Stéphane Bourgoin
Bourgoin in 2011
Bourgoin in 2011
Occupation
LanguageFrench
NationalityFrench
GenreTrue crime
SubjectSerial killers

Stéphane Bourgoin also known as Etienne Jallieu (born 14 March 1953)[1] is a French author specialed in true crime.

Between 1990 and 2020, he presented himself as an expert in offender profiling and criminology and was considered as such by the French media. In 2020, after the revelation of improbability in his biography by various sources of information, he is forced to admit that he lied about several elements of his past that credited his purported expertise.[2][3]

Biography

Early life

Stéphane Bourgoin was born in Paris on 14 March 1953,[1] one of four children of Jean Bourgoin, a military engineer and his third wife, Franziska.[4] He was expelled from high school three times and does not hold any diploma.[5][6]

Career

In the 1970s, Stéphane Bourgoin was a columnist for B movies and Horror films for the fanzines Vampirella and L'Écran fantastique.[7]

According to The Guardian, "around the turn of the century, Bourgoin began speaking publicly of his wife’s death, and it quickly became the tragedy by which he was known". Bourgoin claimed that his wife, Eileen, had been brutally murdered by a serial killer, and that this tragedy motivated him to become an expert on serial killers.[3]

Bourgoin has written 75 books and produced dozens of documentaries,[2] with his books selling thousands of copies in France.[8][9] He was regarded as France's best known serial killer expert. He occasionally lectured police on the subject,[10][11] and critiqued media depictions of serial killers.[12] Bourgoin claimed to have provided the FBI with hours of film from his interviews with serial killers; he claimed that the FBI--grateful for his assistance--had trained him as an independent investigator.[3]

Some of Bourgoin's thousands of Facebook followers formed a group to more thoroughly investigate his stories. They found that many appeared to have been invented or plagiarized.[13] They published their findings in 2019, and after French media covered the issue, Bourgoin confessed. In 2020, he informed a Paris Match reporter that his oft-repeated claim that a serial killer had murdered his wife was fabricated; he apologized to his readers for the deception. In 2021, he told a Guardian reporter that he had in fact met only 30 rather than 77 serial killers and that he had never been trained by the FBI. In response to the scandal, Bourgoin was dropped by his publishers and producers.[3]

Personal life

Bourgoin claimed to have moved to the United States in the early 1970s, where he allegedly found his then-girlfriend murdered, raped and mutilated by a serial killer in 1976 in Los Angeles. He said that the event led him to try to understand what goes on in the mind of serial killers.[13] In 2020, however, Bourgoin confessed that the story was in fact an invention drawn from the case of Susan Bickrest, murdered at age 24 by serial killer Gerald Stano in 1975.[10][8]

References

  1. 1 2 Devos, Caroline (20 May 2020). "Stéphane Bourgoin, l'homme qui parlait aux serial killers" [Stéphane Bourgoin, the man who spoke to serial killers]. La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest (in French). Archived from the original on 2 May 2022. Pendant quarante ans, Stéphane Bourgoin a sillonné la France et écumé les plateaux de télévision pour diffuser sa science des serial killers. Mais récemment, l'expert a finalement reconnu avoir inventé une partie de son parcours.
  2. 1 2 Guy, Jack; Berteau, Benjamin; Stuber, Sophie (14 May 2020). "French serial killer expert admits his career is built on lies". CNN. Archived from the original on 14 May 2020. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Sayare, Scott (9 November 2021). "What lies beneath: the secrets of France's top serial killer expert". The Guardian. Retrieved 9 November 2021.
  4. ↑ "Stéphane Bourgoin serial menteur ? Dans Match, il passe aux aveux". parismatch.com (in French). 17 May 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2023.
  5. ↑ Lanez, Émilie (17 May 2020). "Stéphane Bourgoin serial menteur? Dans Match, il passe aux aveux" [Stéphane Bourgoin serial liar? In Match, he confesses]. Paris Match (in French).
  6. ↑ "Les mensonges de Stéphane Bourgoin, «spécialiste des tueurs en série»: «J'ai honte, je l'avoue»". www.lunion.fr (in French). 10 May 2020. Retrieved 30 December 2023.
  7. ↑ "En quelques dates". www.dna.fr (in French). Retrieved 5 January 2024.
  8. 1 2 Flood, Alison (13 May 2020). "French serial-killer expert admits serial lies, including murder of imaginary wife". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  9. ↑ Adejobi, Alicia (14 May 2020). "French serial killer author confesses to lying about imaginary wife's murder and admits he needs therapy". Metro. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  10. 1 2 "Stéphane Bourgoin, confessions d'un mythomane en série". Le Parisien. 13 May 2020.
  11. ↑ Bremner, Charles (13 May 2020). "Serial killer expert Stéphane Bourgoin made up his entire life history". The Times. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  12. ↑ Degbe, Esther (16 August 2019). "La série Mindhunter est-elle réaliste? L'expert Stéphane Bourgoin répond" [Is the Mindhunter series realistic? Expert Stéphane Bourgoin answers]. The Huffington Post (in French). Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  13. 1 2 Collins, Lauren (4 April 2022). "The Unravelling of an Expert on Serial Killers". New Yorker. Retrieved 11 May 2022.
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