Jean-Claude Romand: Lies that Led to Murder Pt. 2

In January 1993, Jean-Claude Romand murdered his wife Florence, his children Caroline and Antoine, and his parents Aime and Anne-Marie to prevent them from learning he had never graduated medical school and had spent nearly two decades impersonating a WHO research scientist. As investigators unraveled the crimes, they discovered he had also stolen hundreds of thousands of francs from family and friends...and attempted to kill his mistress on the same day he killed his family. If you’re new here, don’t forget to follow Serial Killers & Murderous Minds to never miss a case! Want all 2 parts of every case all at once? Join Crime House+ and get both parts of each case dropped together on Monday ad-free. Join atcrimehouseplus.com http://crimehouseplus.com or if you’re listening on Apple Podcasts, tap “Try Free” at the top of this show’s page. Serial Killers & Murderous Minds is a Crime House Original Podcast, powered by PAVE Studios. 🎧 Need More to Binge? Listen to other Crime House Originals Clues, Crimes Of Reddit, Murder True Crime Stories, Crime House 24/7, and more wherever you get your podcasts! Follow me on Social Instagram: @Crimehouse https://www.instagram.com/crimehouse/TikTok: @Crimehouse https://www.tiktok.com/@crimehouseFacebook: @crimehousestudios https://www.facebook.com/crimehousestudiosYouTube: @crimehousestudios https://www.youtube.com/@crimehousestudios

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Vanessa Richardson?

  Hi, everyone. Before today's episode, there's another show I want to tell you about. It's called What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Plus Connor's infectious energy that'll make you realize history is the most fascinating thing on earth. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.

• 0:36Speaker 01

  This is Crime House.

• 0:41Vanessa Richardson?

  Most of us would never want someone we love to find out something bad about us. Whether it's a nasty rumor or the actual truth, we'd do almost anything to keep it hidden. But even then, most people would draw the line at murder. Jean-Claude Romand wasn't most people. He'd stop at nothing to keep his lies from his wife, his children, and his parents, even if that meant killing them.

• 1:21Vanessa Richardson?

  The human mind is powerful. It shapes how we think, feel, love, and hate. But sometimes it drives people to commit the unthinkable. This is Serial Killers and Murderous Minds, a Crime House original. I'm Vanessa Richardson.

• 1:37Tristin Engels?

  And I'm forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels. Every Monday and Thursday, we uncover the darkest minds in history, analyzing what makes a killer.

• 1:46Vanessa Richardson?

  Crime House exists because of listeners like you. Want even more? Join Crime House Plus and get both parts of every story dropped on the same Monday, completely ad-free. No waiting three days for part two. Plus, Crime House bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, just tap "try free" at the top of the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds page. Before we get started, be advised that this episode contains discussion of suicide and the murder of adults and children. So please, listen with care. Today, we conclude our deep dive into Jean-Claude Romand, a man who spent nearly two decades pretending to be someone he wasn't.

• 2:31Vanessa Richardson?

  And when his biggest lie was finally about to be exposed, the only solution he could imagine was to murder his entire family.

• 2:40Tristin Engels?

  As Vanessa goes through the story, I'll be talking about things like how covering the bodies of victims can reveal a murderer's relationship to them, why the true intent behind a suicide attempt can be so hard to judge, and how the truth itself can become painful for a compulsive liar.

• 2:57Vanessa Richardson?

  And as always, we'll be asking the question, what makes a killer?

• 3:07Vanessa Richardson?

  By January of 1993, the life of lies 38-year-old Jean-Claude Romand had built was about to collapse. For the last 10 years, he'd been pretending to work as a research scientist for the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. Truth was, Jean-Claude had never progressed past his second year of medical school. He wasn't a research scientist or even a real doctor. But after the birth of his daughter Caroline in 1985, Jean-Claude had realized he needed real money, not just to provide for his family, but to live like a man with a prestigious career. So he stole hundreds of thousands of francs from his closest relatives and later, from his mistress.

• 3:52Vanessa Richardson?

  And now, it was all catching up with him. Jean-Claude was pretty sure his wife Florence was about to figure out he didn't work at the WHO and never had. On top of that, his mother had called to find out why her bank account was 40,000 francs in the red. And his mistress, who we're calling Corinne, was demanding that he return the 900,000 francs he'd promised to invest for her. But he didn't have their money anymore. He'd spent it all. Jean-Claude couldn't bear the thought of his family discovering what a massive fraud he was. He didn't want them to turn against him. But more than anything, he just didn't want to get caught and face the consequences. As far as he was concerned, there was only one way out.

• 4:40Vanessa Richardson?

  And he set a plan in motion to kill his family, starting with his wife of 12 years. Jean-Claude spent one final quiet evening at home with his family. Then, in the very early morning hours of January 9, 1993, Florence Romain was beaten to death in her bed with a rolling pin. Where it came from is still disputed. Later on, the authorities would say Jean-Claude had bought it at the supermarket the day before, while Jean-Claude claimed it had been lying around the kids' room, where they'd been using it to roll out modeling clay. What happened in that bedroom only Jean-Claude knows. And he claims he doesn't. By his account, his last memory was from the night before,

• 5:24Vanessa Richardson?

  sitting on the sofa comforting Florence. The next thing he knew, his wife was dead in their bed and he was holding the blood-stained murder weapon. Whatever he did or didn't remember, Jean-Claude wasn't paralyzed by shock. He methodically covered her with the comforter, then washed off the rolling pin in the bathroom so carefully that no trace of blood could be seen, and then put it away. Suddenly, the phone rang. Jean-Claude raced to answer it before the ringing could wake the kids. It was a family friend who wanted to know if Florence would be able to help her with something at church that evening. As quietly as he could, Jean-Claude said no. Florence wouldn't be able to make it to church that night. They were planning to stay at his parents' home

• 6:09Vanessa Richardson?

  in the Jura Mountains. Then, he did something bone-chilling. He offered to put Florence on the phone, knowing full well that his wife would never speak to anyone again. But the woman said no. That was okay. She'd figure something out on her own. The two said their goodbyes and hung up.

