THE PLAYBOY MURDERER

Channel 4 · TV Week · 06 Jul 2010 · by: Channel 4

The fifth run of the First Cut strand, presenting bold, bright and original films by up-and-coming directors, returns with Rachel Williams' film on the playboy murderer, Thanos Papalexis. Going behind newspaper headlines, this documentary paints a chilling portrait of a murderer and fantasist.

In the space of a year this Gatsby-like Brit went from hosting fundraising parties for US President Bill Clinton to being convicted of the brutal murder of 56-year-old Charalambos Christodoulides - a harmless, gentle loner known as Bambi - because he unwittingly stood in the way of a property deal. The story of ambition, vanity, adultery and murder is revealed from the public schools of London to Florida's millionaire's row in Palm Beach, using central first person testimonies, exclusive access to police-recorded audio interviews with Thanos himself and dramatised reconstructions shot on location in the US and UK.

In March 2000, Thanos Papalexis had been trying to flip a warehouse property deal in London and desperately needed Charles (Charalambos Christodoulides), the sitting tenant, to leave the property. Charles was brutally beaten and then strangled by Thanos and two of his Albanian employees.

Shortly after the body was discovered, Thanos left the country to start a new life in Miami with his girlfriend. Over the next eight years he led the life of a multi-millionaire playboy, driving Bentleys, leasing private jets and living in mansion houses on the island of Palm Beach.

Despite marrying his girlfriend and having a son, he also embarked on several affairs, including one with prostitute Rebecca de Falco, to whom he later confessed the murder in England, describing the victim as a "nobody". Meanwhile, in London, the police were building a case against him, gathering forensic evidence and witness testimony, and building a telephony investigation before making their arrest in 2008.