MICHEL FOURNIRET: THE BEAST OF THE ARDENNES

Article BY Chris Bartholomew

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Nicknames

Michel Fourniret: Ogre of the Ardennes - Beast of the Ardennes

Monique Olivier: big slimy spider - Cunning Witch – Virgin Hunter

CHARLEVILLE-MEZIERES, France - A man accused of seeking young virgins to rape and kill was convicted Wednesday of seven murders and sentenced to life in prison.

Michel Fourniret, 66, was given the maximum sentence by the jury in northeast France. In a particularly severe sentence for a French court, he cannot be considered for parole before serving 30 years behind bars. Given his age, he is unlikely to ever walk free.

He, in his own words, is an extremely dangerous individual. Power over others was - and still is - all important to Fourniret. He believes himself to be 'some kind of superior being'. He sees himself as a hunter, claiming he 'needed' to hunt for virgins at least twice a year.

His wife, Monique Olivier, 59, was also convicted of complicity in four of the murders and sentenced to life in prison. She must serve at least 28 years before she can be considered for early release for the part she played in some of the murders and a rape.

Monique Olivier exposed him after hearing the news of another child murderer's wife Michelle Martin, wife of Marc Dutroux (a convicted pedophile, murderer and supposed leader of an international child pornography and prostitution ring) being convicted.

Fourniret, a machine operator, and a former forest ranger, had made a gruesome pact with Olivier, a nurse, that in exchange for the murder of her first husband - who was never killed - she would help ensnare virgins to satisfy his murderous whims.

While in jail Monique Olivier wrote to him after seeing an advertisement in a Catholic magazine for pen pals. Olivier first wrote to Fourniret over 25 graphic pages, telling him how she had been beaten by two ex-husbands and a boyfriend.

Fourniret replied, saying that on his release he would kill 'those three guys' for her.

He added: 'I need a female companion; I want to play chess, have adventures and kidnap people.' He also described to her his frustration at never having 'had a virgin'.

In her letters to Fourniret, Olivier called him 'my beast' and discussed his obsession with raping virgins.
Having been asked to find some for him, Olivier wrote: 'It is with pleasure that I will execute your orders.'
And so, on the day Fourniret was released early in 1987 for good behavior, Olivier was waiting at the gates of his prison.

The couple married, had a baby son, settled in Auxerre and began plotting their crimes. Fourniret likened their exploits to hunting 'to satisfy my blood lust'.

Psychologists say neither was insane and were marginally above average intelligence. The specialists stated that the self-obsessed, authoritative Fourniret took a sadistic pleasure in rape and murder.

Described by the chief prosecutor as a "big slimy spider" and "cunning witch" during the trial, Olivier was accused of helping Fourniret select and capture targets and hiding their bodies.

Using an image of happily-married respectability, Olivier would gain the confidence of the girls and women they had identified as prey.

After they had been bound, gagged and sometimes drugged by her husband, she would examine them to check they were the virgins he desired.

She would then hand them over to Fourniret “in the sole aim of allowing him to fulfill his fantasies”, in the Franco-Belgian border region where they once lived. He would assault his victims — “beautiful little subjects” was how he referred to them — before shooting, stabbing or strangling them. Failing to help a person in danger was one of the charges.

Fourniret's attorney said he would not appeal the jury verdict because Fourniret doesn't want to defend himself because he considers he is indefensible. He won't ask for a pardon because he is unpardonable.

The verdict closes a two-month trial that riveted France and neighboring Belgium, where one of the victims was killed.

The young women, aged 12 to 21, were strangled, shot or stabbed with a screwdriver between 1987 and 2001 to feed what prosecutors called Fourniret's obsession for virgins. Fourniret also was convicted of kidnapping and rape or attempted rape of all seven victims.

The lead prosecutor called Monique Olivier "a witch," while Fourniret's court-appointed defense lawyer described him as "indefensible."

