Jean Claude Romand: From Faux Physician to Household Annihilator

Written by true crime historian Paul Drexler

“On the Saturday morning of June 9, 1993, whereas Jean Claude Romand  was killing his spouse and kids, I used to be with mine at a parent-teacher assembly.” This memorable opening sentence, by Emmanuel Carrere in his guide  “The Adversary,” introduces a case with monumental philosophical and psychological themes.

Jean Claude Romand was born in 1954 in Clairvaux-Les-Lacs, a city of 1,100, situated close to the border with Switzerland.  His father was a revered supervisor of a timber farm and his mom was a homemaker. His childhood was joyful, marred solely by his concern about his mom’s well being, and his need to not fear her.  The first messages he acquired had been “be sincere” and “don’t disappoint folks.”

Jean Claude did nicely academically at a personal prep faculty, the place he rubbed shoulders with wealthier youngsters and have become conscious of the category system. The subject of his baccalaureate essay was “Does Reality Exist,” a topic he spent his life difficult.

Romand entered the forestry faculty, which his father had attended, however dropped out after a collection of sinus infections. Utilizing illness as an excuse grew to become a standard sample for him.

Romand’s resolution to enter medical faculty could appear unusual, since had no real interest in caring for folks and was repulsed by the considered shut contact with the sick. However he was interested in the standing of medical doctors, and to a distant cousin, Florence, who was finding out medication. Florence was not instantly interested in him.  Jean Claude was quiet and never bodily engaging, however he was good, honest, and her dad and mom preferred him. So finally Florence grew to become his girlfriend.

Luc Ladmiral, one other medical pupil, befriended Romand who was accepted into Lac’s group of buddies.

The Snowball Lie

Romand did nicely in his first yr of medical faculty however through the second yr, Florence pulled again from their relationship, preferring to be buddies relatively than sweethearts. Romand was devastated. He missed his second-year examination, then scheduled a make-up examination, which he additionally missed. However as an alternative of taking the take a look at once more, Romand did nothing. 

Three weeks later, when the outcomes had been introduced, Romand declared that he had handed the take a look at,  To his astonishment, his lie went unchallenged and everybody believed his declare.

Early success, for some, is a harbinger of dependancy and downfall.  You win a big sum of cash the primary time you go to a on line casino and sense that the gods are with you. You are taking your first sniff of cocaine and really feel invulnerable. You get away along with your first lie and begin to imagine actuality can bend to your will. The extra you lie, the simpler it will get, and the extra needed, it turns into to proceed. However every lie triggers a brand new query necessitating a brand new lie to maintain the phantasm intact.

After his lie was accepted, Romand fell right into a form of collapse.  He stayed in his house for weeks, ate nothing however canned meals, and gained 45 kilos.  He was rescued by a go to from Luc Ladmiral who could be his finest buddy.  Luc was a pure chief, from a well-established household of medical doctors. Though Romand was considered a rustic “hick” by some,  Ladmiral noticed him as a quiet and constant mental.

So as to clarify his burnout, Romand instructed Luc that he had lymphoma, a sort of most cancers.  It was a intelligent and versatile lie since lymphoma is a illness that may lie dormant for years, with out signs. Luc promised to maintain Romand’s sickness a secret.

Annually Romand was capable of re-enroll as a pupil in his second yr and he pretended to be finishing his medical diploma by finding out for exams together with his contemporaries.

After a few years, somebody within the medical faculty received suspicious so Romand pretended to graduate. Graduating, in actuality, as an MD was Luc Ladmiral.  Florence acquired a pharmacological diploma.

After passing the medical board examination, Romand was “assigned,” as a analysis scientist, to the  World Well being  Group (WHO). By Romand’s continued persistence, Florence agreed to marry him.

In 1975, Romand moved into a brand new function, that of analysis physician, husband, and future father. He joined a bunch of younger professionals, together with Luc and others.  He and Florence moved right into a studio house.  As years went on, and their careers progressed, his buddies had youngsters.  They purchased homes, needing better area to accommodate their rising households.

Jean Claude’s place was prestigious however fictional and didn’t pay him precise cash.  He survived financially by promoting the house his dad and mom had purchased for him in medical faculty, and he started taking cash from his dad and mom’ accounts. They didn’t appear to note or care. However with two youngsters, Carolyn and Antoine, to assist, he wanted extra money.

