Paris (AFP) – A French court on Tuesday sentenced the ex-wife of serial killer Michel Fourniret to life in prison for her role in three murders by her former husband.
Issued on: December 19, 2023 – 11:25 p.m. Modified: 12/19/2023 – 11:23 p.m
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After 10 hours of deliberations, Monique Olivier was convicted of complicity in Fourniret's murder of two young women several decades earlier, including 20-year-old British student Joanna Parrish and a nine-year-old girl.
Olivier, 75, must serve at least 20 years behind bars, the court ruled. With her head bowed and her eyes half-closed, the defendant appeared listless as she listened to the verdict.
“The life sentence is just, appropriate and consistent with the extreme gravity of the facts in which (Monique Olivier’s) involvement is complete,” said Judge Didier Safar as he read out the verdict.
She was convicted of participating in the 1988 kidnapping, seizure and murder of Parrish and 18-year-old Marie-Angele Domece, which was aggravated by her role in the attempted rape of Domece and Fourniret's rape of Parrish .
She was also convicted of involvement in the 2003 kidnapping, seizure and murder of nine-year-old Estelle Mouzin, whose body was never found despite extensive searches.
Fourniret died in 2021 at the age of 79, before he could be tried for the three murders. This means that Olivier's trial is the last chance for the victims' families to find justice.
Her former husband confessed to 11 murders before his death, but reports suggest there may have been up to two dozen more murders.
“It's the end of a long fight for the families,” said Didier Seban, a lawyer for the victims' families.
“For the families who have waited so long, who have fought so hard for such a verdict, it is obviously a decision that gives them satisfaction after a very demanding process.”
'Long overdue'
Olivier is already serving a life sentence from 2008 for complicity in four other kidnappings and murders committed by Fourniret. A decade later, she was sentenced to another 20 years in prison for complicity in another murder.
Domece's remains were also never found, while Parrish's naked body was recovered from the Yonne River in the French department of the same name. She had been beaten, drugged and raped.
“He took advantage of me,” Olivier said of her husband on the opening day of the trial. The couple divorced in 2010.
Fourniret was known as the “Ogre of the Ardennes,” after the hilly, densely forested region on the French-Belgian border where he was stationed and where he found many of his victims.
Prosecutors argued that Fourniret could not have killed so easily without Olivier's help.
She and Fourniret had a son together, Selim Olivier, who testified at the trial last week and urged his mother to tell the court everything she knew.
Olivier expressed regret on the final day of her trial.
“I ask for your forgiveness,” said Olivier before the verdict was announced. “Even though I know what I did is unforgivable.”
Olivier's lawyer Richard Delgenes said his client's “confessions – which in no way negate her responsibility and her guilt – were recognized by the court” and pointed out that an even longer period could have been set before parole was considered.
Patrick Proctor, who was Joanna Parrish's fiancé at the time of the murder, described the conviction as a “long overdue recognition by the French judiciary that the defendant is responsible for the murders.”
He expressed regret that the police investigation at the time was “disjointed and unprofessional” and said those involved “will feel this loss for the rest of our lives.”
“There it is, justice has been served,” said Estelle Mouzin’s half-sister Estelle Poisson.
“Twenty years – it’s amazing how long we had to wait for an answer. But we finally hope that this verdict will gradually ease our suffering,” she said.
Throughout the trial, prosecutors highlighted Olivier's strategy to gain the trust of Domece and Parrish despite knowing they would be murdered, as well as her decision to keep quiet about the murder of Estelle Mouzin.
She frequently stated that she “didn't know” or “didn't remember” when asked about certain aspects of a case, an attitude that made it difficult for the court to shed new light on the circumstances surrounding the victims' deaths.
© 2023 AFP