Vampire of Paris: The story of Nico Claux
Nico in Prison
Nico Claux's early prison years were spent in Fleury-Merogis, just south of Paris, where he remained for four years and two months until February 1999, when he was transferred to Maison Centrale Poissy, about 15 miles northwest of Paris. In all, there are six "Maison Centrales" in France, each holding at least 200 inmates. Considered maximum security, Poissy has a reputation among inmates as being the place where they lock up serial killers and terrorists. During his stay there, Claux says that he shared his block with at least six serial killers.
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Claux: “For two years I studied computer programming at the state’s expense, but in reality, I spent more time in the gym, paint room and recreation yard than I did in the class rooms. I had started painting in 1997, and soon learned that I had a natural talent. I was also part of the prison's video team, where I learned filming and editing with DV camcorders. We would film concerts, football games, and boxing fights.”
When asked by Angry Thoreauan Magazine (yes, there really is a publication by that name) about the emotional experience of eating human flesh, Nico stated that, "It feels like touching the face of God. It makes you feel like you don't belong to the human race anymore."
In an interview with the Great Falls (Mont.) Tribune , Clancy McKenzie, a professor of psychology at Capital University in Washington, D.C., stated that cannibalism is a psychotic behavior, which is almost always related to a previous trauma, often in infancy. McKenzie maintained that during the second half-year of life, when children are weaned from the breast, they fantasize about devouring their mother. In later years, some sort of trauma, especially if suffered at a critical young age, may trigger the regression to this stage of development. When such individuals are eventually arrested, and on rare occasions eventually returned to society, with all its "emotional expression," it makes them all the more likely to repeat the problem behavior. "I shudder when they let people out of institutions and send them back home,” McKenzie said.
Dr. Park Dietz, a national expert on criminal psychosis who testified at the Jeffrey Dahmer trial, has a different theory. He said that one should not look too closely at early childhood, as millions of people who suffer childhood trauma never become psychotic criminals. “Another motivation could be a desire to take a life of crime to an ultimate level. Cannibalism is beyond the pale -- the last frontier of being a bad boy," Dietz said.
