What did Stéphane Bourgoin do? Exploring the fraudster's career ahead of Killer Lies: Chasing a True Crime Con Man

Season one of Killer Lies: Chasing a True Crime Con Man on National Geographic will focus on the story of Stéphane Bourgoin, a French resident and a man of many lies.

Season one of Killer Lies: Chasing a True Crime Con Man will have three episodes, the first of which will air August 28, 2024, at 8 p.m. EST.

The official synopsis of the episode reads as follows:

"The New Yorker’s Lauren Collins tracks the rise and fall of a serial killer expert, whose dark lies are exposed by his sleuthing fans."

Reportedly, the renowned author of numerous real crime novels and expert on serial killers, Stéphane Bourgoin, admitted to media outlets in 2021 that the majority of his career had been built on fabrications. Stéphane Bourgoin frequently told lies to the world and his followers, to get notoriety, attention, and the spotlight.

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Stéphane Bourgoin was a pathalogial liar

Stéphane Bourgoin neither killed anyone nor was he arrested for a crime. However, he deceived millions of people with a fake profile of himself. He called himself a crime expert who has interviewed more than 70 serial killers. Reportedly, most of his work was found to be plagiarised or made up in 2020.

In 2020, he also confessed that his story about his wife getting murdered was a lie. His claims of meeting Charles Manson and several other killers were a lie too. It is believed that he only interviewed 30 serial killers rather than 77 as he had claimed.

At the end of the day, everything that people believed Stéphane to be—the walking true crime encyclopedia—was false. Although he became well-known and published multiple books, all of his claims and tales turned out to be false or made up.

Stéphane Bourgoin also appeared in numerous true-crime documentaries. Allegedly, he identified himself as an independent investigator, claiming to have received training for the role from the FBI and to have been issued such designation. In addition, he reported to have met with 77 serial killers and given the FBI 100 hours of recorded interviews in support of this allegation. The FBI, however, never made the same claim or verified it.

After all the revelations about Stéphane Bourgoin, his books were taken off bookshelves. Most of the publishers denied him and his documentary was also called off. Although he tried to self-publish his stories, after being exposed, it did not work out well for him.

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Stéphane Bourgoin was exposed by 4th Eye aka 4ème Oeil Corporation

The 4th Eye came to the rescue to let the world know about Stéphane Bourgoin and his long list of lies. They started their online campaign to make more people aware of the same. The online group took a deeper dive into Stéphane’s inconsistencies and they found out about the majority of his life, his works, and even his claims being a lie. They busted him by publishing the truth on their YouTube Channel ~ '4th Eye Corporation' in 2020.

Later in 2020, in an interview with Paris Match, he talked about how his story of his wife’s death was a lie. In 2021, he also confessed to all his other fabrications to The Guardian, such as meeting only 30 serial killers and never having been trained by the FBI.

He also talked to The Independent in May 2020 about how he had lied about his wife’s murder. In reality, it was not his wife who was killed. After the murder of Susan Bickrest on December 20, 1975, by Gerald Stano, he made up his mind to make it a story of his own. He made it all about himself and his wife getting murdered, rap*d, and dismembered, which never happened in real life. Here is what he said,

“I didn’t want people to know the true identity of someone who wasn’t my partner, but rather someone I’d met five or six times in Daytona Beach, and whom I liked.”

He also revealed to The Guardian how he went too far with his lies and now believes that he would have been better off if he had not lied. Concerning that, he said,

“I went too far. It’s my fault, after all! I recognize that. My accomplishments might have been enough on their own, without my additions. I love to write!”

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To know more about Stéphane Bourgoin and his long list of lies, watch season one episode one of Killer Lies: Chasing a True Crime Con Man on National Geographic.