Wife of the ‘Ogre of Ardennes’ saw their victims as nothing more than ‘objects’ and must serve a life sentence for helping him rape and kill women including Joanna Parrish, French prosecutors declare

• Monique Olivier is standing trial accused of involvement in three murders
• She was the wife of French serial killer Michel Fourniret, who died in 2021

The wife of France’s most notorious serial killer saw their victims as nothing more than ‘objects’ and must serve a life sentence for helping him rape and kill woman, French prosecutors declared today.

Monique Olivier is standing trial accused of involvement in the murders dating back decades by killer Michel Fourniret of two young women, including 20-year-old British student Joanna Parrish, and a nine-year-old girl.

Fourniret, nicknamed the ‘Ogre of Ardennes’ after the region on the France-Belgium border where preyed on victims – died in 2021 aged 79 before he could be brought to trial for the three killings, despite him confessing to all three before he died.

Olivier – already serving a life sentence issued in 2008 for complicity in other murders committed by her husband – is on trial for her part in the abduction, rape and murder of Parrish in 1990 and 18-year-old Marie-Angele Domece in 1988.

Olivier is also charged with complicity in the disappearance of nine-year-old Estelle Mouzin in 2003, whose body has never been found two decades on despite intensive searches.

Monique Olivier (pictured in court on November 28) is standing trial accused of involvement in the murders dating back decades by killer Michel Fourniret of two young women, including 20-year-old British student Joanna Parrish, and a nine-year-old girl

Domece’s remains have also never been found, while Parrish’s naked body was recovered from the Yonne river in the French department of the same name.

People sentenced to life in France usually become eligible for parole after 18 to 22 years, but prosecutors asked that Olivier, 75, serve a minimum of 22 years.

The prosecutors cited ‘the exceptional gravity of the acts committed and the necessary protection of society’.

Throughout the trial, prosecutors highlighted Olivier’s strategy of gaining the trust of Domece and Parrish knowing they would be murdered, as well as her decision to remain silent about killing of Estelle Mouzin.

Didier Seban, a lawyer for the Parrish and Mouzin families, said prosecutors’ call for the maximum sentence was ‘justified by the crimes that were committed’.

‘What my clients want is for her to never get out,’ Seban said.

The verdict in the case is scheduled for Tuesday. 

Olivier – already serving a life sentence issued in 2008 for complicity in other murders committed by her husband – is on trial for her part in the abduction, rape and murder of Joanna Parrish (seen right) in 1990 and 18-year-old Marie-Angele Domece in 1988

Michel Fourniret (seen in 2008), nicknamed the ‘Ogre of Ardennes’ after the region on the France-Belgium border where preyed on victims – died in 2021 aged 79 before he could be brought to trial for the three killings, despite him confessing to all three

For the on-going trial, Olivier first appeared in the dock in late November.

READ MORE: The mystery of missing ‘French Madeleine McCann’: Estelle Mouzin disappeared aged nine on her way to school amid fears she was snatched by ‘Ogre of Ardennes’ killer… but her body has never been found 

She outlined her part in multiple murders, including that of Leeds University student Parrish, who was originally from Gloucestershire.

According to prosecution evidence, Olivier ‘used the pretext of English lessons to get young women’ for Fourniret.

Judge Didier Safar reminded Oliver that she wrote in letters that it was her job ‘to procure a young virgin,’ Olivier replied: ‘It’s ridiculous. I regret all that’.

After the details about the murders were outlined, Olivier said: ‘I regret everything that happened, listening to all that.’ She told the lead judge in a low voice when asked if she would answer questions: ‘I will do my best.’

She also told the court: ‘I never had a criminal pact with him, whatever it was. We made promises we didn’t keep. They were to do everything that he said.’

Olivier would regularly find victims for Fourniret because ‘she liked to carry out his orders,’ according to prosecution evidence.

‘It was completely stupid,’ Olivier told the court. ‘When I reflect on everything that happened, all the horrors, he used me like an object.

‘He had a way of speaking, of reacting, that made you think something could happen. He would say to me “you obey, you don’t try and understand, obey and that’s it. My husband knew I was afraid of him. He was happy to see that.’

Olivier told the court that she was abused by her first husband, with whom she had two sons, before the eventually left him and met Fourniret.

‘One night, I had put the children to bed and he saw me in the bedroom and he slapped me, tried to strangle me and put me in the bathroom and forced my head into a full bath,’ she said.

Monique Olivier (left), ex-wife of serial killer Michel Fourniret, sits in the courtroom for her trial at the assize court in Nanterre, Paris’ suburb, on November 28

Following two divorces, Olivier replied to a newspaper advertisement worded: ‘Prisoner, would like to correspond with someone, of any age, to forget loneliness.’

He turned out to be Michel Fourniret, and Olivier exchanged 200 letters with him before they later married and had a son, Selim, in 1988.

‘I was incapable of looking after myself. I don’t know why,’ Olivier told the court.

Arrested in 2003 in Belgium, Fourniret was sentenced to life in prison in 2008 for the murder and the rape or attempted rape of seven female teenagers and young women. Olivier was alleged to help procure virgins for him to rape.

The crimes were committed in France and Belgium between 1987 and 2001.

Olivier also received a life sentence as an accomplice in several of the cases.

Ten years later, Fourniret was sentenced again to life imprisonment for the murder of the companion of a former cellmate, who had disappeared in 1988.

The same year, he confessed to two other murders, including in 1990 of Parrish, who worked as a teacher in the Burgundy region.

In 2019, Fourniret was charged in the case of nine-year-old Estelle, who disappeared as she was coming back from school in Guermantes, a small town east of Paris.

In March 2020, Paris prosecutor said Fourniret confessed to the murder of Estelle.

A picture taken in 1992 shows Monique Olivier, the wife and accomplice of Fourniret

This photograph taken on March 15, 2003 in Paris shows a wanted poster for Estelle Mouzin, a nine-year-old girl who disappeared that same year

Witnesses in the current trial include Sabine Kheris, the investigating magistrate who recorded Fourniret’s confession to the murder of Mouzin.

Ms Kheris is now in charge of a cold cases unit based in Nanterre, where the Hauts-de-Seine assizes court is situated.

Olivier, who divorced Fourniret in 2010, has accused him of several other murders of which he was suspected of being involved.   

However, the ruthless killer died in a secure unit of a Paris hospital, prosecutor Remy Heitz said in a statement announcing his death at the time, meaning he never stood trial for the three killings of Mouzin, Domece and Parrish.

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