The couple showed no reaction after Fourniret, dubbed the "Ogre of the Ardennes" by the media, was found guilty in a packed courtroom of killing the seven women and girls aged after raping or attempting to rape them.

Prosecutors said that Olivier helped Fourniret track down and capture virgins, some of who were first drugged and bound, and hiding their bodies to feed his morbid fantasies.

Belgian police detained Fourniret, who had admitted a fascination for virgins, in June 2003 after his bungled kidnapping of a 13-year-old girl. The girl gave authorities his license plate number after she managed to unbind her hands and escape from the back of his van.

Olivier was extradited to France in 2005 and Fourniret in 2006. Judicial officials in both countries decided the case should be tried in France because six of the victims were French citizens.

Investigators suspect Fourniret may also have been involved in several other murders.

The Fourniret case has drawn comparisons with that of Belgium's notorious pedophile Marc Dutroux, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2004 for a series of child kidnappings, rapes and murders.

The crimes were committed over 14 years from 1987, mostly in the wooded Ardennes region of northern France and in Belgium.

The case helped lead to a shake-up in the way French police investigate serial murders, including the improvement of co-ordination between different authorities.
 
Some parents of the victims, six of whom were French and one Belgian, broke down in tears after the verdict was read, one day after the jury retired to deliberate.

The couple, linked by what prosecutors called a "criminal pact", became acquainted after Fourniret, who had a long history of rape, placed an advertisement for someone to write to while serving a prison sentence for sex crimes in the 1980s.

A series of opportunities to catch the killers were missed, including the failure to launch an inquiry into the disappearance of Isabelle Laville, the couple's first victim in 1987, despite the police lodging a kidnap report.

At the time, Fourniret, who had just been released from prison and was on probation, was living just a few miles away from the place where Laville disappeared.

A lawyer for Laville's family, said: "There was a lost opportunity to identify the Fournirets."

The system also failed to revoke a decision to discharge Fourniret following appearances for offences in the 1990s, allowing the couple to continue carrying out their crimes.

Psychologists who examined the couple have said they were not insane and were slightly above average in intelligence. The specialists concluded that the self-obsessed, authoritative Fourniret took a sadistic pleasure in rape and murder.

Michel Fourniret has been called "Beast of the Ardennes" after the heavily wooded region where his crimes occurred, and Monique Olivier, 59, were described as "inhuman and cruel criminals" by prosecutors during the trial in French town of Charleville-Mezieres near the Belgian border.

The pair also will be tried for at least three other unsolved murders, including that of British student Joanna Parrish. Fourniret wrote to a judge last year, asking to be investigated in the death of Parish, a 20-year-old university student, and two other girls, ages 9 and 19, saying "their families deserve an explanation."

Joanna Parrish, a Leeds University student’s naked body was found floating in a river. She had been raped and strangled after answering an advert placed in a newspaper by a man seeking English lessons for his son.

During the two-month trial, Fourniret admitted he was "hunting" girls from 1987 to 2003.

The Victims:

Isabelle Laville - a 17-year-old French girl. She disappeared in Auxerre, on December 11, 1987 on her way home from school. Her skeletal remains were located at the bottom of a well in the country north of Auxerre in July of 2006.

On the 11th of December 1987, Isabelle Laville was walking home from her college when she was stopped by a lady driver, Monique Fourniret asking for directions.

Isabelle entered the car to help the lady driver. During the drive the driver stopped to pick up a hitch hiker with a gas can whose car had apparently run out. The hitch hiker was the driver's husband and thus begin their plan to kidnap and abuse one of their victims.

Isabelle was given drugs to sedate her (traces were found in her hair). Michel Fourniret who lived close to Auxerre then went on to abuse and perhaps rape his 17 year old victim. Probably later that night, he went on to strangle Isabelle and placed the body in his car trunk before disposing of Isabelle's body in a well.

It was not until the 11th of July 2006 that Isabelle's body was found following a description that Fourniret provided to police.

The 32m deep well had been filled in with gravel by the electric company in 2000.

