His behaviour started to become erratic and violent towards the other children, and eventually, his mother asked his father to take their son to metropolitan France.
At the age of 17, he decided to enter military service early, joining a logistics branch of the airborne forces.
[citation needed] On 14 November 1982, he robbed an old woman in her grocery, menacing her with a knife; the grocer knew him as a customer, however, and he was soon arrested.
[citation needed] In 1984, after leaving the army, Paulin learned that his mother and her family now lived in Nanterre, a western suburb of Paris.
The violence of the crimes was notable; some of the victims had their heads stuck into plastic bags, some were beaten to death, and one of them was forced to drink drain cleaner.
"[3] At the same time, Paulin and Mathurin were leading an extravagant lifestyle, spending their nights dancing, drinking champagne, and snorting cocaine.
Mathurin returned to Paris, while Paulin tried to start his own firm of transvestite artists, a plan which failed in the autumn of 1985.
Knowing that he was in effect under a death sentence from AIDS, Paulin organized lavish parties, spending a lot of money and sparing no expense.
As Paulin celebrated his 24th birthday, Finalteri unexpectedly recovered, and was able to give an accurate description of her attacker, stating that he was "un métis d'une vingtaine d'années coiffé à la Carl Lewis, avec une boucle d'oreille à l'oreille gauche" (literally "a mix-race man in his twenties, with hair like Carl Lewis and an earring in his left ear").
On 1 December, Paulin was arrested while walking down the street when a local police inspector, Francis Jacob, recognized him from Finalteri's description.
[8] The 1994 film J'ai pas sommeil (I Can't Sleep) by director Claire Denis was based on the Paulin case.