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Monique Olivier Gets Life for Her Part in the Murders of Joanna Parrish, Marie-Angèle Domèce and Estelle Mouzin

Michel Fourniret died before he could be tried for the three killings. A French court convicted his ex-wife of complicity in all of them and set a 20-year minimum.

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Monique Olivier, white-haired, seated in the glass dock of a French courtroom

Michel Fourniret never stood trial for the deaths of Joanna Parrish, Marie-Angèle Domèce and Estelle Mouzin. He died in 2021, at 79, with the cases still open. On Tuesday, December 19, 2023, the families got their verdict anyway, against the woman who had been at his side. After about 10 hours of deliberation, a French assize court convicted Monique Olivier, his ex-wife, of complicity in all three crimes and sentenced her to life in prison, with a minimum of 20 years to be served.

"The sentence of life imprisonment is just, adequate, and in line with the extreme seriousness of the facts, where the involvement (of Monique Olivier) is total," the presiding judge, Didier Safar, said as he read the verdict, according to Agence France-Presse. Olivier, 75, listened with her head lowered.

The court found that she had played a role in the abduction, sequestration and murder of Domèce, 18, in 1988 and of Parrish, a 20-year-old British student, in 1990, aggravated by Fourniret's attempted rape of Domèce and his rape of Parrish. She was also convicted over the 2003 abduction, sequestration and murder of Estelle Mouzin, who was nine. Parrish's body was recovered from the Yonne River; she had been beaten, drugged and raped. The remains of Domèce and Estelle have never been found.

Throughout the trial, held at the assize court in Nanterre, outside Paris, prosecutors argued that Fourniret could not have killed so easily without her. Their case rested on her part in winning the trust of Domèce and Parrish while knowing the young women would be killed, and on her long silence about what had happened to Estelle. Earlier in the trial Olivier admitted she had been the "bait" in Parrish's murder. Confronted with images of Parrish's face after her body was pulled from the river, she said, "It's because of me she's gone, it's unforgivable." Yet on many specific questions she said she did not know or did not remember, which left the court little new to establish about how the victims died.

The couple's son, Selim Olivier, testified the week before the verdict and urged his mother to tell the court everything she knew. On the last day she asked the families for forgiveness, "although I know that what I did is unforgivable."

The verdict added a third sentence to the two Olivier was already serving. In 2008 she received life for complicity in four kidnappings and murders committed by Fourniret, and about a decade later she was sentenced to a further 20 years for complicity in another murder. The couple divorced in 2010. Fourniret confessed to 11 murders before he died.

"It is the end of a long fight for the families," said Didier Seban, a lawyer for the victims' families. Patrick Proctor, who was engaged to Joanna Parrish when she was killed, called the conviction "long-overdue recognition by the French justice system that the accused is responsible for the murders," and described the police investigation at the time as "disjointed and unprofessional." Estelle Mouzin's half-sister, Estelle Poisson, said, "There it is, justice has been given." Olivier's own lawyer, Richard Delgenes, said the court had recognized her confessions, noting that it could have set a longer period before parole could be considered.

Reports differ on Marie-Angèle Domèce's age. Agence France-Presse and CBS News gave it as 18; some British and European outlets, including ITV and Euronews, said 19. The age used here follows the AFP account of the verdict.

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