• 6:28Tristin Engels?

  There are a couple of reasons why Jean-Claude may have offered to put Florence on the phone, even though he had just murdered her. First, it gives the appearance of normalcy, especially because they called asking if Florence was able to help them with something at church. And if they ordinarily did speak with Florence when they called, that would be the logical thing to offer. Not offering might have seemed unusual. Not necessarily enough for them to alert authorities, but enough to be maybe even noticed. Secondly, it could theoretically establish a new timeline for him. Because now you potentially have someone who believes that on this day, Florence was still alive and available to speak with them, which would be important

• 7:12Tristin Engels?

  if Jean-Claude intended to play off that she's alive for a time until he figures out a long-term plan. But he's also performing the behavior of someone who has absolutely no reason to think that Florence can't come to the phone. He isn't avoiding her. He isn't making an excuse before anyone asks for her. That creates an impression of innocence, and that's impression management. He's behaving in a way that invites the person on the phone to reach the conclusion that she's alive and well and everything is status quo.

• 7:43Vanessa Richardson?

  Do you think Jean-Claude was still in such shock over what he'd just done? Maybe that he didn't fully register that she was dead? And then the offer for her to speak to Florence was just an automatic response at the time?

• 7:55Tristin Engels?

  It's possible. People can go into autopilot mode and engage in habitual behaviors after a stressful event. We also have social scripts that become pretty automatic. So if he was used to answering the phone and saying, "Let me get Florence", especially for this particular friend, let's say, it's also possible that that response came out naturally without thinking about it as well. That said, I don't think that necessarily means that it didn't register to him that Florence was dead. And I say that because of his behavior after he murdered her. When he says he came to and saw what he had done, he then covered Florence with the comforter and cleaned the rolling pin so thoroughly that there was no trace of blood, and then he put it away. That's purposeful, organized behavior.

• 8:39Tristin Engels?

  He's cleaning up evidence of a crime. Now, that doesn't prove he remembered killing her. Memory and awareness are two different things. But his behavior indicates to me that he knew she was dead.

• 8:52Vanessa Richardson?

  Jean-Claude wasn't about to let an unexpected phone call disrupt his plan. He heard his kids stirring in their bedroom. The call must have woken them, so he told seven-year-old Caroline and five-year-old Antoine to be very quiet as they all went downstairs. They didn't want to wake Mom. Jean-Claude brought Caroline and Antoine to the living room and put a tape of the three little pigs into the VCR. He left the kids on the couch and went into the kitchen to fix their breakfast. He came back with two bowls of chocolate cereal. He sat between them as they watched the movie, shoveling spoonfuls into their mouths. As far as they knew, it was just another Saturday morning. But Jean-Claude was already planning to make his children his next victims.

• 9:36Vanessa Richardson?

  And yet, he snuggled with them on the couch, telling them he loved them, savoring these last moments, as though what came next were out of his hands and not his own plan. Caroline noticed her dad seemed cold. She offered to run upstairs and get his bathrobe. Instead, Jean-Claude told the kids they were the ones who felt hot, like they might have a fever. He said he'd take their temperatures and brought Caroline upstairs first. Jean-Claude told her to lie down in bed while he got the thermometer. Instead, he retrieved a rifle, one he'd borrowed from his father months earlier and never returned. When he got back into Caroline's room, he found her lying on her stomach with her pillow over her head.

• 10:20Vanessa Richardson?

  He figured she was feeling playful. He raised the rifle and shot his daughter in the back. He likely used a silencer because Antoine didn't seem to hear the gun go off. Jean-Claude didn't waste any time after killing Caroline. He covered her body with a comforter, then called Antoine to come upstairs so he could take his temperature, too. When Antoine got upstairs, Jean-Claude handed him a glass of water with a barbiturate dissolved in it, hoping to sedate his son first. But Antoine refused it, saying it tasted bad. So Jean-Claude abandoned that idea. He told Antoine to go lie down on his bed. And when he did, Jean-Claude shot him, too.

• 11:03Vanessa Richardson?

  Then, he covered his son's body, just as he had his daughters and his wives.

• 11:09Tristin Engels?

  Jean-Claude covered Florence, like you said, and now he's doing it with each of his children. So the covering seems to have some psychological function for him. And there's actually a concept in forensic research called undoing or symbolic reversal. These are behaviors after a homicide that appear to soften or symbolically reverse or create psychological distance from what the offender had just done. And that can include things like covering the victim with a blanket, putting them in bed or on a couch, placing a pillow beneath their head, washing them, or repositioning them in a more peaceful way. And interestingly, the research on this has often identified these behaviors in homicides involving family members or intimate partners.

• 11:54Tristin Engels?

  And Jean-Claude is doing several of those behaviors. They're in their beds, and they're covered by their comforters, and they're looking peaceful. It's as if he is restoring the appearance of a normal family scene inside their home. He can't reverse what he's done, but he can change what it looks like. And Jean-Claude has a pattern of managing perception. He wants other people to see him as a successful physician or financial investor, despite the reality. And here, he may be doing something similar for himself. He can't change the reality of what he did or that his family is dead, but he can alter the appearance of that reality into something more familiar and peaceful for him. That could help him psychologically distance himself from the crimes, compartmentalize

• 12:39Tristin Engels?

  and regulate whatever distress, if any, that he's experiencing enough to keep him functioning. And the behavior may look caring, but psychologically, it's actually serving him.

• 12:51Vanessa Richardson?

  Well, once he'd covered his victims, Jean-Claude knew he could move on to the next phase of his plan. But first, he walked outside to check his mail. Then he went to a local newsstand to buy the morning paper, as though the murdered bodies of his family weren't waiting for him back home. When Jean-Claude came back, he packed a bag and carefully wrapped up his rifle. He put it all in the car and drove 50 miles to his parents' house in the Jura Mountains. Jean-Claude carried the rifle right into their home without needing to conceal it. After all, it was his father's gun, and now he was returning it. But first, he was going to use it again. Jean-Claude and his parents sat down to lunch.

