The widow of a French serial killer who was previously convicted of helping her husband kidnap and murder virgins has been charged in her alleged role in three additional murders.
Monique Olivier, wife of serial killer Michel Fourniret, will face trial over charges of aiding and abetting the kidnapping and murder of three young women decades ago, CBS News reported. Her husband had been charged with abduction, rape, and murder in the three cases but died in 2021 before he could stand trial.
The oldest of the charges relates to the 1988 disappearance of Marie-Angele Domece, who was just 18 when she vanished from Auxerre, France. Her body was never found. Olivier is also charged in the 1990 murder of Joanna Parrish, a 20-year-old British woman whose naked body was found in the Yonne River in France.
Finally, Olivier is charged with complicity in the 2003 disappearance of Estelle Mouzin, 9, whose body has never been found.
Olivier and Fourniret were previously found guilty in 2008 in relation to numerous murders, the Associated Press reported at the time. Fourniret, then 66, was sentenced to life in prison for murdering seven women, most of whom were raped. The women, who were between the ages of 12 and 21, were strangled, shot, or stabbed with a screwdriver during Fourniret’s serial killings that occurred between 1987 and 2001. He reportedly targeted the women because they were virgins.
In addition to the murder convictions, Fourniret was also convicted of raping or attempting to rape all the victims.
For her part, Olivier was convicted of complicity for four of the murders and also sentenced to life in prison, but could be considered for early release after serving 28 years. Prosecutors alleged that Olivier helped her husband find virgins to feed his sexual fantasies.
Fourniret was detained by Belgian police in June 2003 after a failed kidnapping attempt of a 13-year-old girl. The girl was able to give police the license plate number of the man who kidnapped her after she was able to free herself from bindings and escape out of the back of Fourniret’s van.
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Fourniret died in 2021 at the age of 79, never facing trial for the three additional victims, even though he asked in 2008 to be tried for those murders, CBS reported.
Eric Mouzin, whose 9-year-old daughter Estelle was one of Fourniret’s victims, said only trying Olivier was “somewhat short of the mark,” according to CBS. “It will be difficult to pass judgment with only a single defendant,” he added.
Olivier’s attorney, Richard Delgenes, said that the court should “not expect any revelations” about her part in the crimes but that her participation level sets her apart from her husband.
“Unlike him, she takes no special pleasure in the pain of his victims or of the families,” he said, according to CBS.