Vampire of Paris: The story of Nico Claux

Nico Claux Hoax?

After serving just seven years and four months of a 12-year sentence, Nicolas Claux was released from prison on March 22, 2002.

Nico Claux after his release (Courtesy of Nico Claux)

What to make of this story?

I'm having some trouble harmonizing Nico's stated bizarre behavior with his coldly rational intellect. Immersing oneself in the putrefying remains of a corpse and eating the flesh of a dead person are at odds with that intellect, which would, at a minimum, be able to appreciate the incredible threat to one's health if that behavior really occurred. Frankly, I'm tempted to view these sensational accounts as either hallucinations or outright fabrications.

The only thing we know for sure was that Nico Claux robbed and killed a man in cold blood and then tried to use one of his victim's checks to buy a video camera. In the actual documents of the case that there is no mention of any grave robbing, necrophilia, vampirism or cannibalism, nor does there appear to be anything in the French media about Claux being anything but a thief and a murderer. One would expect that the French press would have a heyday with the case had there been any real evidence of the perversions that Nico Claux claimed.

Shortly after release from prison, Claux used his prison training in computer programming to create a web site to promote his drawings and painting of famous killers. His stories of grave robbing, cannibalism, etc. got him booked on talk shows, which further boosted his macabre celebrity status.

There is reason to believe that Claux's public image is undergoing some serious re-engineering from the scary portrait of Nico that his own words created in earlier chapters of this feature story. For example, clearly stated on his web site:

"This website is my only official website. The other unnofficial sites you might find online focus on a past that I am now a long way away from. I have worked hard to improve myself through the development of artistic abilities. I cannot erase the past, but my goal is to channel the negativity that I have caused into pure creativity. I do not endorse any other sites than this one. I do not profit from my past, and I do not encourage other people into doing the things that I have done. The spiritual and social prices to pay are far too high."

He says that he will not practice cannibalism again -- which is certainly a plus.

For a period of time, Nico lived in Sweden and England, but he returned to Paris in September, 2004 and lives with his girlfriend in an apartment there. .

Looking at his recent photos from his web site, it appears as though he has settled into a lifestyle that is a kind of campy Goth, filled with artwork and photography about serial killers and the occult. The overriding theme is that he does not appear to be a loner anymore. He has many friends, albeit unusual-looking ones, but friends nevertheless. In reading what Claux says about his childhood lonliness and the inability of his parents to physically demonstrate affection, it appears as though that emotional vacuum has been filled with a number of friends and many acquaintances made through his web site and Internet groups.

He has decorated his body extensively with tatoos and attends fetish, Goth and tattoo conventions.

His celebrity status as the "Vampire of Paris," while it has its downsides as a resume item for conventional positions, provides him opportunities for television and magazine interviews which allows him to travel around Europe and sell his artwork.

He's clearly an intelligent man. I wonder what the next step in his evolution will be -- after he gets bored with his current goth lifestyle. There's no future it being an aging vampire.