• 13:34Vanessa Richardson?

  His father, Emme, mentioned a bad smell coming from the vent in the upstairs bedroom, the one that used to be Jean-Claude's. After they ate, Jean-Claude offered to take a look and lured his father upstairs with him, rifle in hand. Emme couldn't bend down because of his bad back, so when they reached the old bedroom, he knelt in front of the vent. That's when Jean-Claude raised his silenced rifle and shot his father in the back twice. Then, he covered Emme's body with a bedspread, one that had been in that room since Jean-Claude's childhood. Next, Jean-Claude went to find his mother, Anne-Marie. He asked her to come with him into the family's sitting room. Inside the sitting room, Jean-Claude turned to face her.

• 14:18Vanessa Richardson?

  She hadn't heard the silenced gunshots upstairs. Inside the sitting room, he raised his rifle and shot her, the only one of his victims killed from the front. By his own account, her false teeth came loose as she fell. Jean-Claude put them back in her mouth, then covered her body with a bedspread. Then, the Roman's Labrador wandered into the room, whimpering, confused about why his owners weren't responding. That's when Jean-Claude got an idea. His daughter Caroline had always loved that dog. He thought maybe she'd want him with her in the afterlife. So he raised his gun, shot the dog, then covered his body with a blue quilt.

• 15:03Tristin Engels?

  This is truly horrific. He's systematically killed his immediate family, his children, in a matter of hours, and he is still thinking about his daughter Caroline as though he's relating to her as a caring father. That's potentially moral reframing, because killing the dog can now be framed as something good, something he's doing that's good. He's creating a version of these murders in where he gets to maintain a positive role. And again, that goes back to his broader pattern that we've been seeing of creating a reality that allows him to preserve an identity that he needs.

• 15:40Vanessa Richardson?

  This is so horrific, as you said. Now, Jean-Claude shot his mother while she was facing him. Why might her murder have been different from the other four?

• 15:50Tristin Engels?

  We can't really know for sure whether that was intentional or circumstantial. He may have intended to shoot her from behind, like he did with his father and with the rest of his family, and she just, it just happened to be that way. But if he intentionally killed her while she was facing him, if that was his plan, then that means he was willing and perhaps wanted her to see him before he took her life. And there could be something symbolic about that, because he spent his entire adult life projecting that successful physician identity, a financial investor, an exceptional husband, father, and son, someone his mother could be proud of.

• 16:31Tristin Engels?

  So allowing her to look at him in that moment would also mean allowing her to finally see the truth about him before he took her life. But what I don't have, based on what we know about his relationship with his parents, which is very limited, and I suspect there's quite a bit more there, is a compelling psychological explanation for why his mother and nobody else would be the person he would want to be facing him. And that's why I'm more inclined to think that this was just circumstantial. To add to that, Jean-Claude seems extremely goal-directed right now. He has already killed Florence and his innocent children. He's gone to his parents' home with the intention of killing them, and he just shot his father upstairs.

• 17:15Tristin Engels?

  He's moving through a sequence of acts that he's determined to complete. So even with a silencer on his rifle, he can't know that his mother didn't hear that downstairs, or whether she's becoming suspicious. And she didn't seem to have known that or heard anything, but he didn't necessarily know that when he was upstairs. So if she was facing him when he came back downstairs, he likely just took the opportunity while he had it.

• 17:42Vanessa Richardson?

  After killing his parents and their dog, Jean-Claude cleaned off the rifle and placed it back in their gun rack. He changed clothes, then he called his mistress, Corinne. The last time they'd spoken, he'd promised to return her money in the New Year. That night was the night he'd promised to take her to dinner at his friend Dr. Bernard Couche-nez's house in Fontainebleau. On the phone, they agreed to meet that evening in Paris at a church where Corinne was taking her daughters to mass. It was, of course, a trap. Jean-Claude didn't actually know the renowned doctor who'd co-founded Doctors Without Borders, and he didn't have a clue where the man lived. But Corinne had always been impressed by Jean-Claude's friendship with such a famous doctor.

• 18:26Vanessa Richardson?

  After the mass, they all went back to Corinne's apartment. While Corinne got ready, her young daughters, Leah and Chloe, entertained Jean-Claude, showing off the gifts they'd gotten for Christmas just a few weeks earlier. Once Corinne was ready, she and Jean-Claude said goodbye to the girls and their babysitter and headed out. The girls had no idea that the man they'd been showing their new toys to had just spent the day murdering his entire family. And their mother was next on his list.

• 19:03Speaker 03

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• 19:20Speaker 03

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• 19:35Vanessa Richardson?

  On January 9th, 1993, 38-year-old Jean-Claude Romand had killed his wife Florence, his two children Caroline and Antoine, and his parents Emma and Anne-Marie. And he wasn't done yet. His next target was his former mistress Corinne Orton, who'd been demanding her 900,000 francs back, money Jean-Claude no longer had. With Corinne beside him in the car, Jean-Claude drove toward Fontainebleau, where he'd claimed Dr. Couchner lived. Once they got into a particularly wooded area, Jean-Claude pretended he couldn't find the little road that supposedly led to the doctor's house. Jean-Claude pulled over at a picnic area and popped open the trunk.

• 20:19Vanessa Richardson?

  He rummaged around, claiming to be looking for Dr. Couchner's phone number, which he swore was on a piece of paper somewhere. Corinne opened her door and leaned out of the passenger seat, growing impatient. Then Jean-Claude announced he'd found something else in the trunk. It was a necklace he claimed he'd always planned to give her. But Corinne couldn't have cared less. She wanted her money back, and she wanted to get to Dr. Couchner's dinner party. Those were the only reasons she was in his car at all. However, Jean-Claude wouldn't let it go. He insisted she wear the necklace, and that he be the one to put it on her. Corinne rolled her eyes and got out of the car. The sooner she humored him, the sooner they could move on.

