After she was released in 1941 she lived in the town of Nantes, where she was joined by her mother. She assumed a false identity and earned a livelihood as a hotel maid. Some accounts state that Léa died in 1982, but French film producer Claude Ventura claims to have discovered Léa living in a hospice center in France in 2000 while creating the film "En Quête des Soeurs Papin" ("In Search of the Papin Sisters"). The woman he claimed to be Léa had suffered a stroke which had rendered her partially paralyzed and unable to speak. This woman died in 2001. Although the sisters were deemed sane and fit to stand trial, the psychological community struggled and debated over a diagnosis for the two. After much consideration it was concluded that the sisters suffered from "Shared Paranoid Disorder", which is believed to occur when groups or pairs of people are isolated from the world, developing paranoia, and in which one partner dominates the other. This is especially true of Léa, whose meek personality was overshadowed by obstinate and dominant Christine. The case had a huge impact on the community and was debated intensely by the intelligentsia. Some people considered that the murders had been the result of "exploitation of the workers", considering that the maids worked fourteen-hour days, with only a half-day off each week. Intellectuals empathized with the sisters' oppressive struggle of the social classes. The play "Les Bonnes" by French writer Jean Genet often is thought to be based on the Papin sisters, although Genet said this was not the case. However, the play deals with the plight of two French maids who resemble the Papin sisters, and highlights the dissatisfaction of the maids with their lot in life, which manifests itself in a hatred for their mistress. Genet's interest in the crime of the Papin sisters stemmed at least partly from his contempt for the middle classes, along with his understanding of how a murderer could glory in the infamy that came from the crime.