Jean-Claude Romand, the story of a pathological liar

The gruesome story of a Frenchman who could not stop lying.

The 1990s. A quiet village in the south of France, Prèvessin-Moëns, and a case so shocking and chilling a case so shocking and chilling that not even the specialists in charge of the psychological evaluations could give an explanation for it.. We are talking about Jean-Claude Romandbetter 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.. No one, not even his own family, knew who he really was, what he did for a living or how he spent his daily life... and his family would never find out, because in order to spare them the suffering of knowing that he had lied to them, he ended up killing them all.

Short biography of Jean-Claude Romand

Jean-Claude was born on February 11, 1954 in Lons-Le-Saunier, a small town near the Swiss border. In his childhood he was a lonely boy with few friends and a withdrawn attitude.. 

As 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, but who showed excessive concern at the slightest unforeseen event, a fact that motivated him to hide his emotional states from her and to ask himself whether it was appropriate to tell the truth if doing so would cause distress.

Youth and entry into 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 fond of sports and who went through school without major inconveniences. Once he finished elementary school and high school, he decided to enroll in the university, he decided to enroll in the University of MedicineHe studied without problems until his second year, when he claimed that on the day of the final exam in Physiology, he did not hear the alarm clock and, for that reason, he did not attend the exam, which was eliminatory. This fact 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 relationship, Jean-Claude locked himself in his room on campus.He stopped attending classes and devoted himself to reading newspapers and watching television, gaining 20 kilos due to lack of activity and junk food.

Last years of his career, a period full of lies

The following years, between 1975 and 1986, he continued to enroll in the second year of medical school, presenting false medical certificates to justify his lack of attendance to classes and exams. He got Florence to resume her romantic relationship with him and established a daily routine in which he went to the university every day without going to class.

He changed his schedule to avoid running into acquaintances who might discover him, and studied the subjects of the career to be able to converse with his classmates without arousing suspicion, and even, on occasion, helped out at the university.She even sometimes helped Florence to study the subjects that she, a pharmacy student, found difficult.

After this period she informed her family and friends that she had finished her medical studies and had received a scholarship to work at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, just a few kilometers away. in Geneva, just a few kilometers from the city where she lived. At that time, he was already married to Florence, they had been married in 1984, and they had a daughter, Caroline, who had been born a year earlier in 1985. In 1987, the couple's second son, Antoine, was born.

Work and love life, a veritable scaffolding of falsehoods

Jean-Claude went to work every day, he claimed to be constantly traveling around the world for work, and when he returned home he made ostentatious boasts of his research and conferences, although he was always careful to give few details, claiming that the information was secret.

But what did he actually do during the time he claimed to be working? he wandered around roads and bars, wandered in the woods, slept in the car or read a book.He would sleep in the car or read WHO pamphlets or books he picked up at a scientific conference and, above all, he would study the maps of the cities he was supposedly traveling to 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 was how he managed to support his family financially, as they maintained a gentrified lifestyle that was financed by swindling family and friends. Mainly he developed two types of swindles, one consisted of offering hisOne consisted of offering his acquaintances an investment plan with a high profitability, taking advantage of his work at the WHO, and in this way he swindled his relatives out of up to two and a half million francs, and the other was the sale of oncological medicines in the supposed experimental phase, worth 15,000 francs per pill.

But no one doubted the good Jean-Claude, who had given himself a social image of success and prestige, and lived devoted 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 him for part of the money he had given his son-in-law to invest, but no one doubts the honesty of the supposed doctor who becomes the head of the family and the one in charge of looking after everyone's welfare.

At this time, Jean-Claude meets Corinne, the wife of an acquaintanceHe begins to feel a great attraction for her and sets out to conquer her. She initially rejects him, to which Jean-Claude responds with a suicide attempt followed by another big lie to hide it and a period of isolation at home, in which he manifested depressive behaviors as in college. Finally, Corinne agrees to maintain a relationship with him. But having this new relationship and adding one more lie more and more 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.

The crime and the frustrated suicide

That day, he made an appointment with Corinne, making her believe that they were going to have dinner at the home of an important WHO collaborator, and halfway there, he tried to kill her, without success, as she managed to convince him not to do it. After dropping her off back at her house, Jean Claude, went to his own house and once there, he killed Florence first, first killed Florenceby hitting her on the head with a rolling pin. The next morning, while his children were watching TV, he called them to his room and shot them both, who died on the spot.

After having killed his wife and children, Jean-Claude went to his parents' house for lunch, as he did every week, 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 high quantity of barbiturates already expired, and set fire to the house, with the idea of dying himself and his loved ones.. This did not happen.

Seeing the fire, neighbors and friends of the family called the firemen, who managed to extinguish the fire and get all the family members out of the house, but unfortunately, they only found alive an agonized Jean-Claude Romand, who was taken to a hospital in a coma.

Police investigations

The first investigations did not take long to begin and the bullets were discovered in the bodies of the children and the blows to Florence's head. The bodies of Jean-Claude's parents were also found, at which point everyone began to suspect a possible vendetta against the Romand family? but the truth soon came out.

Investigations confirmed that Jean-Claude Romand was not working for WHO and a note in his own handwriting confessing to the crimes was found in his car. In the end all his lies were discovered, no one in his circle of acquaintances could believe that the attentive and familiar Jean-Claude would have been capable of committing such acts and lying about all aspects of his life. But the evidence left no room for doubt. For his part, when the false doctor awoke from his coma, he confirmed the facts and said he had done it so that his relatives would not suffer when they learned of 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 had serious difficulties in diagnosing him and the result was a Narcissistic Personality Disorder, based, above all, on the motives given by himself for committing such crimes, but 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 solitary 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 extolling his person, rather he used this character as an instrumental means to avoid giving information to his relatives and friends about his work and his and friends about his work and his way of life.

After discarding the diagnosis made at that time by the professionals in charge of the case, it is up to the curiosity of each one to try to give an answer to this curious case. I personally, after an exciting in-depth study of the facts and the behavioral pattern of Jean-Claude Romand, am inclined to think that his profile could very well fit a Schizoid Personality Disorder concomitant with a persistent depressive disorder.