“It was not a presence that she offered to Michel Fourniret but a contribution.” On Monday, December 18, the prosecution requested life imprisonment, accompanied by a security period of 22 years, the maximum incurred, against Monique Olivier. The ex-wife of the rapist and serial killer Michel Fourniret, on trial since November 28 before the Hauts-de-Seine Assize Court, in Nanterre, remained impassive in the box. She is being prosecuted for complicity in the kidnappings, rapes and attempted rapes and kidnappings followed by the death of Marie-Angèle Domèce, Joanna Parrish and Estelle Mouzin.
“The accomplice incurs the same penalty as the main perpetrator”reminded the jurors, Advocate General Hugues Julié, in this two-voice indictment, Monday morning. “Today you only have to judge Michel Fourniret’s accomplice – died two years ago. Without it, he does not commit crimes, with it, he succeeds.”, he insisted. And the Advocate General regrets that “the society” does not have “not allowed” that those responsible for the disappearances of these two young girls aged 19 and 20 in 1988 and 1990 and of this 9 year old girl in 2003 “be judged together”.
“The worst serial killer couple”
For the prosecution, the delay in the legal response provided to the families, who could have hoped for a trial much earlier, is not so much due to the “justice, an imperfect human institution”that at the “complexity” crimes committed by “the worst serial killer couple of the last fifty years”. Even though Monique Olivier did not kill, her lies delayed her husband’s involvement in these three crimes. She has “protected in full awareness Michel Fourniretsaid Hugues Julié facing the accused head down.
“The purpose of your decision is to appease society. A decision of wisdom which will oppose the disorder and chaos sown by Michel Fourniret and Monique Olivier.”
Hugues Julié, general advocateduring the indictment at the trial of Monique Olivier
Monique Olivier had already been sentenced to life imprisonment by the Ardennes Assize Court in 2008, with a thirty-year security period, for complicity in four kidnappings and murders of her husband. Then she was sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment in Versailles ten years later, again for complicity, this time in a villainous murder. “He used me”had assured the 75-year-old accused on the first day of her trial, to define her relationship with Michel Fourniret, repeatedly evoking her own “fear” facing the ogre of the Ardennes.
The prosecution does not subscribe to this thesis. “Fear is unthinkable given the number of actsestimated Hugues Julié. She was never afraid, she was a passenger, she drove, she called, she looked after, she always acted as a zealous servant of her husband.” “Even if Monique Olivier has a form of fear, in no way we cannot compare this fear to a paralyzing fear, supported her colleague Stéphanie Pottier. She acts, commits positive acts of complicity. This place that she occupies values her and it feeds a need for existence.”
A woman with a dual personality
For the magistrate, without the presence of this woman “with a dual personality”, who showed “his true face” during the confrontation with her son Sélim on December 13, Marie-Angèle Domece and Joanna Parrish just like “many other victims would not be not mounted in the vehicle” by Michel Fourniret.
“Michel Fourniret and Monique Olivier are not monsters, they are human beings who committed monstrous acts, they are the ones who denied the humanity of their victims.”
Stéphanie Pottier, general counselduring the indictment at the trial of Monique Olivier
For the parquet, the couple “denied humanity” of these young victims because he “forgot their faces”. Monique Olivier struggled, during the debates, to remember the names of some of them and said she was only marked by the one whose autopsy photos had just been presented to her. “We, Madame Olivier, will never forget the faces of Marie-Angèle, Joanna and Estelle”, scolded Stéphanie Pottier, after returning at length to the ordeal of the first two. Hugues Julié took it upon himself to remind “the responsibility” of the accused in the last murder committed by the couple, that of Estelle Mouzin, “the youngest, the most fragile”.
After having provided a first alibi to Michel Fourniret by making a phone call to his son on January 9, 2003, she provided him with a second by going to keep the child in “the filthy house of Villes-sur-Lumes” so he can go take his job as a guard at a school for a few hours. “Estelle asked her about her mother and her only response was to tell him that she was going to see her again even though she knew very well that she would never see her againunderlined the Advocate General. Monique Olivier did nothing to save her (…) she left her to Michel Fourniret so that he could end up killing her with his big hands.”
“Estelle Mouzin was indifferent to him, like the others”
His late confession, in 2019, then his indications did not make it possible to find the body of Estelle Mouzin. She repeatedly said during the trial that she did not know where he was. Without convincing: “If Monique Olivier had provided useful information, she could have had a decent grave rather than being buried in an Ardennes forest”, estimated Hugues Julié. For the prosecution, the 75-year-old accused “made the choice to keep his dark side on these facts. Estelle Mouzin was indifferent to him, like all the other victims”.
During their pleadings on Friday, all the lawyers for the civil parties requested that she be found guilty and that a heavy sentence be imposed. “Its gravity, its heaviness will say that we cannot kidnap, cannot kill children like that, estimated Didier Seban, Estelle Mouzin’s father’s lawyer. I want these crimes to haunt you during your nights in the remand center.”
“You will necessarily condemn it”, conceded Monique Olivier’s lawyer during his pleading on Monday, specifying that his client would not “no call” of the decision. “Because it is out of the question to inflict a second trial on the civil parties, and because she is guilty,” noted Richard Delgenes. But “without Monique Olivier’s confession, we are not here today, in any of these three cases”, he pleaded.
Concerning the personality of this woman whom he has represented for almost twenty years, the criminal lawyer does not believe that she “two faces” : “There is only one Monique Olivier, with her very particular personality, which expresses itself differently depending on her environment.” According to the defense, “the perfect accomplice” by Michel Fourniret “could have done good with the same zeal”. And for five years, “my client has taken another path”, assures his lawyer to the jurors. The latter will deliver their verdict on Tuesday, after the last words of the accused.