The housewife who helped to rape, kill and abduct: New Netflix crime thriller examines whether wife of notorious French murderer Michel Fourniret who killed British student Joanna Parrish was coerced into aiding his crimes

• Monique Olivier is currently serving 28 years for her role in the killings
• According to Netflix it’s unknown whether she was ‘a pawn or a participant’
• READ MORE: I’m a forensic psychiatrist – these are 5 reasons some women fall in love with murderers 

A true crime limited series coming to Netflix next month will tell the story of the wife of France’s most notorious serial killer.

Monique Olivier: Accessory to evil will be available to view on the platform from March 2.

According to a synopsis shared by the streaming giant, while Michel Fourniret is France’s most infamous killer much less is known about his partner.

It says: ‘From 1987 to 2003, Michel Fourniret cemented his legacy as France’s most infamous murderer. But his wife was an enigma: Was she a pawn or a participant?’

Monique Olivier, a former nurse, is currently serving a 28-year prison sentence for her complicity in five of her husband’s murders – including the killing of British student Joanna Parrish, which he confessed to, but never faced trial for.

Michel Fourniret (pictured in 2005) who is known as France’s most infamous serial killer, died in October 2021. A new Netflix true crime series will look at how his wife was complicit his violent crimes 

Fourniret and Olivier met while he was serving a prison sentence for sexual assault in the 1980s, and she responded to an advert he placed looking for a penpal.

In their letters, which were seized by investigators, the forged a pact on his release from prison in 1987 that if he killed her first husband, she would help him find young virgins for him. 

She met him at the prison gates upon his release. Just two months later, the pair embarked on their crime spree through France and Belgium, which would last almost two decades.

Known as the Beast of the Ardennes, Fourniret admitted to kidnapping, raping and murdering nine girls and young women over a 14-year period from 1987. And he is believed to behind up to 21 more killings.

They include Joanna Parrish, a 20-year-old Leeds University language student who was working at Lycee Jacques Amyot school when she was killed in the Burgundy countryside in eastern France in May 1990. 

Fourniret was the prime suspect in Joanna’s case for years, and was finally arrested in 2005 alongside Olivier in connection with the death. 

Fourniret was convicted of seven other murders in May 2008, and sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Olivier, his ex-wife, was given life with a minimum term of 28 years in prison, for complicity in multiple murders, after it was revealed she would pick up victims for him as she drove in their car around the wooden Ardennes area with their baby son in the backseat. 

Monique Olivier (pictured during her 2008 trial in Charleville-Mezieres, northern France) is currently serving 28 years for her complicity in her husband’s multiple murders

In 2018, Fourniret told examining magistrates that he had ended Joanna’s life, but he was never held to account for the murder, as he died in October 2021, aged 79, before he was set to stand trial.

Monique Olivier reportedly told a fellow prisoner that her ex-husband’s victims ‘greatly exceeded 30’, according to investigating sources who have monitored her in Rennes prison. 

This list exclusively concerns girls or young women, aged 10 to 39, who mysteriously disappeared or were murdered between 1987 and 2003 in 17 departments, the French equivalent of counties.

The women were all either shot, stabbed with a screwdriver, or strangled.

Among his known crimes, Fourniret’s first murder dates back to 1987 and his most recent was in 2003.

His first victim was 17-year-old Isabelle Laville who disappeared in Auxerre in 1987 as she made her way home from school. Her skeletal remains were found at the bottom of a well outside the city in July 2006.

Fabienne Leroy, 20, disappeared in woods in Mourmelon-Le-Grand in north-east France before her horribly mutilated body was found.

British student Joanna Parrish was murdered in France in 1990. Fourniret confessed to the killing, but died before facing trial for ending her life. Olivier is reportedly likely to face trial for her role in the killing at the end of 2023

Student Jean-Marie Desramault, 22, disappeared from a railway station in 1989. Her body was found in the grounds of a house belonging to Fourniret – as was that of 12-year-old Belgian Elisabeth Brichet.

Fourniret’s other victims included Natacha Danais, a 13-year-old French girl, sexually assaulted after being stabbed to death in 1990; Farida Hellegouarch, the 30-year-old girlfriend of a bank-robber who once shared a cell with Fourniret, and 18-year-old Celine Saison.

Olivier was accused of helping her husband track virgins by prosecutors, who said she helped him to choose and capture victims, before helping to hide their bodies. 

According to reports, Olivier will likely stand trial at the end of 2023 for her role in the murder of Joanna, and the kidnapping of Estelle Mouzin, in 2003, in Seine-et-Marne, as well as the 1988 kidnapping of Marie-Angèle Domèce, in Yonne.   

Netflix’s new limited true crime series Monique Olivier: Accessory to Evil will be available to stream from March in the UK

Fourniret was arrested after in June, 2003, after his bungled kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl.

She gave authorities Fourniret’s licence plate number after she managed to unbind her hands and escape from the back of Fourniret’s van.

Following his arrest, Olivier told Belgian investigators in 2004 that Fourniret had committed nine murders, and acknowledged her participation in several of them.

The trailer for Netflix’s upcoming series describes Olivier as ‘a submissive wife who [was] scared of her husband’ and therefore did not speak up about the crimes until he was arrested.

A voiceover in the trailer adds: ‘She is a housewife who helps to rape, kill and abduct. But in the end, she is a housewife.’ 

Monique Olivier: Accessory to Evil will be available to stream in the UK on Netflix from March 2. 

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