Monique Olivier taken into custody

Michel Fourniret’s ex-wife is being questioned in connection with the disappearance of Cécile Vallin in Savoie 27 years ago. The young woman’s name was mentioned during the trial for the kidnapping of Estelle Mouzin.

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Monique Olivier, at the Paris Assize Court, in November 2023. (MIGUEL MEDINA / AFP)

Michel Fourniret’s ex-wife, Monique Olivier, has been placed in police custody, franceinfo learned from a source close to the case, confirming information from Le Parisien. She is being questioned in connection with the disappearance of Cécile Vallin in 1997 in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne (Savoie). Monique Olivier is being questioned by investigators from the Central Office for the Suppression of Violence against Persons (OCRVP).

The name of Cécile Vallin was mentioned during the trial of Monique Olivier for the kidnappings of Estelle Mouzin, Joanna Parrish and Marie-Angèle Domèce. During this trial, a document was mentioned by the civil parties, it is a hearing of Monique Olivier on July 13, 2005 by the Belgian police. In this hearing that franceinfo was able to consult, Monique Olivier explained that “If Fourniret brought this young girl home, it was to sexually abuse her. If he abused her, he was not going to let her leave alive.”.

Monique Olivier places the facts at the end of the 1997 school year, but Cécile Vallin, 17, disappeared on June 8 of that same year – admittedly, very far from Sart-Custinne, where Michel Fourniret lived – in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, in Savoie. In her hearing before the Belgian police, Monique Olivier said that the young girl abducted by her ex-husband “had an apparent age of 16 to 18 years, had light-coloured hair, was no taller than Fourniret. She was white”. A description that may correspond to Cécile Vallin.

In addition, it is known that Michel Fourniret drove his white van a lot. This lead that incriminates Michel Fourniret, Cécile Vallin’s father, Jonathan Oliver, has never excluded it, as he recently confided to franceinfo. His lawyer, Caty Richard, had been asking the Nanterre cold cases unit for several months to hear Monique Olivier, and this is now the case. Contacted by franceinfo, Richard Delgenes, Monique Olivier’s lawyer, did not immediately wish to comment. Also contacted by franceinfo, Caty Richard made no comment.

This case was transferred in September 2022 to the national judicial center in Nanterre dedicated to cold cases. 25 years after the events, a judicial investigation is still open in this case on charges of “arbitrary arrest, kidnapping, sequestration or detention”.


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