• 21:04Vanessa Richardson?

  Jean-Claude told her to close her eyes so he could put it on. When she did, he sprayed her in the face with tear gas. As she struggled, he pressed a stun wand into her stomach, shocking her again and again. Corinne fought through the stinging enough to crack her eyes open. She looked straight at Jean-Claude and begged for her life, telling him to think of her daughters, Lea and Chloe. It worked. Suddenly, Jean-Claude stopped attacking Corinne. Later, she'd notice a flexible plastic cord lying in the dead leaves beside the car, the kind that would be just right for strangling someone. He'd never used it. The two of them took a few minutes to rinse their eyes with mineral water.

• 21:49Vanessa Richardson?

  Then Jean-Claude claimed he didn't remember anything he'd just done. He said the cancer he'd been battling for years wasn't just killing him anymore, it was driving him insane. The two of them decided they were in no state for a dinner party. Jean-Claude would just take her home. On the drive back, he went on and on about his illness and the horrible things it made him do. By the end of the ride, Corinne was the one consoling him. Jean-Claude dropped Corinne off at home. Five minutes later, he called her from a payphone. He made her promise, she believed him, that what he'd done wasn't premeditated. Then came one chilling piece of proof.

• 22:30Vanessa Richardson?

  He said, "If I'd wanted to kill you, I'd have done it in your apartment, and I'd have killed your girls too."

• 22:38Tristin Engels?

  Jean-Claude was manipulating Corinne in multiple different ways. Again, by influencing very natural emotions, from the start of his attack until the very end. But he has just attempted to kill her. Then he tells her, "If I wanted to kill you, I would have killed you in your apartment and killed your girls too," which he's presenting as reassurance, but it's anything but reassuring because Corinne now knows he's capable of hurting her. And Jean-Claude knows her personally. He knows exactly what matters to her because she told him. She brought up her children while she was pleading for her life. So now he takes the very thing she identified as a reason she desperately needed to survive

• 23:22Tristin Engels?

  him, and uses them as a veiled threat. He's also creating a consequence for not believing him. And there's another escalation here that I find concerning. Until now, most of the murders have involved creating some degree of distance between himself and the victim, meaning he used a firearm. Except with Florence, he used a rolling pin. But with Corinne, he attempted strangulation, and immediately afterward, he's trying to manipulate her into protecting him from its consequences. That's psychologically different from what we've seen so far.

• 23:58Vanessa Richardson?

  Jean-Claude believed his threat had bought Corinne silence. And with that settled, exhaustion took over. He pulled into a rest stop for a nap. The sun was up by the time he made it home, where the bodies of his wife and children were still waiting. Once again, he did little mundane things, as though he wasn't in a house full of his murdered family. He checked his answering machine, and he changed the day calendar on his desk from January 9th to the 10th. Then a thought struck him. Friends might see his car in the driveway and stop by. He definitely didn't want visitors. So he drove to a nearby shopping center and left the car in the lot.

• 24:40Vanessa Richardson?

  And that's when he decided to begin the next phase of his plan: a suicide attempt. In his car, he scribbled a note on the back of an envelope, asking forgiveness from Corinne, from his friends, and even from the school board members he'd feuded with. He blamed his breakdown on what he called "an ordinary injustice," an apparent nod to the school dispute, not the lifetime of lies. And he confessed to the murders of his family. He left the note in the car, then walked back home. Jean-Claude spent the rest of the day flipping through TV channels, broken up by nine attempts to reach Corinne. When she finally answered, he once again made her promise she'd never go to the police

• 25:23Vanessa Richardson?

  about what he'd done to her the night before. Corinne said yes, on two conditions. First, that he get the medical and psychological help he so clearly needed. And second, that he return all her money Monday morning as soon as the banks opened. Jean-Claude agreed to both, although he had no intention of doing either. Finally, at around 3:00 a.m., Jean-Claude decided he'd stalled long enough. It was time to follow through. He poured gasoline all over the attic, then on the covered bodies of his wife and children, then down the stairwell, leading to the first floor. Then he put on pajamas.

• 26:06Vanessa Richardson?

  The barbiturates he'd purchased a few days earlier were nowhere to be found. He must have forgotten or lost them. All he had left was a bottle of decade-old sedatives that had expired years before. Just before 4:00 a.m., Jean-Claude lit a fire in the attic, then another in the stairwell, and finally, one in the children's room. He went into his own bedroom and closed the door. As street cleaners on their morning rounds spotted the flames and began pounding on the door downstairs, he swallowed some 20 capsules of the expired sedative. The electricity blew, and smoke poured into the room. He shoved clothing against the bottom of the door, then tried to lie down next to his

• 26:48Vanessa Richardson?

  wife, but his eyes were stinging, and he could barely see or breathe. By then, the fire department was on its way. As the fire trucks arrived, Jean-Claude opened the shutters to his bedroom window. Firefighters raised their ladder and pulled him out, just as he lost consciousness.

• 27:07Tristin Engels?

  So there is a difference between engaging in suicidal behavior and how much intent to actually die is behind that behavior. And Jean-Claude's behavior here is mixed. Because on the one hand, he confessed to the murders in a note. He poured gasoline throughout the house. He lit multiple fires, and he took 20 sedatives. That's very serious and potentially lethal behavior. There's arguably two methods in one suicide attempt, which is very significant. But there's also ambivalence. He spends the entire day delaying. He repeatedly calls Corinne. He uses expired medication after apparently losing the barbiturates he'd purchased, days

• 27:50Tristin Engels?

  before murdering his family, which is also a significant data point to consider. And the most compelling to me, I think, is, once the firefighters arrived, he opens the shutters to his bedroom window for rescue. It's important to understand, intent can fluctuate. And ambivalence is extremely common in suicidal behavior, and even right before suicide attempts, or during a suicide attempt. So I think the question here is, how committed was Jean-Claude to actually dying, actually taking his life, versus how committed was he to creating the perception that he intended to die? And I think that's a reasonable question in this particular case, given what we know about him.

