Wife of French serial killer faces trial as accomplice in murders and kidnappings

French prosecutors said Wednesday that they want to try the ex-wife of the "Ogre of the Ardennes" serial killer Michel Fourniret for complicity in three kidnappings and two murders. 

Monique Olivier, 74, the wife of self-confessed French serial killer Michel Fourniret, her pictured in 2008, waiting the beginning of her trial. AFP - DENIS CHARLET

Fourniret's death two years ago has left Monique Olivier, 74, as the only suspect in the 2003 kidnapping of Estelle Mouzin and the kidnappings, rapes and murders of Marie-Angele Domece in 1988 and British woman Joanna Parrish in 1990.

French cold cases

If judges agree to the trial, it will be the first to result from the work of a new French "cold cases" unit, DiANE, which was launched in December 2020. 

Fourniret died aged 79 in 2021 before the Mouzin, Domece and Parrish cases could be heard.

Olivier is already serving a life sentence without possibility of parole for complicity in four murders and a gang rape committed by Fourniret.

• Ex-wife of France's 'Ogre of the Ardennes' serial killer may face justice

She has also received a 20-year term for complicity in a fifth, financially-motivated murder by her former husband.

Buried gold

Olivier first contacted Fourniret while he was serving time in prison for sexually assaulting a dozen young women, agreeing a bizarre pact that she would find him virgins to rape if he would kill her then-husband, which he never did.

Estelle Mouzin was nine years old when she disappeared in 2003. Handout / FRENCH POLICE / AFP

They lived together after he was released in 1987, buying a chateau with stolen gold dug up from a graveyeard. They had a son.

But in 2004 she accused him of the murders of nine young women and teenagers, of which he admitted to eight. He was sentenced to life in jail in 2008 and the pair divorced in 2010.

Olivier had undermined Fourniret's alibi for the day of Mouzin's 2003 disappearance in evidence to investigators, prompting him to admit to her kidnapping.

This picture taken on October 27, 2020 shows the 'Chateau du Sautou' which belonged to Michel Fourniret, near Ville-sur-Lumes, northeastern France. AFP - FRANCOIS NASCIMBENI

She confessed in 2021 to her own role in holding Mouzin prisoner, and said she had accompanied Fourniret when he went to bury the body near a wood in the Ardennes.

The bodies of Mouzin and Domece have never been found despite several search efforts.

The case of Fourniret and his wife were the topic of a 2023 Netflix documentary series "Monique Olivier - accessory to evil."

• Interpol seeks clues to solve cold case murders of women and girls

Self-confessed French serial killer Fourniret leaves Charleville-Mezieres courthouse \\nSelf-confessed French serial killer Michel Fourniret leaves Charleville-Mezieres courthouse May 27, 2008. (Photo : Reuters)

(Agencies)