it will be “one of the last times that we will be able to hear it in full”, according to the lawyer of the victims’ families

The ex-partner of Michel Fourniret is on trial from Tuesday before the Nanterre Assize Court, for complicity in three kidnapping cases, including that of Estelle Mouzin in 2003.

She is the last voice of the deadliest couple in French criminal history. The trial of Monique Olivier opens Tuesday, November 28 before the Assize Court of Nanterre, in Hauts-de-Seine. The ex-partner of Michel Fourniret, who is currently serving a life sentence for complicity in crimes, appeared alone, the serial killer having died in May 2021.

For three weeks, Monique Olivier will be tried for complicity in three cases of kidnapping and sequestration followed by death, those of Marie-Angèle Domece in 1988, Joanna Parrish in 1990 and little Estelle Mouzin in 2003. To date, the Fourniret-Olivier couple was indicted by the courts for 12 murders of young girls and children, but Michel Fourniret only admitted eight of them. There could be a lot more crimes and now Monique Olivier is the only one who can talk about it.

At 75, Monique Olivier is the only one to hold the secrets of her couple’s murderous journey. This “evil duo” formed in 1987. From the prison where he was incarcerated for sexual assault, Michel Fourniret placed a small ad in the newspaper Pilgrim : “Prisoner would like to correspond with anyone of any age to forget loneliness,” he writes. Monique Olivier answers him and thus begins their union, coupled with a criminal pact, which will last 16 years. Monique Olivier asks “her beast” as she calls him, to kill her violent ex-husband. Michel Fourniret, who will not do so in the end, demands in exchange that she help him “hunt virgins”, this is how he describes the young girls he will rape and kill until his arrest in 2003 in Belgium.

A macabre countdown

In 2004, after a hundred interrogations, Monique Olivier broke down and confessed to investigators to six, eight then ten murders of her husband. Fifteen years later, in 2019, Monique Olivier also recognizes the involvement of her companion in the death of little Estelle Mouzin, then in that of Lydie Logé. This macabre count still makes Michel Fourniret and Monique Olivier the deadliest couple in French judicial history.

“We are convinced, and I am certain, that there are still 15 or 20 victims, at least and maybe even more.”

Francis Nachbar, former prosecutor of Charleville-Mézières

at franceinfo

A period particularly worries investigators, a blank decade, between 1990 and 2000, during which no murder could be formally attributed to the couple. Yet Michel Fourniret killed a lot during these ten years, says Francis Nachbar, former prosecutor in Charleville-Mézières. He has just written a book entitled “My encounter with evil” about this couple whom he knew very well. “Fourniret told me: ‘I, Mr. Prosecutor, you know when I went hunting, it was once or twice a year, it was rather twice than once. And when I went to hunting, it was very, very rare that I came back empty-handed. It was a pheasant or a warren’, that’s how he talked about young girls, there was always something.” relates the former prosecutor.

In several unsolved cases, the shadow of the couple looms

The extraordinary profile of Michel Fourniret inspired, according to a source close to the case at franceinfo, the creation of criminal routes. This is a new method of investigation initiated by the Nanterre “cold case” center, to study the lives of serial killers and discover possible crimes that have gone under the radar. To resolve these investigations, the words of Monique Olivier, particularly during this new trial, could change everything. Each time, it was she who confessed first.

For Didier Seban, lawyer for several families of victims, this trial can therefore be an opportunity to move forward on these unresolved cases: “We will have a certain number of questions to ask, since this is certainly one of the last times that we will be able to hear at length Monique Olivier, about the famous babysitter we never found, who disappeared from their home. We will wonder about the 20 traces of female DNA found in the Fourniret cases. Obviously, these are the questions that will need to be answered,” said Mr. Didier Seban.

“We are here to judge Monique Olivier for what she did. Any consideration other than that will be doomed to failure and everyone must stay in their place.”

Me Richard Delgenès, lawyer for Monique Olivier

at franceinfo

There is no question of going into this area, replies Monique Olivier’s lawyer, Me Richard Delgenès: “This is neither the place nor the place to try to address other matters, it will not happen and in any case I guarantee you that I present it will not happen.”

The bodies of the victims still not found

Among the questions still pending, the location of the bodies of Estelle Mouzin and Marie-Angèle Domece which could never be found. Their families again have the hope of obtaining an answer during the three weeks of hearing. But on this subject there is nothing to expect from Monique Olivier either, warns her lawyer, because she has already revealed everything she knows, believes Richard Delgenès.