• 28:35Tristin Engels?

  He's someone who faked being violently assaulted to regain sympathy of his now murdered wife. He's someone who faked having sinus problems to get out of going to school. He's someone who fakes having cancer. He's someone who lied for years about being a physician. He exploits his own family. And he's someone who will kill anyone when the truth threatens exposure. And at this moment, his identity has been threatened. He's just annihilated his family. He cannot meet Corinne's demand to return her money because he spent it all. And so it's entirely probable that he's resorting to a rescue scenario to, once again,

• 29:18Tristin Engels?

  influence someone, maybe Corinne, and to also buy him time.

• 29:25Vanessa Richardson?

  Whether or not Jean-Claude meant to end his life, he now had to suffer the aftermath. He was taken to a hospital in Geneva for treatment. Doctors determined he'd fallen into a coma from the smoke inhalation, burns, and the pills he'd swallowed. They hooked him up to machines and waited to see if he'd ever wake up. While Jean-Claude was being treated in Geneva, authorities tried to find a relative to contact. They got ahold of his uncle and asked him to break the news of the fire to Jean-Claude's parents. The uncle, whose name was Claude, thought news like this was best delivered in person. So on Monday, January 11, he drove with the couple's doctor to Emma and Anne-Marie's house in the Jura Mountains. When he arrived, he knocked on the door,

• 30:10Vanessa Richardson?

  but no one answered. The dog didn't even bark, which he knew was a bad sign. Claude tried the handle. It was locked. Sure now that something was wrong, he broke in. And inside, he found the bodies of the Romans and their dog. Once investigators learned that Emma and Anne-Marie were the parents of the man who lost his whole family in a house fire, they immediately saw a connection between the two incidents. But it wasn't a connection that implicated Jean-Claude. Instead, they considered the possibility that Jean-Claude had an enemy, and they had to figure out who it was, fast. While investigators dug into Jean-Claude's life, autopsies were performed

• 30:53Vanessa Richardson?

  on the bodies of Florence, Caroline, and Antoine. The medical examiner determined that all three had died well before the fire, not during. Both children had been shot with a 22 caliber rifle, and Florence had died of blunt force trauma to the head. By this point, autopsies had also been conducted on Jean-Claude's parents. The findings supported the same timeline. The couple had been killed on Saturday, January 9, before the fire at their son's home. But even then, investigators didn't stop to ask how Jean-Claude was somehow the only survivor of an attack targeting his wife, children, and parents. They kept chasing the theory that someone out there wanted revenge on him.

• 31:39Tristin Engels?

  Ordinarily, when there are cases of familiicide, the surviving family member is the number one suspect. But in this case, the surviving family member is in a coma in the hospital. They have to rely on relatives or friends for information. And the information they are getting is that he is a successful physician who works for the World Health Organization. And when they hear that and they learn that his parents are also killed along with their dog, it seems reasonable, whether we agree with it in hindsight or not, to consider that this was a targeted attack or a revenge plot. But when you start working on a theory and you start to get new evidence, and that evidence does not support that theory,

• 32:24Tristin Engels?

  but you aren't adjusting your investigation accordingly, that's a problem. That's where confirmation bias can take hold. They could also be falling victim to the halo effect because he's a reported physician. That prestige can unconsciously influence how they evaluate the case. Someone who's wanting revenge against this important physician for the World Health Organization may feel more plausible to them than the idea that a respected physician murdered his entire family. They also don't have a motive for Jean-Claude yet. Without a motive, they're going to start looking for alternative explanations in the meantime. Does it justify it? But it is an explanation for why they haven't initially started

• 33:08Tristin Engels?

  targeting Jean-Claude as a suspect at this stage in the investigation.

• 33:14Vanessa Richardson?

  Police were determined to find Jean-Claude's enemy before anyone else got hurt. And like you said, Dr. Engels, they tracked down his friend, who we're calling Luc Lamirall, and asked what Jean-Claude did for a living. Luc told investigators he knew Jean-Claude very well. They'd been best friends since medical school in Lyon. According to Luc, Jean-Claude now held a prestigious position at the World Health Organization in Geneva. Police called the WHO and asked to speak with Dr. Romand's secretary or one of his colleagues. The receptionist paused, then told them there was no one by the name of Dr. Romand at the WHO, at all. But the investigators knew that Jean-Claude's best friend wouldn't have been mistaken about where he worked.

• 33:59Vanessa Richardson?

  So they decided to do more digging. They checked with the National Registry of Physicians. Again, there was no Dr. Jean-Claude Romand. So next, they checked with the school. The school confirmed Jean-Claude Romand had been a student there, but he'd stopped taking exams at the end of his second year. He never graduated, and he never received a doctorate. The lifetime of deception was too much for police to ignore, and they shifted the focus of their investigation to Jean-Claude himself. While police were uncovering Jean-Claude's life of lies, the local media descended on the burned house, reporting on the fire and the casualties. One person hit particularly hard by the coverage

• 34:42Vanessa Richardson?

  was Jean-Claude's former mistress, Corinne. When she saw the news, a knot formed in her stomach. Suddenly, it all made sense. Corinne knew instantly that Jean-Claude had killed his wife and children because he'd tried to do the same thing to her and then tried to keep her quiet about it. And now, Corinne was determined to do everything she could to make sure Jean-Claude paid for his crimes before it was too late.

• 35:16Vanessa Richardson?