A con man by no means asks for cash;  he creates a state of affairs the place folks wish to give it to him.  Romand let it’s identified that his place as a global civil servant gave him the chance to make safe swiss financial institution investments which paid 18% a yr. In 1985 Romand agreed, as a favor, to speculate 380,000 francs (price $190,000 as we speak) of his father-in-law’s cash within the financial institution.  The investments had been in John Claude Romand’s title. Over the following eight years, he embezzled a further 800,000  francs from his dad and mom and his uncle.

Romand’s persona was designed to assist his deception. He was seen as an excellent researcher and buddy to distinguished scientists and politicians. To keep away from scrutiny, he shifted consideration from himself, which made him seem modest, and a bit eccentric. 

Romand was adamant about holding his work and his personal life fully separate.  Neither his spouse or his buddies knew his workplace cellphone quantity. If his spouse wished to contact him, she would depart a message together with his answering service and he would name her again later within the day. None of his buddies or household ever met any of his colleagues on the World Well being Group.

Within the morning Romand performed the devoted father, dropping off his youngsters at college.  He then drove throughout the border to WHO headquarters in Switzerland. He would go to the library and different public locations and take any free WHO info he may discover. In later years he would typically pull his automobile to the facet of the street and skim magazines, or medical journals. 

When he claimed to be touring overseas for a convention, Romand would keep in a lodge close to the airport.  He would analysis the town he was speculated to be visiting. Throughout the “journey” he would name his household, focus on the climate within the place he was visiting, and inform everybody how a lot he missed them.  When Romand returned he would deliver again souvenirs that he bought on the airport present store.

In 1989, Romand fell in love with Corrine Hourtin, the ex-wife of one in every of his buddies. When he visited her in Paris he tried to impress her by staying in five-star accommodations and shopping for her costly presents. This romance put added pressure on Jean Claude’s funds.

Throughout their relationship, Corrine bought her dental follow for 900,000 francs. She agreed to let Romand make investments her cash on the promise that she may retrieve it each time she wished.

By now Romand’s life was starting to come back aside. When his father-in-law, Pierre Crolet,  requested for a few of his a refund with a view to purchase a brand new automobile, Romand stalled.  He visited Pierre, whose home was present process development. Throughout this go to, after they had been alone, Pierre mysteriously fell and died.

 Exhausted, Romand instructed Florence about his Lymphoma, and spent days, shivering and sweating in mattress. Corrine referred to as and demanded her a refund. The strain intensified.

The ultimate denouement occurred when Romand took a sortie into actual life. Upon his spouse’s suggestion, Jean Claude joined the board of the dad and mom’ affiliation at his youngsters’s personal faculty.

When a scandal occurred on the faculty, the board, with Romand’s settlement, voted to demote the principal.

Understanding that his spouse, Florence, supported the principal, Romand lied and instructed her that he had voted in opposition to the board.  Romand then took an energetic function in supporting the principal. These had been important errors. Romand had lied in entrance of quite a few folks and the lie he instructed could possibly be simply checked. Different dad and mom on the board had been livid with Romand and one threatened to punch him within the nostril. For Romand, a bodily coward, this was virtually an existential risk.

When Florence realized from Luc that Jean Claude had lied to her, her world modified immediately.

If the person whose phrases she had at all times believed implicitly had lied about one thing this essential, what else had he been mendacity about? Confronted together with his spouse’s suspicion and his impending monetary collapse, Romand accomplished his felony journey from swindler to a extra sinister one, identified in crime terminology as a “household annihilator.”

Household annihilators are usually extremely educated males who’re seen as hard-working and loving husbands and fathers.  A subgroup of this kind are referred to as civic respected, altruistic killers.

“I killed Florence to guard her from the insupportable ache she would have suffered after my suicide, mentioned Romand. “Then I needed to kill the youngsters. The place would they’ve been with out their dad and mom?”

Romand was altruistic in the identical manner as troopers who declare that they needed to burn down a village to reserve it. 

Romand borrowed a rifle from his father, then bought a stun gun, tear gasoline canisters, cartridges, and a silencer for the rifle.  The subsequent day he took his youngsters to highschool, did some errands, crammed up two canisters with gasoline from a service station, and picked up his youngsters.  After the youngsters went to mattress he joined Florence on the couch.  Romand remembers nothing from this level, however they apparently had a bitter argument.  His spouse, Florence, who hardly ever drank, had sufficient wine to cross out.  Romand stayed up all night time attempting to determine what to do.  At daybreak, he bashed Florence’s head in with a rolling pin he had bought yesterday.

