Two women heading a new cold case unit have told how they spent years winning the confidence of the ex-wife and accomplice of the country’s most notorious serial killer to get her to talk.
It took enormous patience, a friendly police dog and chocolates to get Monique Olivier to admit her role in the abduction, rape and murder of young women and girls, including the British student Joanna Parrish.
Olivier spoke to them at length, but never on Fridays – she kept that day for watching her favourite TV detective series.
She was questioned by investigating judge Sabine Khéris and her registrar Valérie Duby at least 30 times over the years as they worked on the cases.
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Families’ only hope of knowing the truth was if Olivier talked
It was the now-75-year-old’s confession in 2004 that helped convict her late former husband Michel Fourniret – dubbed the Ogre of the Ardennes – of seven murders in a 2008 trial.
She was jailed for life at the same time for being an accomplice in six of the murders.
In December, she was convicted of complicity in three more abductions, rapes and murders by Fourniret and given another life sentence.
The rape and murders of Marie-Angèle Domèce, Joanna Parrish and Estelle Mouzin – in 1988, 1990 and 2003 respectively – had never been the subject of a court trial.
After Fourniret died in prison in 2021, Ms Khéris and Ms Duby knew that the only hope of letting families finally hear the truth in court was to get Olivier to talk so they could put her on trial as an accomplice.
Ms Khéris said: “Talking to her [Olivier] or seeing photographs of the bodies is not the hardest part.
“It is seeing the family of the victims. We know we cannot give the families their child back, we can only give them the truth.”
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‘We were honest with her and did not try to trick her’
Ms Khéris was the driving force behind the creation in 2022 of a ‘cold case’ unit in Nanterre, in the same administrative centre in the Paris suburb as the court where Olivier was sentenced in December.
“We created the unit because we didn’t want to leave the parents with no answers. It is Joanna’s unit, it is Estelle’s unit, Marie-Angèle’s unit. That’s what it is about,” she said.
Getting Olivier to provide details of the three murders in the recent court case took years.
She held back crucial information – such as where several of the victims were buried.
She was asked again during the latest trial in Nanterre where the bodies were, but still claimed she did not know. Investigators suspect the couple might have up to 35 victims.
“She trusted us, because when we promised her something, we kept to it,” said Ms Khéris.
“We were honest with her, she knew we were not going to trick her. We just told her ‘This is in the file, what do you have to say about that?’”
‘She knows exactly where the bodies are but will not say’
The questioning often took place in the offices of the cold case unit but on around 20 occasions they accompanied Olivier on trips to sites where Fourniret was believed to have buried bodies.
There were 10 such trips to look for Estelle Mouzin, who was 10 when she disappeared in 2003 near her home in Guermantes in the Paris region, and a similar number for Marie-Angèle Domèce, who was 19 when she vanished in 1988 in Auxerre, Burgundy. However, no bodies were found.
Fourniret, whom Olivier divorced in 2010, was also taken on these trips.
“But his mind was going. He wanted to tell us where the bodies were but he couldn’t remember,” said Ms Khéris.
“She knew exactly where they were… But she wouldn’t say and still won’t. Her principle was that she was not the one who killed them. It was he who killed them so it was up to him to own up to where he put them. Basically, ‘it is not my problem’,” she said.
Olivier only showed remorse for herself
Ms Khéris’s registrar, Valérie Duby, believes that Olivier feels no remorse.
She said that when Olivier was talking about the abduction, rape and murder of Joanna Parrish in Auxerre in 1990, she described how she heard Fourniret’s blows on Joanna’s face as she sat in the front of the van while her husband killed the student from Gloucestershire in the back.
“But she didn’t say ‘Oh, poor Joanna.’ It was ‘Oh, poor me, I had to listen to all these bloody noises’.”
Joanna’s naked body was found in the Yonne river near Auxerre the day after she disappeared.
“She [Olivier] doesn’t care, it’s just something that happened,” said Ms Duby.
“One second, she might be telling us that Estelle [Mouzin] was calling out for her mother, and then she sees chocolate and says, ‘Oh, that’s chocolate for me.’
“There’s no difference between her talking about chocolate or about locking up or kidnapping a victim.”
Stroking a police dog helped her talk
Ms Khéris added: “She liked sweet things. We also brought a dog into the interview one time, because she loves dogs.”
The dog was a police Belgian Shepherd whose nickname was Taj, the acronym for the police criminal database.
“When she started stroking the dog, it calmed her… She started talking after the dog arrived,” said Ms Khéris.
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Revealed information bit by bit over time
Even with the dog, it was a protracted effort to extract enough information to build a solid legal case, although she had confessed to being an accomplice.
“She always does things by steps," said Ms Duby.
“First, it’s ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Then the second time it’s ‘Hmmm, it could be him [Fourniret].’ Then it’s ‘Yes, it’s him, he told me about it but I wasn’t there.’
“Then it’s ‘Ah, yes, I was with him but I just watched’. Then ‘Ah yes, I helped him.’ But that’s after hours and hours and hours of questioning.”
Ms Khéris agreed: “It could take weeks or months. She was always like that.”
Olivier’s presence reassured the girls before their abduction
In the December trial, Olivier was more forthcoming and generally admitted to the role she played in the years-long spate of horrific killings.
She again acknowledged the pact she and Fourniret, whom she called ‘Shere Khan’ in letters, made while he was in prison in the 1980s on sexual assault charges. She promised she would find him virgins and he would kill her then-husband.
Olivier recounted how she would accompany him on his hunt for virgins and would sit by him in the front of their van, sometimes with their baby boy.
Her presence would help reassure the girls or young women they abducted after enticing into the vehicle.
The families of all three victims were in court in Nanterre and heard many of the grisly details of the couple’s atrocities.
‘She likes prison because everything is taken care of’
Olivier had previously told Ms Khéris and Ms Duby that Fourniret had two types of victim. The older brown-haired girls were, for him, like Olivier.
“And the little blonde girls, he wanted them to look like a ballerina, to have that silhouette, with the hair tied back… He would say he was ‘hunting’ for little ballerinas, using these exact words,” said Ms Duby.
“[Olivier] doesn’t want to come out of prison.
“She likes prison because she has nothing to do, everything is taken care of,” said Ms Khéris, adding that she is in solitary confinement at her own request.
She has a TV set in her cell. and especially enjoys watching the Capitaine Marleau television detective series.
“She said she would not talk to us on a Friday, because Capitaine Marleau is on,” said Ms Duby.
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