  On Monday, January 11, 1993, 38-year-old Jean-Claude Romand lay in a coma in a Geneva hospital. He'd killed his wife, children, and parents, then set fire to his house in what looked like an attempt to end his own life as well. The police had started their investigation by looking for Jean-Claude's enemies. But after just a little digging, they learned that everything in his life, his schooling, his accreditation, his job, was a lie. Jean-Claude probably wasn't one of the victims. He was their prime suspect. Jean-Claude, still unconscious, had no idea that the police were already on to him, and they were about to learn even more. His former mistress, Corinne,

• 36:01Vanessa Richardson?

  had seen the story of the fire and the deaths on the news. She knew he was responsible because he'd tried to kill her too. So she grabbed the phone and called the police. Corinne told police that on Saturday night, January 9, Jean-Claude had met her in Paris for a dinner at the home of his friend, Dr. Bernard Kouchner, a dinner where he'd promised to return the 900,000 francs he'd taken from her. Instead, he drove her to a remote spot in the woods and tried to kill her. Police called Dr. Kouchner to verify her story. He told them he and Jean-Claude weren't friends. There was no dinner. In fact, he'd never even heard of Jean-Claude Romand.

• 36:45Vanessa Richardson?

  Investigators kept digging for proof that Jean-Claude wasn't who he claimed to be. And in the parking lot of a nearby shopping center, they found his car with his handwritten note inside confessing to the crimes. The note raised more questions than it answered. Was the suicide attempt real or staged? It would be easy to understand why a man who'd just killed his entire family might try to end his own life too. But then, why kill them in the first place?

• 37:15Vanessa Richardson?

  Even with those questions unanswered, the evidence against Jean-Claude was staggering, the foundation of a damning case. He just needed to wake up. Days later, he did. Investigators came to question him at his bedside, but when they started asking about the murders and the fire, Jean-Claude was back to his old tricks. Despite writing a note that confessed to everything, Jean-Claude was now denying it. He said that a man dressed in black broke in, shot the kids, and set his house on fire. He claimed he'd just watched it all unfold, too scared to move or speak. So the investigators changed course. They asked him to explain why there was no record

• 38:00Vanessa Richardson?

  of him working at the WHO. Jean-Claude waved away their proof as something he could easily explain. He said he actually worked as a scientific consultant for the "South Arab United something", which he claimed was located in Geneva. Investigators checked this claim, and of course, there was no "South Arab United anything" in Geneva or anywhere.

• 38:25Tristin Engels?

  Jean-Claude exhibits pathological lying. He's been lying across virtually every domain of his life for almost two decades now, and the lies are elaborate, persistent. They impair him socially, financially, and legally, and sometimes continue even when there's no realistic possibility that they're going to work. And even when they're being told to the very people who can confirm them, he's steadfast in his lies. And we're talking about law enforcement, especially in this example. Pathological lying isn't simply someone who just lies a lot. It's a clinical phenomenon that sometimes is called pseudologia fantastica,

• 39:09Tristin Engels?

  where deception becomes pervasive and essentially a part of the person's way of functioning. Jean-Claude is confronted with evidence that he doesn't work for the WHO, and instead of realizing that his deception is at its end, he instead produces another organization that doesn't even exist. Lying is his default response because his reality is intolerable, and it's become his coping mechanism, and that's pathological.

• 39:39Vanessa Richardson?

  Do you think there's a part of Jean-Claude that actually believes some of his own lies?

• 39:43Tristin Engels?

  I think there probably is to some degree. But by that, I don't mean he's delusional and does not know that he doesn't work for the WHO. He knows he doesn't. He wouldn't have been driving to the WHO building, getting visitor passes, stealing stationery, hanging out until he had to come home to make the lie look realistic to his wife if he didn't. He wouldn't be worried about people realizing the truth if he didn't. He needs his lies to be real. He knows they're not factually true, but psychologically, he's living inside the reality he created. And that reality is constantly being reinforced because everyone called him doctor. Everyone around him is responding to the person that he invented.

• 40:28Tristin Engels?

  So as he's deceiving other people, and the further he goes into it, the more psychologically invested he can become in the identity those lies have created. And there is literature on pathological lying that describes the blurred relationship between this fantasy and reality. The person can retain the ability to recognize that something isn't factually true, meaning they retain reality testing, while becoming psychologically invested in the reality they've created. It's very common to see for individuals who have pathological lying.

• 41:02Vanessa Richardson?

  Investigators knew Jean-Claude was lying at every turn. They kept grilling him, hoping to wear him down, and it worked. After seven hours of questions, lies, and wild stories, Jean-Claude finally gave in and confessed to murdering his family. He was arrested on the spot and formally charged with the murders of his wife Florence, his children Caroline and Antoine, and his parents, Emma and Anne-Marie. With Jean-Claude under arrest, investigators kept questioning his surviving relatives and friends. That's when they learned about even more stolen money, beyond the 900,000 francs Corinne had reported. So they tacked on another charge of fraudulent misuse of funds.

• 41:47Vanessa Richardson?

  Once Jean-Claude was cleared to leave the hospital, he went right into custody to await trial. While he was in jail, he got a note from his friend, Luc Lamiral. Luc wrote that he'd attended the funeral for Florence and the children, and that the service had done right by them. Jean-Claude wrote back. He said he was working with a jail chaplain to help him find truth again, but that after a lifetime of lies, the truth was hard and painful. He said very little about his wife, children, or parents. He mostly kept the letter focused on himself. Then he added a request. If Luc happened to see any of Florence's friends or family, he should tell them Jean-Claude was sorry.

• 42:31Vanessa Richardson?

  When Luc read the letter, he didn't know what to make of it, so he showed it to one of Florence's brothers. The two agreed. Jean-Claude talked plenty about his own ordeal and barely mentioned the family he'd murdered. And Florence's brother was aghast that Jean-Claude had the nerve to casually ask Luc to deliver his apologies for him.

• 42:53Tristin Engels?

  Are we really surprised that Jean-Claude still remains self-focused in the end? I mean, even now, he seems to be trying to influence how people feel about him. He's responding to his best friend, who wrote to tell him about the services for his wife and children. That's a kindness that I'm not even sure he deserved. And instead of being grateful for that and taking the opportunity to focus his attention on them, he's describing his own struggle, that he's finding his truth, and he's painful, and he's suffering. And whether he's doing that consciously or not, that framing is exactly the kind of thing that we've seen Jean-Claude use to elicit sympathy before. When Jean-Claude is at risk of being seen negatively or exposed, he becomes sick or a victim.