When his youngsters wakened Romand instructed them their mom was nonetheless sleeping they usually watched cartoons and had cereal for breakfast. He took Caroline upstairs to her room, telling her that he wished to take her temperature. He had her lie face down on the mattress. Then he shot her behind the top. He repeated the method together with her youthful brother Antoine.

Romand returned the rifle to his automobile and drove to his father or mother’s home. He had at all times been seen as a mannequin son by the neighborhood; a prestigious, busy scientist, who visited his dad and mom faithfully every week.  He took his father upstairs, telling him that he wished to take a look at a defective air vent.  As his father knelt down to succeed in the vent, Romand shot him within the head.  Romand went down the steps and shot his mom. Romand then shot the household canine because it ran backwards and forwards in confusion.  He coated his mom with a inexperienced bedspread and put a inexperienced eiderdown over the canine.

“The household assassin normally kills every member of the household, typically together with the pets of the home. Typically, he’ll commit suicide after the killings.”– (Park Dietz, 1986)

After killing his household, Romand referred to as Corrine, promised to return her cash, and invited her to have dinner with Bernard Kouchner, founding father of Docs With out Borders and Minister of Well being For years Romand had claimed to be a detailed buddy of Romand.  Whereas driving within the forest, Romand pretended to be misplaced and stopped the automobile.  He sprayed Corrine with tear gasoline and tried to strangle her.

However when she pleaded and appeared Romand within the eye he misplaced his nerve and blamed his illness for the try. She agreed to not inform the police.

After this failed try Romand returned to his dwelling, deciding to finish all of it. However he managed solely a poor simulation.  He poured gasoline via the home, however as an alternative of taking a deadly combine of medication, he swallowed twenty Nembutal tablets that had been over ten years previous.  At 4:00 AM, in regards to the time that the early morning cleaners had been beginning, he began the fireplace on the highest ground. 

He returned to the second ground and laid down subsequent to Florence, however because the smoke reached him, he staggered over and opened the window. The firemen, who had been already there, heard the sound and went to rescue him.  Romand spent three days in a coma.

The Film: The Adversary (2002)

The film, The Adversary, provides you a way of what life is like via the eyes of an imposter, and of the focus and energy needed to take care of a false life

We expertise the strain Romand feels as his contemporaries transfer into bigger houses and purchase newer vehicles.  His buddies joke about him being low cost or having a secret mistress.

Romand’s fastidiously created persona gave him cowl. He was a scholar, detached to materials issues.  He wished his household to know the worth of cash.  Additionally, his job would possibly require him to maneuver quickly and he didn’t need the trouble of shopping for and promoting a home. However his spouse regularly agreed together with his buddies and commenced placing strain on Romand to purchase a home.

To keep away from suspicion, he knew he may need to purchase a home that he couldn’t afford and simply hope to extend his revenue. Happily, for Romand, he acquired extra money from his household to speculate and his rip-off continued.

Associated: Household Annihilation: The Crimes and Psychology of Familicide

The film typically reveals Jean Claude in his automobile, in conjunction with a street, studying, or simply staring into area, decomposing, as a stage actor with a difficult function would possibly do in his off time. Is he considering, or does he haven’t any ideas with out an identification to play?

The film goes backwards and forwards in time with an occasional snippet of his video confession interspersed.

Romand has no interior life. All of his senses are externally targeted. “The place is the following risk coming from?  What’s the response that can reassure this individual and make them proceed to love me..”

As his world slowly collapses round him the killings appear inevitable.

The film ends throughout Romand’s trial, the place he was convicted of first-degree homicide and sentenced to 25 years to life.

Most of the observers and judges on the trial had been amazed at how lengthy Romand’s impersonation lasted. One risk could possibly be the Domino Concept, a traditional clarification utilized in accident investigations. The domino idea explains that accidents will not be brought on by a single mistake however are relatively the results of a sequence of occasions, every depending on the earlier one.  Consider a set of six dominos.  Every domino has to knock down the succeeding domino for the sequence to proceed. 

If the third domino is eliminated, the sequence ends. Listed here are a few of Romand’s dominos

Romand’s friendship with Luc Ladmiral

As his finest and oldest buddy Luc performed a big function in Romand’s imposture.

Luc was a extremely revered doctor from a well-established household of medical doctors. Luc appeared past Romand’s, rural awkwardness,  In medical faculty and noticed a person of intelligence, character, and loyalty.  Blinded by his personal honesty, Luc didn’t acknowledge the inconsistencies {that a} extra worldly individual would discover.

The credulity and belief of Romand’s family and friends

The variety of potential purple flags Romand’s household and buddies ignored through the years is staggering.