Fabienne Leroy - a 20-year-old woman. She disappeared in 1988 in Mourmelon, and her blood-spattered body was later found in the nearby woods. She was kidnapped from a supermarket car park in Chalons-en-Champagne, east of Paris. Her body was discovered outside a military base the next day after she was killed by a shotgun wound to the chest. Fourniret has confessed to her murder, with Olivier charged as an accomplice.

 Jeanne-Marie Desramault - a 22-year-old French student. She disappeared in 1989 from the railway station, and her body was recovered from the estate of Fourniret with his assistance. She was kidnapped outside the railway station in Charleville-Mezieres on March 18, 1989. Fourniret took investigators to her body in the grounds of a chateau he once owned in Donchery in July 2004. He confessed to her murder and Olivier is charged as an accomplice.

Elisabeth Brichet - a 12-year-old Belgian girl. She disappeared from Namur in 1989 after playing with a friend. Fourniret led police to her burial site on his estate in France. She was kidnapped on her way home from a friend's house in Namur, Belgium, on December 20, 1989. Her remains were also found in July, 2004 at Fourniret's chateau. He confessed to the murder but denied rape, while Olivier is charged with complicity.

Natacha Danais - a 13-year-old French girl who disappeared in 1990. She was kidnapped, assaulted, and stabbed to death near Nantes, western France on November 21, 1990. Three days later her body was found on a beach on the Atlantic coast. Fourniret confessed to murder and attempted rape, while Olivier is charged as an accomplice.

Farida Hellegouarch - the girlfriend of one of the members of the Gang des postiches (a gang of bank robbers), a former cellmate of Fourniret's. Fourniret killed her in 1990 to access the group's funds. He bought his castle in France with the money.

Céline Saison - 18-year-old who disappeared in 2000 in Sedan, her body was found in Belgium. Two months later her body was found in the woods in Belgium. Fourniret confessed to kidnapping, raping and murdering her.

Manyana Thumpong - 18-year-old who disappeared in 2001, her body was also later found in Belgium. Her remains were found the following year in the Nollevaux forest in Belgium. Fourniret admitted kidnap and murder but denied rape.

An unidentified man - Fourniret claimed to have robbed and shot an unidentified man at a French highway rest stop.

Fourniret's wife has also said that Fourniret killed a 16-year-old girl who had worked as an  au pair at their house. Fourniret allegedly killed her in 1993, but this has not been confirmed. The identity of this alleged victim is not known. 

Further Charges:

Joelle Parfondry, a canine beauty parlor employee from the Belgian town of Namur, was the victim of an armed robbery and rape attempt in January 1995.

Sandra N., now aged 18, was the victim of an attempted kidnapping in the Belgian town of Gedinne in February 2000.

Asumpcion, whose name has been changed, was kidnapped and assaulted on June 26, 2003 in the Belgian town of Ciney. Aged 13 at the time, she managed to escape and her statements to police led to Fourniret's arrest.

Other Murder Cases:

Fourniret was charged in two other murder cases which will be tried at a later date:

Joanna Parrish, 20, a British teaching assistant in the central French city of Auxerre, was found dead near the city in May 1990.

Marie-Angele Domece, a 19-year-old disabled Frenchwoman, went missing on the road leading to Auxerre station in July 1988. Her body has not been found.

He denies both murders.

Two other cases are still under investigation:

In France, Fourniret has confessed to murdering Farida Hamiche, the partner of a fellow convict, in 1988, with the aim of stealing the loot from a robbery.

In Belgium, Fourniret is accused of the murder of a young au pair who went missing in 1992. He denies the charge.

Psychologists said the jury might need counseling after the trial. In one of the most disturbing scenes, they heard a coroner suggest Fourniret sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl after stabbing her to death in 1990.

Fourniret and Olivier would sometimes bring their baby son in the car  -  his presence persuading victims that it was safe to accept a lift.

Excavations in the Ardennes forest are expected to discover more victims.