Serial killers released from the Serpent in Panama Strangler and Monster of Andes

He was nicknamed the Serpent, the serial killer who struck terror in South Asia as he preyed on Western backpackers along the Hippie Trail in the 1970s.

Charles Sobhraj allegedly murdered at least 24 tourists, 14 of them in Thailand alone.

The Frenchman of Indo-Vietnamese origin drugged his victims and then chased them to the countryside where he brutally killed them.

The sadist's preferred method was to make his victims sick - using anything from diarrhea-inducing pills to scratching powder - before strangling them, maiming them with a knife, or shooting them.

Sobhraj was serving a life sentence after being convicted in 2004 of the murder of an American tourist, Connie Jo Bronzich, in 1975. In 2014, Sobhraj was also convicted of the murder of his Canadian companion, Laurent Carriere.

French serial killer Charles Sobhraj sits on a plane on his return trip to France (

Picture:

AFP via Getty Images)

But the killer, now 78, was released last week and deported to France after a court ruled in favor of his age and good behavior.

It's unclear how he plans to live out the rest of his life, but he's not the first serial killer to be released into society. Here are some of the most notorious…

Charlene Gallego