hotel near the airport and
bringing back souvenirs from the airport's shop. Instead of going to
work he would drive through the countryside or sit around in parks.
Everything was carefully planned and executed. He told his wife he was
very busy and always on the move at his office, so calling him was
pointless, if she needed to contact him she should page him. Not once
did she actually try calling the WHO. He claimed to know many well
respected doctors whom he frequently went out to lunch or played golf
with. He never brought them home of course, as he preferred to keep his
private and professional lives separate. When questioned about his job
he would always feign modesty. His wife joked that one day she would
find out that he was a Communist spy.
Lies, more lies
One of the problems with having an imaginary job is
that you are paid in imaginary money. For Jean-Claude the solution was
to continue with the lies he was so good at. He told his family that his
connections from work and his status allowed him to invest money with a
return of 18% after tax.
His reputation as an expert finance manager was
undeserved: every centime of the 2.5 million francs he stole over the
years from his parents, his uncle, his parents in law and his mistress
fuelled his lifestyle. A lifestyle that had to be worthy of his
professional status: large house, BMW and a private school for the
children. At the time of his death, less that 500 (swiss) francs were in
his bank account.
The undoing
Jean-Claude's lies started to catch up with him.
First in 1988 his father in law wanted to withdraw some of the money he
invested. A few weeks later he fell to his death in an accident, whose
only witness was Jean-Claude. Although it was never proven that he was
responsible, the death was extremely convenient. Not only did it deal
with the problem of the money, but his mother in law decided she no
longer needed such a big house and moved to a smaller flat, leaving
Jean-Claude to take care of the leftover money.
Four years later it was his mistress' turn to ask for
the return of the money she had invested, a total of 900000 francs.
Friends had began to discover the truth about his job, it was all
becoming too much to handle. Jean-Claude contemplates telling the truth,
suicide.
The bloodbath
On the 9th of January he made a different choice. He
killed his parents, his wife and his children. One day later he doused
his house in petrol, swallowed a bottle's worth of barbiturates and sets
the house alight. The pills were several years passed their sell by
date, in his own words he was "condamné à vivre" (sentenced to live).
On the 2nd of July 1996, he was sentenced to life
imprisonment for his quintuple murder, with no possibility of parole
before 2015. He is quoted as saying that, finally relieved of the burden
of 20 years of lies, he has never felt so free.
