Michel Fourniret, in 2004 in Dinant, Belgium. – ISOPRESS SENEPART / IS / SIPA
- Michel Fourniret died Monday after being urgently admitted to the interregional secure hospital unit of La Pitié-Salpêtrière.
- Sentenced twice to life imprisonment, the “Ogre des Ardennes” died without having revealed all his secrets.
- But justice should continue to investigate his crimes and could order the holding of trials with the sole presence of his ex-wife Monique Olivier in the box of the accused.
The outcome was expected as the killer had shown signs of weakness in recent months. Michel Fourniret died Monday at 3 p.m. at the Pitié-Salpêtrière hospital (Paris, 13th), where he had been urgently admitted due to serious neurological, cardiac and respiratory problems. “The Ogre des Ardennes” therefore leaves without having revealed all its secrets, starting with the place where he buried the body of little Estelle Mouzin.
Obviously, the serial killer can no longer be tried or convicted. But that should not prevent justice from continuing to investigate the victims he may have suffered during his life. 20 minutes returns to the main questions that arise after this event.
Why was an investigation to find the causes of his death opened?
While confirming the death of Michel Fourniret, Monday at 4:07 p.m., Rémy Heitz, the public prosecutor of Paris, announced that he was opening a
“Investigation into the causes of death”. Entrusted to the third judicial police district, this procedure is classic in such circumstances.
#Provide : The Paris prosecutor’s office indicates in a press release that an investigation to find the causes of death is open. It is automatic in such a case. It is entrusted to the 3rd DPJ. pic.twitter.com/xzNyZawVx2
– Vincent Vantighem (@vvantighem) May 10, 2021
“Even if he was hospitalized, Michel Fourniret was still detained. When a man dies in detention, an investigation of this type is systematically opened, decrypts a source close to the file. In fact, it is a question of verifying that it is indeed dead of natural causes. Once the autopsy has been carried out, the burial permit should therefore be issued. No information has filtered out on the whereabouts of the serial killer.
Will there be a trial to shed light on the disappearance of Estelle Mouzin?
It is up to Judge Sabine Khéris to decide. But everything suggests that she could order the holding of an assize trial in the coming months. Died, “the Ogre of the Ardennes” can no longer be tried and therefore condemned due to the extinction of the public action against him, but his ex-wife, Monique Olivier, can be.
“We will undoubtedly have a trial where Monique Olivier can answer the facts and where we will base ourselves on the recent statements of Michel Fourniret before the judge to try to approach the truth”, testifies Corinne Herrmann, lawyer of Eric Mouzin, the father of the victim.
It remains to be seen whether, before that, Judge Khéris wants to continue the investigations in order to find the body of the girl. The five excavation campaigns carried out in the Ardennes ended in just as many failures. “We will undoubtedly have a meeting with the judge soon to take stock of all this”, soberly indicated Eric Mouzin on this subject at the microphone of France Info.
Was the serial killer involved in other cases?
In addition to the file on the death of Estelle Mouzin, Michel Fourniret had been, in recent years, indicted for the death of Marie-Angèle Domèce, Joanna Parrish and Lydie Logé. If the files on the first two are almost completed and could give rise to a trial with Monique Olivier, the third still requires investigations.
Once again, it will be up to Judge Sabine Khéris to decide on the organization of things. It could very well order a trial intended to shed light at the same time on the deaths of Marie-Angèle Domèce, Joanna Parrish and Estelle Mouzin and, in parallel, continue the investigations into the Lydie Logé affair.
Will we one day know the list of all the victims of Michel Fourniret?
Cruel manipulator, Michel Fourniret boasted of having made an average of two victims per year between the 1990s and the 2000s. This is much more than the total of the eight young women and adolescents for whom he had been sentenced to criminal imprisonment twice. for life.
Recently, investigators embarked on a vast campaign of comparison between DNA traces discovered in particular on a mattress belonging to the killer and those relating to unresolved disappearances. “It’s still terrible to have waited so long to do this work, when this mattress has been in the hands of the courts for more than fifteen years, deplores Corinne Herrmann. This risks depriving some families of the opportunity to face the murder of their loved ones… ”
Can French justice be held responsible for not having investigated earlier?
Eric Mouzin did not wait for the death of the serial killer to fire some of his arrows at French justice. A few years ago, he announced that he intended to sue the French state in civil proceedings for the dysfunction of the justice system. He particularly wishes to know why certain witnesses were not questioned, why certain requests waited several years before being processed and, above all, why Michel Fourniret was not worried earlier in this case when he was part of of the first suspects to be questioned.
So many questions that should be examined in court once Monique Olivier’s criminal trial has passed. In parallel, proceedings before the European Court of Human Rights must also be initiated, according to our information.