• 43:39Tristin Engels?

  And historically, those narratives have caused people to respond to him with concern and compassion rather than, in this case, anger or disgust. So he's employing that same tactic, whether consciously or not. And I'm not saying he isn't experiencing some type of shame, guilt, or genuine distress. He may very well be, but given his history, I don't think it's because he's remorseful. I think it's more likely a response to being exposed.

• 44:07Vanessa Richardson?

  Does Jean-Claude really believe that having Luc deliver his apologies absolves him of wrongdoing?

• 44:13Tristin Engels?

  I don't think that's what he's doing. If you think about his pattern, he's done this before. When Florence broke up with him the first time, he staged an assault, and he ensured that her friends witnessed it. This was likely so that word would get back to her from them, rather than from him. And then he escalated it. He told someone he had lymphoma. He knew that person would tell Florence, and they did. That elicited sympathy, empathy, and maybe even pity, because it worked. She reached out, they reconnected, and then shortly after, they married. He used intermediaries to help manage how he was perceived and to help influence her emotionally even more and get what he wants. And he's doing it again.

• 44:56Tristin Engels?

  So in this case, if he can have Luc tell Florence's family that he's truth-seeking and in pain and that he's sorry, then he likely expects them to feel sympathy and forgiveness because it's coming from someone they trust more than they trust him. But really, it's manipulative, and quite frankly, it's cowardly.

• 45:16Vanessa Richardson?

  While Jean-Claude waited for his trial, he had plenty of time to think about himself and about how much the truth hurt. After only four months, he decided he couldn't take it any longer. On May 1, 1993, the anniversary of the day he first told Florence he loved her, back in 1975, Jean-Claude decided once more to end his life. But before he did, he heard a story on the radio. France's former Minister of Finance had taken his own life. Jean-Claude's first reaction was annoyance. Someone had stolen his thunder. But then he decided that reaction was itself a sign, a sign that he was supposed to live

• 45:59Vanessa Richardson?

  and to dedicate whatever suffering came next to his family's memory. And there was certainly more suffering ahead because soon, Jean-Claude would be forced to face his crimes head-on. In December of 1994, nearly two years after he committed the murders, police brought Jean-Claude back to the scene of the crime to walk the prosecution through his actions. The van pulled up to his former home. A wave of dread washed over Jean-Claude, and he refused to get out. Eventually, though, he gave in. They led Jean-Claude up to his former bedroom. One officer lay down on the bed, taking Florence's place, while the other stood in Jean-Claude's, holding a rolling pin.

• 46:43Vanessa Richardson?

  Then they made him direct the reenactment of his wife's murder. Jean-Claude struggled through the exercise. The room was charred, and the crime scene nearly two years old, but he could have sworn he recognized Florence's perfume. And when it came time to act out what he'd described, he couldn't bring himself to go through the motions. Next, police led him into his children's old bedroom. He saw two child-sized mannequins, dressed in pajamas, laid out on their beds. They were meant to be Caroline and Antoine. If the mannequins were meant to provoke a response, they did. When the examining magistrate told Jean-Claude to pick up the rifle, he fainted on the spot.

• 47:26Tristin Engels?

  I can imagine that when working with Jean-Claude in this scenario, it would be difficult to discern what is genuine from what is disingenuous, just given his extensive history of deception and feigning medical ailments. But at the same time, again, given what we know about Jean-Claude, he does repeatedly construct false realities when he struggles to tolerate actual reality. And in this moment, he's being confronted with the actual reality of what he did. For almost two years, he's been able to maintain some distance from this. He's talked about it, but now he's back there. And context and sensory cues can be very powerful retrieval cues, even for people who are very skilled at compartmentalizing.

• 48:11Tristin Engels?

  And now he's right back where it happened, surrounded by the same environment and sensory cues of that night. He's experiencing allegedly significant distress, but distress doesn't necessarily equal remorse. He could be experiencing grief, guilt, shame, horror, anxiety, or some combination of those emotions. That's assuming, though, that the fainting was genuine. If so, being forced to confront actual reality rather than the reality he created to make things more tolerable for himself is likely what he is reacting to.

• 48:47Vanessa Richardson?

  Why would sensory triggers, like the smell of Florence's perfume, hit Jean-Claude so much harder than just remembering his crimes?

• 48:55Tristin Engels?

  Because when Jean-Claude deliberately chooses to recall something, that's an element of control. He gets to decide what he talks about, how much detail he remembers or how much detail he provides, and how much he actually engages with the memory itself. Sensory cues are different because they're not necessarily deliberate. Memory's context-dependent, and it's associative. And in smell, in particular, that can be a very strong cue for emotional memories. So when Jean-Claude believed that he smelled Florence's perfume, it doesn't just necessarily activate memories of the crime. It could activate memories of her as a person.

• 49:36Tristin Engels?

  Florence as, you know, a friend, a wife, the mother of his children or their life together. Sensory memory can humanize her again, and that could be emotionally overwhelming.

• 49:49Vanessa Richardson?

