![]() ![]() It was pitch dark and a noise on the staircase had woken me up. The scene occurs also in the Netflix series. He described one moment after Sobhraj’s escape. As in the series, he acquired a handgun, straining his relationship with his wife, Angela. Knippenberg eventually convinced Thai police to apprehend Sobhraj, but Sobhraj soon after escaped to India. He even connected the murder to several others, which had occurred across Thailand. ![]() After more research, Knippenberg was able to identify “Alain Gautier” (Sobhraj) as the likely killer. Speaking to the victim’s parents Knippenberg discovered Bintanja and Hemker had made contact with a gem dealer in Thailand. “What shocked me the most,” Knippenberg explained, “was when the pathologist at the mortuary told me there was soot in their lungs, which indicated they had both been set alight when they were still alive.”īilly Howle as Herman Knippenberg Netflix The bodies of the travelers had been burned. Shortly after hearing word of the missing travelers, Knippenberg sought dental records and was able to identify both at a Thai mortuary. Sobhraj was, in fact, picking up western travelers, taking them to his apartment compound, drugging them, robbing them, and, on several occasions and with the help of Ajay Chowdhury, killing them. Unknown to Knippenberg, Charles Sobhraj-using the alias “Alain Gautier”-was living in Thailand and posing as a gem dealer. But I wouldn't give up on them, even though I knew I was putting my career in danger.” The ambassador told me to stop and he even sent me on leave at one point. “The more I saw it, the more I knew I had to follow this. Knippenberg couldn’t let the incident go, even though his superiors told him to forget it. “I’d been travelling in my 20s, and I knew that people like Henk and Cornelia would keep in touch.” “These were Dutch citizens, and the parents had every right to think we would help,” Knippenberg told the Daily Mail in an interview. They had been traveling on the “hippie trail” across Asia when they went missing. The couple, Henk Bintanja (29) and Cornelia Hemker (25), hadn’t communicated home for some time. In 1976, Knippenberg and the embassy received word from the concerned families of two Dutch travelers. Here’s how Knippenberg might have experienced it. I was gripped myself and had to make up my mind whether indeed it was as Billy Howle played it or as I had experienced it, it came dangerously close.” "It was so real at times, some of the scenes I saw. “I think that Billy Howle did a fantastic job," he said in another recent interview. ![]() Knippenberg has praised the team’s fidelity to the story, saying the series got many details correct. “Herman being Herman, he turned up on set before everyone else and was ready and waiting to see what this day of filming had offer,” Howle said in an interview. The hero is real.īilly Howle, the actor who portrays Knippenberg, had spoken to the former diplomat over phone during preparation for the role, but he only first met the man when on set. Knippenberg’s role in those events is documented. The Serpent chronicles real events taking place primarily between 19. Of course, Knippenberg isn’t a fictional character. And, by all accounts, he is the story’s hero. How Knippenberg hunts Sobhraj isn’t through car trailing or interrogation or shadowy lurking. What forces him into obsessiveness and compulsion isn’t some sort of ego drive-I’ll show them I’m right!-nor any killer-hunting fetish Knippenberg appears driven solely by his duty to office and country, and to the families of two travelers found dead in Thailand. He’s told to hand over his findings to the Thai police. But unlike his cinematic predecessors, Knippenberg has no business handling the investigation. Knippenberg, the on-screen character, fills the series’ truth-seeking detective role. You’d be hard pressed to find a fictional hero as compelling as Herman Knippenberg, the Dutch diplomat in Netflix’s The Serpent who initiates an international investigation into the crimes of Charles Sobhraj, a con man and killer responsible for at least a dozen murders. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |