Widow of French serial killer goes on trial in unsolved case

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The widow of the French serial killer known as the “Ghost of the Ardennes” is facing charges over her role in three murders dating back decades, including the murder of a British woman whose body was found in a river in 1990. , will go on trial starting Tuesday.

Monique Olivier was married to Michel Fourniret, who was charged with kidnapping, rape and murder in the case, but died in 2021 at the age of 79 before she could go to trial.

The crimes date back to 1988 in the case of Marie-Angel Domes, who disappeared at the age of 18 in Auxerre, and to 1990 in the case of Joanna Parrish, a 20-year-old British woman whose naked body was buried in the Yonne River, which runs through the department. was discovered in Same name in central France.

Olivier is charged with aiding and abetting the girls’ kidnapping and murder.

Her third charge is complicity in the 2003 disappearance of nine-year-old Estelle Mouzan, whose body has not been found for more than 20 years despite an intensive search.

Domes’ body has never been found.

Many of the witnesses expected to be called during the three-week trial are agents from France and Belgium, where Fourniret was arrested in 2003.

They will include investigative judge Sabine Keris, who accepted Fourniret’s confession.

She is currently the head of the recently established “Cold Cases” department, based in Nanterre, a suburb of Paris. This case is the first for this unit to go to trial.

For years, France has been both repelled and fascinated by Fourniret’s crimes. Fourniret was nicknamed by the media the “Ghost of the Ardennes” because he lived in the hills on the French-Belgian border and preyed on his victims.

“A very long battle”

Didier Seban, a lawyer representing Estelle’s father Eric, said the trial was “the result of a very long battle”.

The fact that Fourniret was not brought to justice for the crime “shows that we were not able to conduct the investigation the way we should have done it,” Sevan said.

Ms. Fourniret herself asked for a trial in all three cases in 2008, but “nothing was done,” said Monique Hellman, a lawyer for Ms. Domes’ family.

For Eric Mousin, who is dedicated to finding out what happened to his daughter, the trial of Olivier alone is “a bit off base.”

“It would be difficult to pass a sentence on just one defendant,” he said, even though Olivier himself was charged with “serious” crimes.

He wants nothing more from the woman in the dock than for her to receive a sentence “commensurate with the seriousness of the crime.”

Olivier’s lawyer, Richard Delgenes, said the court “should not expect any revelations” from her side, but that her “participation” in the process is what distinguishes her from her husband. Ta.

“Unlike him, she doesn’t particularly take pleasure in the pain of victims and their families,” he added.

The 75-year-old has already been convicted twice for aiding and abetting in some of her husband’s crimes.

She ran away from her violent first husband in the early 1980s, had two children with him, and later became a pen pal of Fourniret, who was serving a sentence for rape.

“There’s only one person in charge”

The two made a pact to find a virgin and rape her if she would kill her then-husband, which he never did.

After his release in 1987, they lived together, bought a chateau with stolen money dug up from a cemetery, and had a son.

Olivier was sentenced to life in prison in 2008 for his involvement in Fourniret’s four murders and rapes.

In 2018, Olivier was sentenced to an additional 20 years in prison for his role in the murder of Farida Hammish, the wife of Fourniret’s former cellmate.

In 2019, she overturned Esther Mouzan’s husband’s alibi for the day she disappeared and held him accountable months later.

Mr. Fourniret had previously admitted to killing Mr. Parrish and Mr. Domes.

“I am the only one responsible for their fate…If those people had not crossed my path, they would still be alive,” he told investigators.

Olivier said in 2020 that her husband kidnapped, raped and murdered Mousin, and that fragments of Mousin’s DNA were found on a mattress seized from the couple’s home in 2003.

And in 2021, she admitted for the first time her role in the incident, saying she was with her husband when he buried the girl’s body near the Ardennes forest.

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Source: guardian.ng