  Once the authorities had their case together in the summer of 1996, Jean-Claude's trial began, and the prosecution had plenty of evidence that he'd swindled and murdered his family. They had his confession, and they had witnesses. The court heard all about the night he tried to kill Corinne and the money he'd stolen from her. Jean-Claude's uncle Claude took the stand, and Florence's family, including the aunt he'd sold the fake cancer cure to, described how much he'd taken from them, too. On top of all that, the prosecution argued his suicide attempt had been staged. They claimed he timed the fire for the exact hour the street cleaners passed by, and started it in the attic,

• 50:32Vanessa Richardson?

  where the flames would be spotted quickly. And they pointed out that the pills he swallowed were 10 years past their expiration date. Jean-Claude and his defense insisted it was real. In the end, the question was never definitively settled. Finally, Jean-Claude himself took the stand. He stuck to at least one story, that the lie he told after missing his second-year med school exams was the one that set the course for the rest of his life. Before the jury was excused to deliberate, Jean-Claude read one last statement. He asked for forgiveness from his victims and Florence's family. The jury deliberated for just five

• 51:13Vanessa Richardson?

  hours before convicting him on every charge. He was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole for 22 years. During that time, Jean-Claude was a model prisoner. An appeals court granted him conditional release in April of 2019, when he was 65. That June, he walked out of prison and was sent to live in a nearby monastery under electronic monitoring, with strict limits on his movements. He stayed with the monks until his probation ended. Since 2022, he has been fully released, living quietly in a village in the same region, still bound

• 51:54Vanessa Richardson?

  by court-ordered restrictions. Jean-Claude Romand spent his whole life lying to everyone around him, no matter how much he claimed to care for them. And he blamed those lies for forcing him to murder the people who should have meant the most to him. In the eyes of French law, Jean-Claude has paid for his crimes, but those who truly loved his wife, his children, and his parents feel differently. Florence's brother, Emmanuel Crolet, gave an interview to Radio France right before Jean-Claude was freed, and he said, "The word 'free' is hard to hear. For me, he's one."

• 52:43Tristin Engels?

  Before we get out of here, it's time for The Engels Angle, where I tell you three pieces of advice I'd give our subject if they were my patient. This is for educational and entertainment purposes only. This is general psychological commentary, not therapy, treatment, diagnosis, or individualized mental health advice. And it does not establish a psychologist-patient relationship. With those ethical disclaimers out of the way, here's what I'd tell Jean-Claude Romand if he came into my office. First, learn to tolerate failure, disappointment, and being ordinary. Jean-Claude spent so much of his life trying to create an identity around being superior or exceptional. He applied this to every

• 53:25Tristin Engels?

  aspect of his life. And whenever he felt the reality of being ordinary, average, maybe even inexperienced in comparison to others, whenever that was exposed or threatened in any way, he was not able to tolerate it. He responded by changing his reality. You have to learn to be comfortable with who you are, and knowing you won't always succeed at everything or be liked by everyone, and that's okay. Knowing that, accepting that, and tolerating that is what builds self-worth. And self-worth means you won't need to live in an alternate reality. My second piece of advice is to understand when lying is protective and when it's not.

• 54:05Tristin Engels?

  Jean-Claude used deception to manipulate, but also used it as avoidance. Lying solved problems, and it altered his reality. The moment you feel the strongest urge to lie is probably the moment you need to be the most truthful. So I would want him to recognize that urge as a warning sign and question what, in that moment, is he trying to avoid? Our discomfort tells us something. It's data. What's it saying? Also, I suspect that there was more learned behavior here within his family. If his father lied to him to avoid uncomfortable feelings, for example, and that was a pattern that went beyond his mother and her hospitalizations, then that could have taught Jean-Claude that

• 54:49Tristin Engels?

  he could do the same. He could lie to avoid his reality, and that that was acceptable. But it's not. And third, Jean-Claude manipulated people's emotions repeatedly to gain reassurance, compliance, admiration, sympathy, love, and forgiveness. And that's just what we know about, too. So my advice is this: Stop making other people responsible for maintaining the person that you need to believe you are. If someone rejects you, your job is to tolerate what that brings up in you and learn from it, not manipulate their perception or feelings until you feel better again. And that's my educational advice for Jean-Claude Romand.

• 55:33Tristin Engels?

  But before we wrap up, I do want to address something we mentioned throughout these episodes but never really discussed. Florence was Jean-Claude's distant cousin. And I know some of you probably heard that and thought, are we just going to move past that? The degree of relation is important to consider. And the reliable reporting that we found describes Florence specifically as a distant cousin, and we haven't found a reliable genealogical source establishing exactly how they were related. So I don't think we have enough information to characterize their relationship as incestuous or clinically unusual. And if you're wondering about their children, the increased genetic risks people commonly

• 56:15Tristin Engels?

  associate with cousins having children primarily concern closer genetics, and particularly first cousins. And we don't have evidence that they were first cousins. So those statistics don't apply with the information we have. So yes, they were related. No, I didn't forget about it. We had a lot of information to cover, and we just don't have enough information about how closely related they were for us to make anything meaningful out of it. Not to mention, 150 of their friends and family came to their wedding and supported their union. Thank you for joining me on this episode of Engels Angle. This is a new segment that we are doing, and I'd love to know what you think on our Instagram. I'll see you in the comments.

• 57:09Vanessa Richardson?

  Thanks so much for listening to our series on Jean-Claude Romand. We'll be back next time for a deep dive into the mind of another murderer.

• 57:17Tristin Engels?

  Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on all social media at @CrimeHouse. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow Serial Killers and Murderous Minds wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference.

• 57:39Vanessa Richardson?

  And to enhance your listening experience, join Crime House Plus and get both parts of every story dropped on the same Monday, completely ad-free. No waiting three days for part two, plus Crime House bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com. Or if you listen on Apple Podcasts, tap "Try Free" at the top of the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds page.

• 58:04Vanessa Richardson?

  Serial Killers and Murderous Minds is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson, and forensic psychologist Dr. Tristin Engels, and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Serial Killers and Murderous Minds team: Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Lori Marinelli, Natalie Pritzowski, Sarah Camp, Alyssa Fox, Mara De La Rosa, Claire Swartzlander, Sarah Batchelor, and Carrie Murphy. Thank you for listening.

• 58:40Vanessa Richardson?

  If you're looking for your next podcast, check out What the Fact with Connor Tomlinson from Netflix's Love on the Spectrum and Carter Roy. Every week, they take three unbelievable true facts from history and tell you the full story behind them. Follow What the Fact wherever you listen, or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod.