Jean-Claude Romand, The Story Of A Pathological Liar
90s. A quiet town in the south of France, Prèvessin-Moëns, and a case so shocking and chilling that not even the specialists in charge of carrying out the psychological evaluations could give an explanation We talk about Jean-Claude Romand better known as “the adversary”, the name under which the book inspired by his case was published.
Jean-Claude’s life revolved around an intricate and complex system of lies Nobody, not even his own family, knew who he really was, what he did or how he spent his day to day life… and his family would never find out, since in order to avoid the suffering of knowing that he had lied to them, he ended up killing them all.
Jean-Claude was born on February 11, 1954 in Lons-Le-Saunier, a small town near the Swiss border. In his infancy He was a lonely boy, with few friends and a withdrawn attitude
An only child, from a very young age he lived with concern for the health of his mother, a sickly woman, of whom he was unaware of the illness she was suffering from, but who was excessively worried about any unforeseen incident, a fact that motivated him to hide his emotional states from her. to consider whether it was appropriate to tell the truth if doing so would cause distress.
Youth and admission to medical school
In the academic field, he stood out for being a diligent student, a boy who could be considered very formal and introverted, who was not a fan of sports and who went through school without major problems. Once you have finished elementary education and high school, decided to enroll in medical school , a career that he completed without problems until the second year, when he stated that on the day of the final exam in Physiology, he did not hear the alarm clock and, for that reason, he did not go to take the exam, which was eliminatory. This event marked a turning point in his life and was the first of his great lies.
After this episode, which also coincided with the refusal of his then partner, Florence, to continue their romantic relationship, Jean-Claude locked himself in his campus room he stopped going to classes and dedicated himself to reading newspapers and watching television, he gained 20 kilos due to lack of activity and junk food.
In the following years, between 1975 and 1986, he continued to enroll in the second year of his medical degree, presenting false medical certificates with which he justified his lack of attendance at classes and exams. She got Florence to resume her romantic relationship with him and established a daily routine in which she went to the university every day without actually going to class.
He changed his schedules to avoid meeting acquaintances who could discover him and He studied the subjects of the degree to be able to talk with his classmates without raising suspicions He even sometimes helped Florence study subjects that she, a pharmacy student, found difficult.
After this period He informed his family and friends that he had finished his medical degree and had received a scholarship to work at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, a few kilometers from the city where he lived. At that time, he was already married to Florence, they had married in 1984, and they had a daughter, Caroline, who had been born a year earlier in 1985. In 1987, the couple’s second child, Antoine, was born.
Work and sentimental life, a real scaffolding of falsehoods
The years after his supposed incorporation into the WHO passed in apparent calm and normality, Jean-Claude went to work every day, claimed to travel constantly around the world for work reasons and upon returning home he made ostentatious displays of his research. and conferences, although he was always careful to give few details, claiming that the information was secret.
But what was he actually doing during the time he claimed to be working? The answer is that He dedicated himself to wandering along roads and bars, strolling through forests to sleep in the car or read WHO pamphlets or books that he collected on some scientific day and, above all, he studied the maps of the cities to which he supposedly traveled, in order to maintain his lie.
How did he earn money to support the family?
Another big question that arose after all his lies came to light is how he managed to financially support his family, since they maintained a bourgeois lifestyle that was financed by scamming family and friends. Mostly developed two types of scam one consisted of offering his acquaintances an investment plan with a high profitability taking advantage of his work at the WHO, in this way he managed to defraud his loved ones of up to two and a half million francs and the other was the sale of oncological medicines in supposed experimental phase, worth 15,000 francs each pill.
But no one doubted good Jean-Claude, who had clothed himself in a social image of success and prestige and lived dedicated to his work and his family.
The beginning of the end
Florence’s father died in strange circumstances, falling down the stairs of the family barn, while having a conversation with Jean-Claude in which he asked for part of the money he had given his son-in-law to invest, but no one doubts the honesty of the man. supposed doctor who becomes the head of the family and in charge of ensuring everyone’s well-being.
In this age, Jean-Claude meets Corinne, the wife of an acquaintance , for whom he begins to feel a great attraction and whom he sets out to conquer. She initially rejects him, to which Jean-Claude responds with a suicide attempt, which is followed by another big lie to hide it and a period of isolation at home, in which he manifested depressive behaviors, just as he did at university. Finally, she Corinne agrees to maintain a relationship with him. But having this new relationship and adding another new lie becomes increasingly difficult for him… Corinne, who has also been a victim of the investment fund scam, demands benefits from him, his wife, Florence, begins to suspect that something strange is going on. …and, for this reason, cornered, on January 9, 1993, Jean Claude Romand decides to put an end to his double life.
Crime and attempted suicide
That day, he met with Corinne, making her believe that they were going to dinner at the house of an important WHO collaborator, and halfway there he tried to kill her, without success, since she managed to convince him not to do it. After dropping her back at her house, Jean Claude, he headed to her own house and once there, he killed Florence first , delivering several blows to his head with a rolling pin. The next morning, while her children were watching TV, she called them to come to her room and there he shot them both, who died instantly.
After having killed his wife and children, Jean-Claude went to eat, as he did every week, at his parents’ house and once there he also killed his father, who was shot twice in the back, and his mother, with one in the chest. After these new deaths, he returned home, ingested a large amount of expired barbiturates, and He set fire to the house, with the idea of dying himself along with his loved ones Something that never happened.
Upon seeing the fire, the neighbors and friends of the family called the firefighters, who managed to extinguish the fire and remove all the family members from the house, but unfortunately, they only found alive a dying Jean-Claude Romand, who was taken to a hospital in a coma.
The first investigations did not take long to begin and the bullets in the bodies of the minors and the blows to Florence’s head were discovered. Likewise, they also found the bodies of Jean-Claude’s parents, at which point everyone began to suspect a possible revenge against the Romand family… but soon the truth was revealed
Investigations confirmed that Jean-Claude Romand did not work for the WHO and a note in his handwriting was found in his car where he confessed to the crimes perpetrated. In the end all his lies were discovered, no one in his circle of acquaintances could believe that the attentive and familiar Jean-Claude had been capable of committing such acts and lying about every aspect of his life. But the evidence left no room for doubt. For his part, when the false doctor woke up from a coma, he confirmed the facts and stated that he had done so so that his family would not suffer when they found out about his lies.
Psychological profile of the pathological liar
What goes through someone’s mind to commit such an act? The four specialist psychologists who evaluated Jean-Claude Romand They had serious difficulties diagnosing it and the result was a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, based, above all, on the reasons given by himself to commit said crimes, but by evaluating in depth the facts and the pattern of behavior exposed by Jean-Claude, this disorder is easily ruled out. .
What is most striking about Jean-Claude Romand’s behavior pattern is the fact that his life revolved around a big lie, which only he knew, which made him a lonely and withdrawn person, who was not comfortable in social situations or being the center of attention.
It is also true that in his mythomania (pathological lying) Jean Claude had invested himself with a certain prestige and authority, but it was not with the purpose of exalting his person, rather, he used this character as an instrumental means to avoid giving information to his relatives and friends about their work and their way of life.
After discarding the diagnosis made at that time by the professionals in charge of the case, it is up to each person’s curiosity to try to answer this curious case. Personally, after an exciting in-depth study of the facts and the behavioral pattern of Jean-Claude Romand, I am inclined to think that his profile could very well fit a Schizoid Personality Disorder concomitant with a persistent depressive disorder.
