“Perhaps the last week of Monique Olivier’s trial. No answers to families’ questions. All that for this ? » These few words, published this Monday on the social network X (formerly Twitter) by Eric Mouzin, the father of little Estelle, are like a cry from the heart. While the trial of Michel Fourniret’s ex-wife, which opened on November 28, enters its final stretch – the verdict is theoretically expected on Friday but in reality, it risks being postponed – the relatives of the victims are struggling to hide their frustration. Certainly, the accused admitted, on the second day of her trial, “all the facts” for which she is appearing, but she provides no details, does not clear up any gray areas.
Where is the body of Marie-Angèle Domèce buried, who disappeared in 1988 on her way to Auxerre station? And that of little Estelle, kidnapped in Guermantes at 9 years old, one evening in January 2003? How did the evil couple convince Joanna Parrish to get into their vehicle in downtown Auxerre at a busy time? What was, in these three cases, the precise role of Monique Olivier, alone in the box of the Nanterre criminal court since the death, in May 2021, of the serial killer?
Some memories are hard to come back
To all these questions, the accused responds evasively, insisting that his memory fails him. “Some memories are hard to come back. I’m not doing it on purpose, it’s confusing. I can’t answer,” she swears while being questioned about the murders of Marie-Angèle Domèce and Joanna Parrish. Memory, however, seems to have variable geometry: the more precise and embarrassing the questions, the larger the “holes”. Tired, Joanna Parrish’s parents ended up leaving the room even before the end of the interrogation. “We have all learned to say ‘I don’t know’, ‘I don’t remember’,” Eric Mouzin said ironically on Friday during a recess of the hearing.
Monique Olivier is elusive. At certain moments, we almost forget her as she seems so impassive, her body hunched, in the box. The tears of the victims’ relatives, the shocking words of the investigators or of her former fellow prisoners seem to slip over her. His frozen face gives the feeling of being impervious to all emotion. “It was said that I didn’t show any feelings, that’s not true. Hearing these people talk, cry, it does something to me,” she insisted after hearing Estelle Mouzin’s family. But as soon as she is asked about the place where the body is buried, she closes up. “Where is Estelle? If I knew, I would say so, but I don’t know. »
“There are victims who have been waiting for the truth for thirty years”
The civil parties, on the other hand, are struggling to hide their annoyance with the president, Didier Safar. The tension rose from the first week. The magistrate first refused to ask Monique Olivier a few questions outside of the time slots provided for this purpose. And this, even when the director of investigation mentions a letter written by Michel Fourniret, in which he implies having committed 35 murders. What does she think of this figure? Does she consider him credible, knowing that the serial killer was convicted of eight murders and admitted to three others? Nothing. No question.
And why not ask Monique Olivier if she recognizes Marie-Angèle Domèce in the photos shown at the hearing? What does she have to say to this friend of the victim who claims to have seen him with Michel Fourniret outside her home? The president’s rigidity annoys. “There are victims who have been waiting for the truth for thirty years! », exclaims Me Didier Seban, the lawyer for the Mouzin and Parrish families. The following week, Monique Olivier will sometimes be questioned alongside testimonies, but very briefly.
“The way she is being questioned is unbearable”
Hearing after hearing, the sticking points multiply. The president criticizes Joanna Parrish’s former fiancé, visibly very moved, for testifying with one hand in his pocket. He rudely points out to a friend of Estelle Mouzin – who probably escaped being kidnapped by Michel Fourniret – that she did not note the license plate. Me Didier Seban takes offense, recalls that she was only 11 years old. “The way in which she is being questioned is unbearable, we have the impression that she is guilty,” the council rages.
The tension rises further when, against the advice of the civil parties and the public prosecutor, the president accepts that Selim Olivier, the son of the killer couple, be heard by videoconference. We came close to an incident when the magistrate refused to change the schedule so that Monique Olivier could be heard on the Mouzin affair just after the facts were mentioned. The parties protest. The president persists.
In the middle, the civil parties, mistreated after twenty, thirty years of investigation, retain this incredible dignity. Eric Mouzin had considered making a brief statement to the press at the end of last week. He preferred to change his mind, waiting for the end of the trial to draw conclusions.