A single accused facing families who have been waiting for answers for decades. Monique Olivier appears before the Hauts-de-Seine Assize Court, in Nanterre, from Tuesday November 28 and for almost three weeks. At 75, she will have to answer for complicity in the kidnappings and murders of Marie-Angèle Domèce, Joanna Parrish and Estelle Mouzin. This trial, the first of the Nanterre “cold cases” pole, is marked by an absence: that of Michel Fourniret, ex-husband of the accused, who died in May 2021, who will therefore not be able to answer for his crimes.
“I regret everything that happened,” declared Monique Olivier after the end of the presentation by the president of the Hauts-de-Seine Assize Court. “Is that all you have to say? We’ll see about that later.”, continued the magistrate. The hearing was then suspended, before the personality interrogation of the accused scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Follow this first day of hearing in our live stream.
Late confessions. It was not until 2018 that Michel Fourniret confessed to the murders of Marie-Angèle Domèce and Joanna Parrish, after initial confessions from Monique Olivier to Belgian justice in 2005, to which she however returned. The body of Joanna Parrish, a 20-year-old British woman, was discovered naked in Yonne in 1990. That of Marie-Angèle Domèce was never found, despite numerous searches.
An alibi undermined. Also in 2018, the serial killer confessed “in hollow” having killed Estelle Mouzin. But it was in 2019 that his ex-wife (they divorced in 2010) shattered his precious alibi. Monique Olivier then claimed to have made a phone call at the request of her husband, who was not at home at the time of the incident. The girl’s body was never found.
The last hope of families. “This is neither the place nor the place to try to address other matters.” This is what Richard Delgènes, who defends Monique Olivier, believes. “We are here to judge Monique Olivier for what she did. Any consideration other than that will be doomed to failure”he assured franceinfo, while the lawyer for some of the families, Didier Seban, hopes to take advantage of this trial to advance unresolved cases.