BREAKING NEWS Widow of French ‘Ogre of Ardennes’ is found GUILTY of aiding her serial killer husband murder women including Brit student Joanna Parrish
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The ex-wife of the ‘Ogre of the Ardennes’ serial killer who murdered multiple young women including a British student tonight faced a second life prison sentence after being found guilty of ‘aiding and abetting’ him in his crimes.
Frenchwoman Monique Olivier, 75, showed no emotion as a court in the Paris suburb of Nanterre handed down their verdict on Tuesday evening, following 10 hours of deliberation.
It concluded that she has been the ‘perfect accomplice’ to the late Michel Fourniret, as he raped and killed his victims across eastern France.
A three-week trial saw prosecutors outline Olivier’s part in multiple killings, including that of Leeds University student Joanna Parrish, who was originally from Gloucestershire.
Olivier was also on trial in connection with the case of Marie-Angele Domece, who disappeared aged 18 from Auxerre,and the 2003 disappearance of nine-year-old Estelle Mouzin, whose body was never found.
Earlier on Tuesday, Olivier told the Hauts-de-Seine Assizes Court: ‘I ask for forgiveness, while knowing that everything I did is unforgivable’.
Monique Olivier, ex-wife of serial killer Michel Fourniret, sits in the courtroom during her trial at the assize court in Nanterre, Paris’ suburb, on November 28, 2023
Such words were directed at victims’ families, including Ms Parrish’s parents, Roger Parrish and Pauline Murrell.
They have been fighting for justice ever since Joanna was lured to her murder in 1990, when she was just 20.
Ms Parrish’s naked corpse was found in the Yonne River, near the eastern city of Auxerre, where she was working as a language assistant during a year abroad.
Before his own death in prison in 2021, aged 79, Fourniret was accused of murdering eight girls and young women between 1987 and 2001.
Fourniret was dubbed the ‘Ogre of the Ardennes’ after the region on the France-Belgium border where he preyed on victims.
Before tonight’s verdict, Olivier was already serving a life sentence for complicity in four of the killings and a gang rape committed by Fourniret.
Olivier would regularly find victims for Fourniret because ‘she liked to carry out his orders,’ according to prosecution evidence.
Summing up on Tuesday, Avocat General Hugues Julie said: ‘She was his perfect accomplice.This couple could be the worst serial killers in the past fifty years in France and Belgium.
‘Raping and murdering was as inconsequential to them as going to the supermarket.’
Ms Parrish had placed an advert in a local paper offering English lessons, and Fourniret replied to arrange a meeting.
Stephanie Pottier, another Avocate General who was prosecuting in Nanterre, said Joanna was deliberately targeted, so as to be defiled and then murdered.
‘Olivier was present to reassure this young woman and to get her in the van [that Fourniret used to trap victims],’ said Ms Pottier.
‘Her fate was sealed. Joanna Parrish would still be alive if Monique Olivier hadn’t been there on the day of the kidnapping.’
Olivier’s defence lawyer, Richard Delgenes, told the jury on Tuesday: ‘You will fine her guilty because she recognises the facts. She will not appeal your decision.
‘Today she is on another path, which concerns only her and on this path she makes choices and she chooses to confess.
‘I don’t believe she has two faces – there is only one Monique Olivier.’
Life in prison is 22 years in France, but sentences run concurrently, and – with good behaviour – Olivier could technically still be released in 2035, when she will be 86.
The attorney generals also called for Olivier to be deprived of all civil, civic and family rights for a period of at least 10 years, on release.
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