Warning: This article contains discussion of rape which some readers may find distressing.
Before there were serial killer podcasts, Netflix documentaries or live TV broadcasts of real life murder trials, there was Stéphane Bourgoin.
Bourgoin was a prolific true-crime investigator, author and documentarian, who - back in the 1990s - paved the way for millions of people who had a fascination with the macabre.
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Prior to releasing countless books, producing hoards of crime series', and appearing as an 'expert' on psychological discussion panels all over the world, he'd moved from France to the US.
It was following this move in the 1970s that the Frenchman was trained by the FBI in killer profiling, sat down and interviewed as many as 77 of the world's deadliest serial murderers, and tragically lost his own wife, Eileen, at the hands of a vicious killer... or so he claimed.
Born in Paris in 1953, Bourgoin launched his career in the chilling field of true-crime in 1991, when he and a team of low-budget documentarians arranged an interview with serial killer Gerard Schaefer - who was convicted in 1972 for the murders and mutilation of two teenage girls, as well as suspected murders of 26 others.
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In the weeks that followed, he and his team also met with Ottis Toole - otherwise known as the 'Jacksonville Cannibal' - who'd violently murdered six people.
Bourgoin also met with several other police investigators who'd fronted pivotal murder investigations, including forensic profiler Micki Pistorius, who was responsible for taking down several of her home-country South Africa's most villainous murderers.
On top of this, he also met with the victims of some of the world's most heinous crimes, including Dahina Sy-Le Guennan, who narrowly escaped after being raped by Michel Fourniret, who was later convicted for the serial killings of 12 people across France and Belgium from 1987 to 2003.
By this point, Bourgoin had harboured himself quite the prestigious reputation as a 'true crime expert'.
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He'd guest lecture for trainees at the French national judiciary police academy, liaise with police, critique media depictions of killers, and write best-selling books.
It wasn't until he'd had been in the business for over 30 years that a handful of his most devout followers began to notice inconsistencies in his some of his most shocking claims.
Coming together online, these eagle-eyed true-crime fanatics dubbed themselves the '4th Eye Corporation' - a play on one of Bourgoin's own Parisian self-owned bookshops, the 3rd Eye - and set up a mission to expose him for his lies.
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The definitive amount of killers he'd actually met with and interviewed also fluctuated depending on the interview, and the claim that he'd once met with notorious cult leader Charles Manson was also found to have no evidence.
Meeting with retired special agent John Douglas, they discovered that he hadn't received an ounce of FBI training, and that the 'official' badge and t-shirt he'd boasted from the HQ bosses on the day of his visit wasn't, in fact, official.
They also got in touch with the family of Gerard Schaefer, who clarified that Bourgoin had not been gifted an urn containing his remains upon his passing - a controversial claim that the Frenchman had previously made on Facebook.
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The 4th Eye also found that the French version of one of Bourgoin's best-selling crime memoire was a word-for-word rip-off of a written work published by Micki Pistorius called 'Catch Me a Killer'.
He'd also forged an interview with Dahina Sy-Le Guennan, which he'd placed inside a comic book written about French killer Michel Fourniret's crimes.
One of the most disturbing finds that the 4th Eye made, however, surrounded Bourgoin's claims about the gut-wrenching fate that befell his late wife, Eileen.
In countless interviews, he told the story of the day he arrived home from work to find her raped, mutilated and murdered body in their home, claiming she'd been killed by a serial killer who was currently serving time on death row.
He even shared a black and white photo of himself holding Eileen in his arms on one of his popular crime documentaries.
In researching her, however, the 4th Eye noticed that in several interviews, he'd described Eileen as his 'wife', in others his 'girlfriend', and in some as a 'very close friend'.
They also found no record of a woman named Eileen having been murdered in the US in the late 1970s, nor of a man on death row serving time for having killed several individuals.
After compiling all their evidence, the members behind the 4th Eye published their findings in a YouTube video, exposing Bourgoin as a liar.
The shocking revelation hit headlines all over the world, leading Bourgoin to lose book deals, be axed from talk-shows, and be dropped by his agent.
It also prompted him to issue a partial confession for his mistruths.
The Frenchman admitted to 'exaggerating' his claim about interviewing Charles Manson, and 'lying on purpose' about his meetings with other killers in order to accumulate authority on the crimes.
He also confessed to fabricating his story about being trained by the FBI, and said the claim he made about harbouring Schaefer's remains in his home was 'a joke'.
Bourgoin added that his publishers had included the forged interview with victim Dahina Le Guennan - and insisted that he had not wanted to - but admitted he did claim that several of things that happened to Micky Pistorius on crime scenes actually happened to him.
The only subject he refused to confess to lying about? The fate of Eileen.
It was then that the 4th Eye recruited the help of The New Yorker journalist Lauren Collins, who set about trying to uncover the identity of the woman in the photo that Bourgoin had once claimed was Eileen.
Such is the tale told in riveting new National Geographic documentary series Killer Lies: Chasing A True Crime Conman.
Eventually, sitting down with producers for the programme, Bourgoin confessed that the event that initially sparked his interest in crime didn't actually happen to a wife, but insists it did happen.
To this day, he claims that a woman he met upon his arrival into the States - whom he had 'relations with, three times' - had been murdered after he'd returned to France.
He still refuses to disclose the woman's name, however, but says she is not called Eileen, and that she is not the woman in the famous black and white photo, who is actually a Spanish actress whom he once worked producing B-movies with prior to his career in true-crime.
Confronted by producers, he admits of the photo: "At first, I never thought that that picture would be published.
"I didn't think it would last more than the moment it shown. I admit that it was cruel, it was stupid, but it's true that my interest in serial killers stemmed from the murder of this girlfriend."
He adds in the documentary: "[The story is] part of my life. There are some aspects of my life I don't want to be known. I don't like to be in the spot."
Killer Lies: Chasing A True Crime Conman concludes tonight on National Geographic at 9pm.
Topics: Crime, True Crime, News, World News, Documentaries, TV And Film
Rhianna Benson