What number of wives could be content material to not know their husband’s work cellphone quantity, by no means meet and even converse to a single one in every of his colleagues, by no means go to an organization operate, and by no means go to their husband’s office in eighteen years?

How many individuals would make investments cash, even with a detailed relative, and by no means obtain a single doc, by no means ask for any particular info, 

Romand’s capacity to lie

A defining nature of pathological liars is that they’ll lie even when it has no profit for them. Since childhood, Romand had been extra comfy with a narrative than with the reality. His faux identification contained many components that had been a part of his interior nature. He was a listener, a follower, who shunned the highlight however he was intelligent sufficient to offer the impression of a modest however good man.

Whereas his medical credentials had been counterfeit his medical data was not.  In dialog, he typically impressed actual medical specialists together with his understanding.  He had a con artist’s facility to learn and manipulate folks and the power to get folks to love him.

When Romand’s medical identification dissolved he took on a brand new one, sinner; however with an evidence. Whereas Romand admitted committing the crimes, he averted taking duty for them.

“An abnormal accident, an injustice can deliver on insanity,” Romand had written. Not defined was the character of the accident or injustice that had led to his insanity. Romand acted as if he additionally was a sufferer relatively than the agent of the crimes. As if his crimes had been the results of some inexplicable insanity that had befallen him. It was one other type of Romand’s favourite excuse, sickness.

The info of the case, nevertheless, the many years of deceit, and the cautious planning of the crimes, made an madness protection inconceivable.

Jean Claude Romand’s case has been a windfall for psychology, medication, philosophy, and literary graduate college students, in quest of a graduate thesis.

To today, psychiatrists haven’t agreed on a dedication.

Throughout the trial a panel of 4 psychiatrists examined Romand. He didn’t match into any class and ultimately, the medical doctors couldn’t agree on a classification. He didn’t have the ego or conceitedness attribute of a narcissistic persona dysfunction and lacked the social withdrawal and flat have an effect on generally present in Schizoid persona issues.

Romand‘s case has enabled philosophers to opine convincingly on the character of identification and actuality.

Rene Descartes, who contemplated the distinction between wakefulness and sleep, may need contemplated whether or not Romand was dreaming his life whereas the remainder of us have been residing ours.

An appeals court docket granted parole to Romand in 2019 and he was launched into the custody of a Benedictine monastery. Since then he has been concerned in prayer and charitable work.

“Romand is reputed to endure from narcissistic persona dysfunction,” reported a psychiatrist.

Probably the most inaccurate a part of this prognosis is the concept Romand is struggling.

The function of a penitent sinner, humbly attempting to expiate his crimes is one which Romand performs with absolute sincerity. And why not. He’s gotten the life he solely pretended to have.

Earlier than, Romand was a faux healer, receiving the respect and affection of others round him.  It was all based mostly on a lie.

Now, Romand is an actual healer incomes the respect and affection of a rising fan base of earnest Christian volunteers.   This time it’s based mostly on a distinct lie.

“To assume that it ought to have taken all these lies, these random accidents, and that horrible tragedy so he would possibly do all the nice he does round him,” declared a church volunteer.

Substitute “random accidents” with “stealing from his household”, and ” that horrible tragedy” with “ brutally murdering his spouse, his youngsters, and his dad and mom” and the which means is sort of completely different.

To those that imagine that “all the things occurs for a motive”, Romand’s story is inspiring. To the family and friends of the folks whose lives Romand has destroyed, the story is horrifying.

Concerning the Creator: Paul Drexler is a author and crime historian in San Francisco. He commonly writes for the San Francisco Examiner together with his column ‘Infamous Crooks’ and he’s the Director of Crooks Excursions of San Francisco providing strolling excursions of the town and its felony historical past. Paul has appeared in quite a few documentaries for the Discovery ID community and on Paramount TV the place he featured as an skilled on the Zodiac Killer.

Learn Paul Drexler’s fascinating true crime guide ‘Infamous San Francisco: True Tales Of Crime, Ardour, and Homicide’ a fast-paced assortment of largely untold true crime tales uncovering the darkish secrets and techniques of San Francisco’s previous. Learn Crime Traveller’s evaluate right here.

“Simple to learn in a free-flowing narrative, Drexler’s years of analysis and writing on San Francisco’s crime historical past shines via. His talent is telling these historic tales in a manner that brings them to life with every one being as juicy, vigorous and interesting as the following with twists and turns match for any modern-day documentary.”

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