[citation needed] The version of his life presented in his semi-biographical novel, Papillon, claimed that Charrière was convicted on 26 October 1931 of the murder of a pimp named Roland Le Petit, a charge that he strongly denied.

[citation needed] According to the book, he made his first escape on 28 November 1933[1] and was joined by fellow prisoners André Maturette and Joanes Clousiot, who would accompany him throughout much of his time on the run.

Charrière subsequently escaped during a rainy night and fled to the La Guajira Peninsula, where he was adopted by an indigenous tribe.

However, he finally achieved his permanent liberation in 1941 by using a bag of coconuts as a makeshift raft and, riding the tide out from the island, he escaped with another convict.

[citation needed] After meeting up with some escaped Chinese prisoners on the mainland, they bought a boat and sailed to Georgetown, British Guiana.

After almost a year, a bored Charrière then joined another group of escaped convicts in a new boat with the intent of reaching British Honduras.

[2] French records of his life from 1933–1944 present a different account: He left the citadel of Saint-Martin-de-Ré on 29 September 1933 aboard the Martinière and landed on 14 October with the status of "transported" to Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni.

There was little time left in the transportation camp, as he was assigned as a nursing assistant to the André-Bouron Colonial Hospital, where he saw many inmates returning from the run who told him their escape stories, from which he drew inspiration.

Charrière played the part of a jewel thief in a 1970 film called Popsy Pop directed by the French director Jean Vautrin, and released internationally in English as The Butterfly Affair.

The Four Truths of Papillon), Georges Ménager, a former Paris Match reporter, claims that Charrière was in fact a police informer and a pimp before his incarceration, and lived off the proceeds of his girlfriend's prostitution, and that he later tried to blame her for the murder of Roland Legrande.

Charrière claims to have been incarcerated in Saint Laurent and may have escaped from there, but according to French officials, he never served any time on Devil's Island.

Critics claim that the heroic rescue of a guard's young daughter from sharks, which Charrière describes graphically in his book, was in fact carried out by another convict named Alfred Steffen who lost both legs and subsequently died.

"[11] French journalist Gerard de Villiers, author of Papillon Épinglé ("Butterfly Pinned"), maintains: "Only about 10 percent of Charrière's book represents the truth.