Serial killer’s widow placed on trial for function in Joanna Parrish’s homicide

The father of a British college scholar killed by a French serial killer 33 years in the past is hoping for justice as a lady accused of being complicit in her rape, kidnap and homicide is placed on trial tomorrow.

Monique Olivier, 75, is alleged to have been concerned and complicit in her former husband Michel Fourniret’s killing of Joanna Parrish, 20, in Moneteau, France, in May 1990.

Miss Parrish was working as an English instructing assistant on the Jacques-Aymot highschool in Auxerre, Burgundy, when she was killed. Her bare physique was discovered at Moneteau within the River Yonne close by. The post-mortem revealed that she had been raped and crushed earlier than her dying.

Serial killer Fourniret had confessed to the homicide of Miss Parrish three years earlier than he died in jail on 2021.

Now Olivier, who was married to Fourniret from 1989 to 2010, is dealing with a 3 week trial on three fees of homicide, together with one for the killing of Miss Parrish.

She is already serving a life sentence for involvement in 5 of the murders Fourniret had beforehand admitted.

Miss Parrish, of Gloucestershire, was on a yr overseas as a part of her French diploma course at Leeds University when she was reported lacking on May 16, 1990. Her physique was discovered the subsequent day. 

Fourniret, dubbed the ‘Ogre of Ardennes’, was jailed in 2008 for the murders of seven women nevertheless it was a decade earlier than he confessed that Miss Parrish had been one other of his victims. 

He was charged with abduction, rape and homicide however died in jail in 2021, aged 79, earlier than he may very well be dropped at trial.

But his widow will now go to trial over her alleged function within the rape and homicide of Fourniret’s three victims, together with Miss Parrish.

Olivier has admitted luring younger lady’s into her husbands clutches earlier than he raped and murdered them, The Times newspaper reported. She additionally helped eliminate their our bodies.

Didier Seban, a lawyer representing Miss Parrish’s father Roger Parrish, branded Olivier as an ‘absolute darkness’, telling the Times that the household ‘can’t look forward’ till the ‘judicial reality has been spoken’. 

Mr Parrish had battled for justice for his daughter from the second her physique was discovered. He visited France many occasions to attraction for data from the general public and in addition to watch the police investigation.

Her assassin had remained unknown regardless of intensive police enquiries and the efforts of Mr Parrish, a retired Land Registry civil servant, and his ex-wife Pauline Sewell to maintain their daughter’s tragic dying within the public eye.

Mr Parrish is ‘indignant’ over the ‘blunders’ that have been determinantal to his daughter’s homicide investigation, Mr Sedan added. 

In 2018, when Fourniret confessed to the homicide of his daughter, Mr Parrish spoke of his reduction that the household lastly knew the reality.

At that point, he mentioned: ‘It’s one thing that we’re happy to listen to about. We’re relieved in some ways. Let’s hope it is one thing which we will take ahead.

‘If we will get that form of certainty it will be an enormous reduction. It’s the ultimate hurdle that we have confronted for the final 27 years.

‘We attempt to get on with our lives as finest we will do. But there are occasions with it comes again whenever you least count on.’

‘Our legal professionals are assured that this has a level of positivity which we have not had so far. We’re being guarded about it due to our previous expertise.’

Olivier will face trial tomorrow over her function in three murders courting again a number of a long time, together with the killing of Miss Parrish.

The crimes date again to 1988 within the case of Marie-Angele Domece, who disappeared aged 18 from Auxerre, and 1990 for Miss Parrish. 

Olivier is charged with aiding and abetting the kidnapping and homicide of the women. 

Her third cost is for complicity within the 2003 disappearance of nine-year-old Estelle Mouzin, whose physique has by no means been discovered 20 years on, regardless of intensive searches. 

The physique of Domece has additionally by no means been discovered.

Many of the witnesses set to be known as in Olivier’s three-week trial are investigators from France and Belgium, the place Fourniret was arrested in 2003.

They are additionally set to incorporate Sabine Kheris, the investigating Justice of the Peace who took Fourniret’s confession.

She is now in control of a just lately created ‘chilly circumstances’ unit primarily based within the Paris suburb of Nanterre. This case is the primary of the unit’s to come back to trial.

France has for years been concurrently repelled and fascinated by the crimes of Fourniret, who was dubbed the ‘ogre of the Ardennes’ by media after the hilly area on the French-Belgium border the place he lived and preyed on his victims.

Gloucestershire Police have this week requested the media to not contact Mr Parrish or Ms Sewell forward of the trial or in the course of the proceedings.

A police spokesperson mentioned: ‘Joanna Parrish, from Newnham-on-Severn, was raped and murdered in Monéteau, France in May 1990 while working in a college as an English assistant.

‘This was topic of an intensive investigation by the French authorities for a few years. A French serial killer, Michel Fourniret, was a suspect, alongside along with his spouse Monique Olivier.

‘Michel Fourniret died in 2021 in jail, following his confession to her homicide. Monique Olivier was formally charged earlier this yr and will probably be standing trial in Nanterre, Paris for 3 murders.

‘The trial is because of start on 28 November and final for 3 weeks. The verdict day is about for Friday, December 15.

‘While the household deeply recognize the help given to them by the media as they’ve sought justice during the last 33 years they’re asking for privateness at the moment.

‘Gloucestershire Constabulary is offering direct help to the household, alongside the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.’

Acting Detective Inspector Faye Satchwell-Bennett, the Tactical Family Liaison Officer Lead for Gloucestershire Police, added: ‘The Parrish household are making ready to attend France for the trial and to lastly search lengthy awaited justice for the dying of Joanna.

‘This is an especially distressing and extremely emotional time for them and we might please ask that their privateness is revered at the moment. 

‘They are being instantly supported by Family Liaison Officers (FLOs) from Gloucestershire Constabulary, The National Homicide Service and the Foreign Office. They will probably be supported on the trial in particular person by FLOs and the British Consulate.’